Well, I succumbed to curiosity and got MySims Kingdom for the Wii.

As expected, it's pretty cute. And this time there's actually a competition (not that the other competitors are any competition) for the role of what's known as a Wandolier, which is basically the role the player filled in MySims without pretending there was anybody else up for it. Gone is the mechanic of building objects with building blocks: now you're placing objects, either moving ones that are already there, or creating them out of thin air. To do the latter, however, you have to fill up a Scroll by collecting an amount of Essences. You'll get Scrolls through much of the game, both receiving them from Sims and by doing things that normally get you Essences.

Another thing is that the titular kingdom is worldwide, spread over a bunch of islands like in The Legend of Zelda: the Wind Waker. (But there's no player-controlled sailing; you go to your boat, choose an island, and off you go.) As you help the Sims within your reach, you can go to more and more islands, each of which has its own story that unfolds as you go.

Oh, and unlike in MySims, where your character's gender is pretty much a function of what dominant options you choose (appearance, voice, and to a lesser extent, name), MSK gives your character explicit gender, affecting your appearance options, including outfits (males can go around in just a pair of shorts once you earn the right set of clothing, but females get two-piece swimsuits; too bad there are no bellybuttons), and what pronoun set is used to refer to your Sim.

But enough about that. If you're watching, me, it's probably because you have an interest in tickling. Well, tickling makes its return here, partly as a random action when you click the Be Nice button. However, it seems that it's no longer something you can do right off; I think it may have something to do with your Friendship level with the target Sim. There are seven Friendship levels, from... navy? to sparkly yellow, with the latter being the highest. I'm not sure if you can still Nice-spam Sims to a higher level or not. Anyway, I think tickling is relegated to the highest levels. Also, tickling is an occasional action found in Socialization, which is a branching interaction system in which you try to bring about a desired outcome. "Tickle" has seemed to be helpful every time it came up, at least in getting the conversation back on course.