Reigns 2016 Review Long Live The King

It’s not so good to be the king, but it’s pretty damn fun.

Ruling a kingdom isn’t easy, especially when forced to disregard or approve one’s courtly advisors like they were medieval Tinder profiles.

This is the conceit of Reigns, a card-based royalty simulator in which players swipe left and right to make decrees and govern their realm.

At the start of each new reign (kings don’t tend to last long in this particular dominion), cards are shuffled randomly and presented in linear fashion to the player, most of them containing characters who offer the player two choices. The chief justice may ask for the military to step in and help with executions, while the bishop might require the crown to build more churches.

Making a decision is as simple as moving the card left or right – swiping it on mobile devices or sliding the mouse on PC – and putting an action into practice. Every decree has a consequence, however, with four pillars of rule that must be kept in check.

Atop the game screen are four distinctly shaped meters pertaining to clear aspects of one’s kingdom – the crucifix represents the church, the human figure represents the people, the sword represents the military, and the dollar symbol represents the treasury. Every decision made can impact one or all of these meters, raising or lowering them by various degrees.

If the general suggests recruiting soldiers from the common people, the military’s bar will fill at the cost of the citizenry. Likewise, building things like schools, churches, and fortresses can bump any related resource, but lose the player some cash.

The trick is to keep all four powers regulated, ensuring they become neither depleted nor too powerful. If any meter fully drains or fully fills, it’s likely to be the end for that particular king’s career.

The are 26 ways to die in Reigns, and none of them pretty.

If your military becomes reduced to nothing, you’ll be taken over by a foreign power and die fighting on the steps of your throne. Should the military’s power be raised to maximum, however, the general will stage a coup and leave you hanging. This is not a game about maxing out one’s resources, but instead keeping them even – raising and lowering them consistently in order to avoid an untimely end.

It’s a fascinating balancing act, and can lead to some harsh decisions. Sure, working your citizens to death in the mines when they request a break is a cruel thing indeed, but if your people are plentiful and your cash is low, it might be the only way to survive. After all, the last thing you need is for your citizenry to rise up against you after growing too numerous.

Until you’ve learned the ropes, some deduction is involved while ruling. You get to know which aspects of the kingdom are affected by a choice, but not how (unless you ate an orange mushroom, of course).

Whether the results will raise or lower your statistics depends on previously learned results or pure intuition. It soon becomes apparent that the church isn’t fond of scientific pursuits, while engaging in wars will deplete the military. Some dilemmas are less obvious, and a good old fashioned guess will be required.

Other cards are thrown into the mix to keep things interesting. Dialog with various advisors and visitors can show up, with responses that might not have an immediate effect on resources. Reigns presents a few dark subplots running throughout the game that becomes more apparent as kings die off and the player continues ruling through their heirs.

There are more ways to die than simply failing to balance the books, too – a lot of nasty surprises lie in wait for those who forge ahead.

Added challenges include the Pungeon – a dangerous labyrinth in which you must continue swiping cards to pick doorways and find a key before locating the exit while the entire kingdom’s resources drain. As well as a strict time limit, one can encounter spike traps and skeletons, providing new and deadly ways for an errant monarch to perish.

Using the same card-based interface, Reigns provides a combat system that occasionally shows up – most likely when facing Pungeon skeletons, though other NPCs may offer a challenge. Dueling a character involves swiping left and right to defend or attack, moving one’s position on a miniature 2D arena. Duels are a little tricky, and I still find myself a little baffled by how all the various “moves” counter each other, but it’s nonetheless a fun little break from the usual shuffle.

Meeting new characters expand’s one’s deck with fresh cards, and there are boons and curses that have a number of gameplay effects – should you find yourself with the Lover status, for example, you’ll find that your citizens become locked, unable to gain or lose numbers due to their approval of the illicit affair. The church, however, will constantly deplete and thus need extra attention to keep its level raised.

You’ll also never be able to refuse your lover’s advice, no matter how dangerous. The things we do for love.

Building a structure like a barn will initiate the Providence boon – should the people meter ever fully drain, the king’s reign will be saved by a free boost at the expense of some military. Such second chance cards are always worth investing in, even if they may cost the current king his head.

As well as simply surviving as long as possible during each lifetime, there are subgoals to achieve. Some of them are simple, such as meeting a new NPC, while others require a little puzzling and guesswork to obtain. Working out how to meet the “lose a limb” requirement, for example, involves making just the right series of decisions when the correct card shows up.

Reigns is a clever little game indeed, with a dark sense of humor and a simple interface that hides a surprising amount of strategic depth. Learning what cards can have an impact and trying to predict how much you can afford to gain or lose makes each new addition to the dynasty an entertaining and challenging affair.

As with many RNG-led games, of course, luck has a fair bit to do with how long you survive, but the perpetual nature of the game means death is more of an irritation than a genuine issue – the timeline advances regardless, each year passed in-game moving one toward an inevitable conclusion.

In this regard, Reigns does not take all that long to play – you could clear it in a night if you dedicate yourself to it, but with a three dollar asking price, multiple secrets to uncover, and an engaging interface that begs to be replayed, the short running time isn’t a huge problem.

A bigger issue is the repetition that inevitably sets in, even during such a brief experience. Despite an expanding deck of cards, there really isn’t a massive amount of them, and the same familiar choices will pop up time and time again. Before I was done with my first playthrough, I found myself on autopilot, swiping across cards that I’d come to know far too well.

The same can be said of deaths – despite the large amount of ways to meet one’s untimely end, there are a few downfalls that become infuriatingly common. Losing the kingdom of oligarchy is the most frequent, since so many things cost money and it’s by far the easiest resource to drain. I ended up rolling my eyes more than a few times as, yet again, I found that my coffers were empty – not always for reasons of my own doing, either.

Despite the repetition, Reigns‘ genuinely funny writing, sinister overarching narrative, and tactical game of equity is a smart time waster and well worth dipping into for controlled bursts of time.

The fantastic character art, simplistic but endearing, as well as some delightful sound design from Disasterpiece, really helps set the darkly comic tone, though both versions of the game have a few audiovisual errors in which various images or sounds won’t alter or even show up without restarting the game. Again, far from a big deal, but an annoyance nonetheless.

Reigns is shrewd and playful, with a straightforward interface and a handful of terrific twists thrown in for good measure. Whenever things risk getting too stale, a new event or set of cards can turn up to keep one hooked, and a single playthrough won’t uncover all the secrets, as well as the ways to meet some grisly fate.

Just be careful about that dog

Reign Tips Cheats and Strategies 2016

Reigns is a super slick, simple, and funny kingdom management sim from Nerial and Devolver Digital. On the surface it just looks like a bunch of swiping to the left or right, but countless lives hang in the balance. Gamezebo’s Reigns tips, cheats and strategies will get your monarchy off the ground, and should help you keep your head on your shoulders. In theory.

King Me

• Swiping left or right is about all the interaction you get, but direction does matter. Swiping to the right is usually the affirmative response while the left is negative – the results of your answers won’t always be immediately apparent, though.
• Drag the panel in either direction to see what the response will be. By tapping and dragging (but NOT letting go) you can see the exact reply you’re about to give, as well as get a vague idea of how it’ll influence the four principle categories (all shown along the top of the screen).
• The Church – represented by a cross, and always (but not exclusively) influenced in some way or another when dealing with issues involving religion (obviously), witchcraft, and science.
• The People – represented by a stick figure, and depicts the overall happiness of your subjects. Things like quality of life issues, wars, and taxes will have an effect here – along with miscellaneous other things.

• The Army – represented by a sword. This will go up and down depending on various decisions involving war, punishing or recruiting soldiers, and so on.
• The Treasury – Represented by the almighty dollar. All financial decisions will have an effect on it, as will most other actions that require any form of government involvement – things like deploying troops, studying sciences, building things, etc.
• The bottom of the screen displays the current king’s name, the current in-game year, how many years the king has been in power so far, and whatever long-lasting effects might still be going on.
• Lasting effects are displayed as icons in the bottom-right corner of the screen and can do anything form lessening the severity/likelihood of certain major problems (i.e. famine, the plague, etc) to causing various levels to rise and fall automatically over time. You can see what’s currently in effect by tapping on the icons’ display.
• Only four lasting effects can be active at the same time. If you acquire a new one, an older effect will be removed. Some effects will simply stop functioning over time as well.

Decisions, decisions

• Almost every single swipe you make will change the levels of satisfaction from the church, the happiness of your subjects, the strength of your army, or your wealth. Again, if you drag but don’t finish a swipe you’ll be able to see a sort of preview of how things will be affected – depicted by small dots that appear next to each category..
• The size of the dots matters. The bigger the dot, the more significant the change will be. As for whether or not it will go up or down, that’s for you to intuit.
• It’s usually pretty easy to figure out how things will be affected. If there are dots next to the Treasury and the Church, and the decision involves building more places of worship, holding services, or whatever, there’s a good chance that saying “yes” will make the Church happy and take money from the Treasury. If a choice involves drafting citizens into the army, and the dots are next to your Subjects and Army, saying “no” will reduce the Army’s strength but make your Subjects happier. There’s definitely a logic to it, although that won’t always be apparent right away.

• Try to avoid filling up or emptying out any of the categories. If you max out the money in the Treasury, you’ll die choking on food at a fancy celebration. If you push your Subjects too hard and they run out of patience, you’ll be overthrown. Either extreme is bad, so you’ll want to try to delicately balance everything as best you can.
• Some choices will stick with you for years – even centuries. If, for example, you decide to start a Crusade, it won’t ever stop until you’re given the choice to end it. It’ll just keep going, through as many different monarchies as it takes, until you finally call it quits.
• Crusades are a serious commitment. They’ll cause your population to fall while your cash reserves fill up – in real time – so you won’t be able to take your time deciding, and you’ll also need to balance your Treasury and Subjects at a frantic pace.
• Some choices, such as allowing special characters into your court (i.e. the doctor, the witch, etc) will permanently add more “cards” to the “deck,” giving you even more possible choices in the future.
• Marrying a princess or signing peace treaties will raise the levels of everything a bit. Throwing parties will reduce your riches but improve everything else.

The Dungeon (yes, there’s a dungeon)

• You can only enter the dungeon when given the choice. Nothing bad happens if you decide to ignore it, but you’ll have to wait for it tome come up again if you want to take it on.
• As soon as you commit to exploring the dungeon, your kingdom’s various important things will start to fall off every second. Don’t go delving unless you think you have the reserves to handle it – or unless you simply don’t care about your kingdom falling into chaos while you’re away.
• The point of the dungeon is exploration. There are a lot of doors that lead to who knows where, but you should be able to find a treasure chest with some goodies if you’re persistent. You’ll also want to scour the place for keys so that you can unlock the exit – if you find it.
• Combat is mostly a matter of reading your opponent, then striking at them in order to push them out of bounds. You’ll need to attack when they’re open, defend when they’re attacking, and generally try to keep your back as far away from the edge of the screen as possible.