Seven Kingdoms made departures from the traditional real-time strategy models of "gather resources, build a base and army, and attack". The economic model bears more resemblance to a turn-based strategy game. It features an espionage system that allows players to train and control spies individually, who each have a spying skill that increases over time. The player is also responsible for catching spies in their own kingdom. Inns built within the game allow players to hire mercenaries of various occupations, skill levels, and races. Skilled spies of enemy races are essential to a well-conducted espionage program, and the player can bolster his forces by grabbing a skilled fighter or give ones own factories, mines, and towers of science, a boost by hiring a skilled professional.

Enlight Software decided to release the game to the Open Source community in August 2009. At that time everything, but the music, was released under the GPL v2.