A Kingdom for Keflings, developed by NinjaBee, is one of my favorites games on Xbox Live Arcade. There was no fear of failure, nothing to shoot or kill, and it’s a fairly easy game, but that’s what I loved about it. It was an extremely relaxing game about helping little people build a kingdom by giving them work, harvesting goods, and erecting various structures. I never got around to playing its sequel, A World of Keflings, when it was originally released on XBLA, but it’s now coming to the Wii U eShop, and I had a chance to go hands-on with it at Nintendo’s booth at PAX.

The demo I played started with me helping out these small creatures named Keflings to build a kingdom and society. I started walking around a frozen tundra area, collecting objects like wood and ice, and bringing it to a workshop so I could create various components of buildings such as floors, doors and other such items. Once I had the the needed blueprints, I started constructing said buildings with the components, which then allowed the kingdom to grow in population and efficiency. Once there were more Keflings, I started putting them to work to harvest wood and ice for me, so I could focus on other tasks.

The original Xbox Live Arcade releases had you play as your account’s Avatar, but in this version you’ll be playing as your Mii. The Wii U Gamepad is also integrated into the gameplay, allowing you to order the components of buildings to be made without needing to travel to the workshop. The Gamepad also functions as an overhead map so you can keep track of what your citizens are currently up to, and what needs attention. I found both of these features to be incredibly intuitive and helpful, and  improved upon a system that was already fairly simple to begin with.

A World for Keflings is set to release before the end of the year.