There's nowhere to go but up! Vertical Kingdom is a card-based city builder roguelite with a twist - you can only build vertically, literally reaching for the sky with each city. Lead expeditions to gather resources, construct metropolises, and build ever upwards!
The core mechanic revolves around drawing building cards and strategically placing them on a limited vertical grid. Each turn, you select five cards representing different structures, resources, and other elements, then carefully arrange them to maximize your city's growth and stability.
Managing resources like food, water, bricks, wood, stone, and metal is crucial. You'll need to balance production and consumption to ensure your citizens' needs are met and your city can continue expanding upwards.
As you progress, you'll unlock new building cards to add to your deck, allowing you to curate your strategy and try out different synergies.
The game features a roguelike progression system, where each expedition tasks you with building a new city from scratch. Failure results in starting over, but you can carry over permanent upgrades to make subsequent runs easier.
The vertical focus encourages creative spatial planning. You must stack and interlock your buildings efficiently to make the most of the limited grid. Clever placement and building combinations can lead to satisfying, visually striking cities.
Despite the strategic challenges, the game maintains a relaxed, casual atmosphere. There are no harsh time constraints or punishing difficulty spikes, allowing you to enjoy a contemplative city-building experience.
As you experiment with different deck-building strategies and building synergies, the game's systems enable emergent and unexpected gameplay moments. Discovering novel solutions to the game's spatial and resource management puzzles can be highly rewarding.