The King is Watching

Отличная [u] стратегия [/u] с элементами рогалика, схожий опытом можно получить в игре 9 Kings, но [i] уровень самой стратегии тут гораздо выше [/i]. Короче [b] рекомендую всем [/b], кто любит стратегии и рогалики

Pretty addictive and fun! Easy to get into and absolutely the right choice for a gaming session of 30-120 minutes. Runs are short but offer enough variety to keep being interesting. I haven't beaten every boss yet, but the higher tier levels and bosses are definitely more challenging than the early ones. I find myself coming back to the game again and again due to its variety in playstyles.

Hours of fun!

[h2] There is no game like The King is Watching [/h2] If you tend to play smaller indie games (any games really), you know there are juggernauts in various genres.. and tons of games "inspired" by them. I spent some time thinking about it, and I cannot think of any game similar enough to The King is Watching to even really compare it to, and it would be difficult to copy without feeling like a complete ripoff of this. It has waves like tower defense, tiles like a deck builder, a 5x5 grid like a puzzle game, troops like an RTS, auto-battler combat, land to develop like a city builder, and roguelite elements that add replayability, variety, and progression to your runs. Your kingdom won't operate unless your gaze is on the tiles you need to work, and your gaze looks a bit like a tetris piece that you move and rotate around the keep. The game has a fair few negative reviews that kept me from buying the game initially, but after picking it up, every complaint I've seen about the game has been addressed. I encountered no memory leaks, no crashes, and I can save, quit, and resume my game whenever. The game has a few things I'd like to see added, and I encountered a couple of minor bugs, so I don't think it's perfect. I do think I've already gotten more than my money's worth, though. [h3] Good [/h3] This game is very light. Small file, no stuttering during the game, and I've played for up to 6 hours at once with no memory leaks causing gradual stutter. The gameplay is very satisfying. WASD-ing your king's gaze around your keep to gather resources so that you can build your army is captivating. The kings each play very differently from one another! You can really play the game quite differently depending on who you pick. Unlocks aren't overly expensive. As you play, you can regularly unlock a few new perks, advisors, or kings each run. Easy to learn, difficult to master. The tutorial really does touch on all of the main aspects of the game that you'll be doing, and you'll probably have an easy time beating threat level 0. By the time you're at threat level 3, you really start feeling a bit of pressure to get your city set up, and you have to be better at collecting resources and upgrading your army in a timely way. New threat levels aren't just stat padding and wave spamming! Each level has thematic elements tied specifically to that level, and each boss has elements directly tied to that boss. I was really impressed on the first boss I played of threat level 3. [spoiler]The boss' nephew is hanging around your keep, taking up a troop slot, and he's dying of boredom. If he dies, the boss gets really mad about it and has 2x stats. But to keep the nephew from dying of boredom, you have to build a carousel in your keep and periodically use it to regen his HP.[/spoiler] That's a creative difficulty modifier. Each boss has multiple modifiers that you unlock as you move up the threat levels. It's rewarding to win, but I don't really feel terrible if I lose. You still get credits to spend on unlocks whether you win, lose, or abandon the run. Plus, I have always been able to trace back my losses to mistakes I made as opposed to bad RNG. Speaking on RNG, I've heard said the RNG is bad for this game, but I haven't really had that issue. Every type of building/resource is categorized, and there aren't too many varieties within each resource category. When you get new tiles as rewards, they'll be provided as categories, then you pick between three of them (with rerolls and banishes able to thin the RNG more). You won't just hope endlessly to find another forest, you'll probably find one without too much hassle. If you somehow don't find a forest, the game provides you with a building to make your own. You can get tile selections with the research table tile you're given each game. Most of the tile variety is in your troop buildings, which is great! My armies never look exactly the same each run. Some synergize with other buildings, and that can be tough to find sometimes, but the research table helps. You'll get to create your next three enemy waves several times during each run. You're offered different tiles that have different enemy combinations that you'll place on a table, and you're informed what the rewards are from each tile, so you can look for specific tiles or rewards that you want for your keep. There's a risk/reward element to it since getting more rewards means a harder time clearing the wave. It's really clever, and a great feature. The advisors change up the game in meaningful ways, and there are a lot of them. Troops, resources, speed modifiers, cost modifiers, and a couple advisors even fundamentally change the way you play the game. At first, I didn't like or use spells very often, but they can really make or break a wave, even late game. You can build a play-style all around spells, in fact. They're also an element that takes place outside of your castle walls that allow you to interact with the map directly. [h3] Not as Good [/h3] Tiles, waves, and other things will give you info if you mouse over them, which is great, but some things don't. Particularly, during story events, you get rewards to choose from that don't give info. It'll say "Receive troops:" then show you a picture of the troop type. No stats, no name. Let me hover over that troop image and tell me what it is and what it does. Even when you start learning troop types, some look so similar that it can be difficult to tell between them. Many of them are very unique and look great, equally many look samey. No official controller support. Even though it's easy enough to set up with Steam Input, official support would be better. When you unlock a new king, two of their three abilities are locked behind two boss fights. I can't think of a reason why you would need to lock abilities 2 and 3 behind boss fights, though. A few kings' ability 3 buff the other two, so that makes for a particularly unsatisfying first run with those kings. Each troop tile can create a number of troops, usually more than you can have on the field at once when you get a few troop tiles going. There's a barracks to keep extra troops in, except that the default setting for the barracks is to not allow troops in! It's easy to set to allow troops in, but it's still off by default. So every single game, and I mean this (not proud of myself), I'll be growing my army, and a troop building will stop working. I'll wonder if I don't have enough resources to finish production, pause, look at my resources, look at troop cost, wonder if the game is bugged, finally realize my barracks doesn't allow troops, then turn that feature on. I guess maybe there's a world where you don't want reserve troops to save a few wheat, but I can't help but want reserve troops no matter what. No aspect ratio support, 16:9 only. Even if it's just little art borders, it'd be nice for something to be there at the edges of different screen ratios. I encountered a bug where, upon closing the game, the game continued to run in Steam. Not in task manager, just on Steam. I had to close Steam to get the game to shut down (I should only have 45 hours played, not 65). This has been fixed for me, though. I encountered another bug where, when I unlocked my second advisor slot, the game also unlocked the third advisor slot, too. This was fixed after restarting the game, but it still disappointed me since I thought I had three advisors. [h3] But Yeah [/h3] This game is really good. It manages to combine a lot of different genres together to make something unique. Really never played anything like it, and it has been engaging this entire time. I'm still learning new ways to do things as I move up the difficulties. The few issues I've had with it haven't really impacted my enjoyment. There's a lot of character in the simple graphics. The story elements sprinkled in are well written and fun. Good game.

Great game, really wish it was longer. This is the first full game on steam that I've gotten all the achievements for and wanted to keep playing. The learning curve isn't too bad until you get to levels 6+, but you'll get the hang of it if you keep trying. Writing this as I finished my last achievement including DLC. It took me a little less than 100 hours, but I'm sure it could be done much faster as I spent time messing around too. There is always endless mode after getting all the achievements as well. Also the DLC is good. I really enjoyed the new setting and kings. The dev's did a really great job, and I really hope for more DLC or a "The King is (STILL) Watching 2" sooner than later. Hats off to the dev's. I would absolutely suggest getting this game if you like base buiding and management games.

Great game, kind of puzzle-like version of 9-kings with resource management