A Royal Challenge Awaits – WGB

In a world where you’re a lonely monarch plopped down in a forest with nothing but an archer and a questionable amount of coins to your name, you might think you’re destined for greatness. Enter Monarchy, the game that feels like a royal invitation to both glory and utter chaos. It’s like Kingdom: Two Crowns threw a party, and Monarchy crashed it dressed as a slightly awkward cousin – one that insists it’s “totally original” while simultaneously offering you to take a seat from the exact same chair as its more famous counterpart. With four scenarios that promise adventure and a squirrelly mechanic that makes you feel rich yet perpetually broke, you’ll navigate a medieval mess that’s equal parts charming and exasperating, all while wondering how a humble monarch like yourself managed to land in such a pickle.

We can’t start this review properly until we tackle Monarchy’s strong resemblance to the Kingdom series of games. On the one hand, it could be argued that the Monarchy is largely a clone of Kingdom: Two Crowns. In many ways the two games are identical, aside from the obvious differing art styles. There are some changes under the royal crown, but it’s hard to deny that Monarchy does stray very close to being a copycat.

However, the more generous argument is that Monarchy and games like Sovereign are inspired by Kingdom and trying to make it a new sub-genre. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all, and the formation of a new sub-genre will always involve a lot…flattery.

Four scenarios await you in Monarchy, though determining how long it’ll take to beat each is tough because this is the kind of game where you’ll die a lot. The first has you under siege from bandits on both sides, aiming to take the fight to them and eventually conquer the bandit lords. Another scenario is a lovely winter scene, while the third one has you besieging a castle by fending off attacks and gradually putting together a trebuchet.

You start each run in the same way: a lonely monarch dropped into a forest with only an archer for company. A chest of coins is conveniently nearby, providing the starting funds for your little empire. First, you need to find a clear spot in the trees to plop down a tent, which will act as central point for everything you do. A few peasants will be carted in, including a construction worker who immediately erects your new home. From there, you must expand and conquer, lopping down trees to make room for new buildings, training up peasants and finding new and exciting ways to cock it all up.

This cart that appears represents one of the few differences between Monarchy and the Kingdom games. Throw the driver a coin each day and he’ll reappear 24-hours later, bearing either a chest full of gold or a peasant you can put to work. You get to choose which option you want, although I found the gold was so much more useful than the single peasant in almost every situation.

Your main way of interacting with the world is to behave like an impossibly rich buffoon, casually tossing coins onto the ground in front of impoverished peasants to purchase their loyalty. Coin in hand, they’ll scuttle off to your base and await a chance to pick up a bow or farm implement or man a tower. That is, of course, assuming you spent some gold to at the relevant building to make a bow, or a pitchfork or whatever tool is needed.

Buildings are handled in similar fashion – you choose where you want something put, then toss coins onto the ground in silent demand that someone gets building. Not for the first time in my life, I find myself wishing I had plenty of cash so that I could simply hurl it at life’s many problems and watch as other people scrambled to fix it. Ah well, maybe if my idea for a self-toasting marshmallow takes off.

To progress you need to explore the surrounding land. Peasants hide away in little hovels, waiting to be recruited, and there are various other things you can find along the way that may aid your quest. For example, a stable offers an upgraded horse with better stamina, or you might find a windmill that boosts the gold output of farmsyou can build. But the most important discoveries to find are an ancient tree and a stone mine, as both offer special tokens needed to upgrade your base to the highest tiers.

There’s no clock, so the only way to be home before the sun goes down is to keep an eye on its position in the sky whenever there’s a gap in the trees. Being home at night is vital as your base will come under attack, enemies swarming your walls. Your Monarch can use his or her money as a health bar, but once that’s gone a single hit equals game over. Likewise, a single blow to your tent/castle is all it takes to see the game over screen. So in other words, being outside the walls when darkness falls is a sure way to get murdered.

For defenses, you have a few options available to you. First and foremost you can build walls to slow down foes. These give your archers time to unleash arrows, hopefully puncturing a few bad guys in the process, although they are infuriatingly terrible at aiming. Towers are more effective at handling the siege weapons the enemy will invariably start bringing along on their midnight raids, and like the walls can be upgraded at each new technology level.

To stop you from turtling up the game employs a few strategies: Archers become progressively more expensive the more you make; and the amount of towers and walls you can erect is limited, thus your defences can only ever be a few layers deep.

That means you eventually have to go on the offensive, done by reaching a high enough technology level that you can begin making soldiers. Peasants be trained up to fight, and then you go toss out even more coins to make them follow you to the enemy encampments and get to work slaying some foes.

Monarchy is a pretty hard game at times. Clearly, you’re meant to fail a lot of runs before getting it right, and luck does play at least some part in the process. Luck can determine whether you ride off in the ride direction and find a stables to upgrade your horse early, which is vital because your starting steed’s stamina is horrendous. Luck can also play a part in how far away the main upgrade resources are, or a host of other small details which can greatly help.

Unfortunately, this is the part of the review where I have to drag everything to a screeching halt and try to explain how and why Monarchy annoyed me. Or why I might have failed Monarchy.

Have you ever played a game where it just doesn’t click? And I don’t mean it terms of enjoyment, I mean where something about how to play it doesn’t seem to click. Like, in principle you know how to play it, but then in reality you’re left looking like a dancer with two left feet and all the innate rhythm of a spoon. It felt like no matter what I did I would wind up stuck in endless loops of spending money to stave off defeat, meaning not enough money is being spent advancing so I can go on the offensive. By the time I rebuilt the walls and upgraded them to handle the incoming enemy, it was time to upgrade them yet again, leaving me no time to do anything else. If I focused in on trying to advance quicker, I’d get overwhelmed and crushed.

Part of the issue, I believe, is that the game isn’t very effective at providing any form of feedback. Every time I failed I would look back and struggle to pinpoint where I was going wrong. Did I spend too much time on the defences rather than expansion? Were more trees needing chopped down? Should I have built more houses to keep a stream of peasants coming, or should I have made more farms for a steady income? Do I just need to spam archers? I could never tell and it left me struggling to figure it all out.

Another reason I think I struggled is that Monarchy doesn’t allow much freedom in how you approach it. There seems to be optimal way to play and deviating too much from it results in failure. Figuring out that optimal path is tricky though, as the game doesn’t provide a lot of information to go on or, like I said, much feedback.

Like I said though, some of that – perhaps even all of it – might have been me. Something in my brain struggled with Monarchy from the very start, and a quick browse of some Steam discussion threads reveals that I’m not alone, whereas other people seem to be doing okay. Still, patches for difficulty are already being planned, indicating that the developers reckon something is a little off too.

Whatever the issue, it coloured almost all of my time with the game, leaving me frustrated and annoyed. I don’t think I’ve ever once felt like In couldn’t beat a game, but Monarchy had me feeling that way. Struggling because of a lack of skill is completely okay – I’ve played some hard-as-titanium-balls games and barely scraped through them, but rarely have I ever felt like my failure has been because I’m just not understanding something fundamental about it. It’s a frustrating feeling.

In conclusion, Monarchy presents an interesting blend of familiar mechanics from the Kingdom series while attempting to carve out its own identity within a budding sub-genre. While its charming aesthetics and varied scenarios offer a promising start, the game ultimately stumbles due to its high difficulty and lack of effective feedback. The recurring feelings of frustration stem from a rigid approach to gameplay, leaving me feeling trapped in a cycle of monetary management rather than strategic progression. Despite the potential for enjoyment, the disconnect between intention and execution can overshadow the experience. For those who thrive on deciphering intricate gameplay systems, Monarchy may prove to be a rewarding challenge. However, for players seeking a more forgiving learning curve, it might be worthwhile to wait for patches and updates that could address these difficulties, allowing the game to shine as it was intended.