Hero of the Kingdom (series)

While not explicitly framed as an ‘ecogame’, the Hero of the Kingdom series (developed by Lonely Troops) offers an interesting and sometimes surprising representation of human-nature relations in a fantastical but grounded setting. It lacks political urgency or systemic, macro-level climate simulations but succeeds on a more micro level, training players to closely observe its virtual landscapes. Players learn to distinguish different species of mushrooms, track the ‘movement’ of wild animals, and value the forest as a complex tapestry of life that keeps the in-game community alive; thus, the games in the series convey environmentalism by romanticizing a slow, attentive pre-industrial and highly local way of living off the land.

Human-nature relations are frame as a transactional, but ultimately symbiotic equilibrium. For example, which in most RPGs, players can infinitely chop down trees or harvest plants, every interaction with the natural world in Hero of the Kingdom is governed by an energy economy. To gather a patch of wild mushrooms, players must spend 5 Energy. Chopping down a dead tree for firewood costs 15 Energy and requires an axe. This mechanic, while inherently economic as most games are due to their need to compute outcomes, arguably represents the material limits of human labor. Players cannot extract resources endlessly but must constantly replenish their energy, e.g. by consuming the fish they caught, eating roasted meat, or paying to rest at an inn, which creates a local, closed economy.

The natural environments are a detailed “hidden object” canvas where resources like eggs, mushrooms, herbs or berries are tucked away in the scenery. However, being able to identify and interact with these resources depends upon specialized knowledge (skills) and technology (tools). For example, to harvest a the blue flowers encountered early on, players must first find a local herbalist, complete a quest for them, learn the Herbalism skill, and purchase a basket. This symbolizes how human-nature relations are culturally and technologically constructed; we don’t interact with nature in a ‘raw’, unfiltered state but our ability to utilize the environment depends on traditional knowledge and tools.

In Hero of the Kingdom, crises in the in-game environment are local like landslides blocking roads, broken bridges isolating communities or wild predators threatening livestock. The game’s narrative has a ‘slice of life’ quality to it (similar to the eponymous anime genre) as it never moves far beyond (and, in fact, often involves restoring) the quiet, pastoral equilibrium, even as players develop more skills and tools. Similarly, its technological and artistic approach is characteristically anachronistic but charming, which arguably makes choosing to play the game today an opportunity to perform ‘slow gaming’¹ as part of one’s ecological identity and critical disposition towards technological escalation in commercial gaming.