The King is Watching Spiel

by Rian

I have lost much hope for RTS genre. I am growing too old for it. Starcraft II was one of the recent real-time strategy I enjoyed, but that game came out in 2010. I recall the game and the genre in general progressively becoming more physically demanding to add more contents, until we saw Overlord or a game designed to automate or pre-program combat encounters. The King is Watching, in many ways, sits in between. It has a tick-based clock, but the game enforces the progress of “real time” in its own right.

The King is Watching is a rogue-like, fantasy, RTS game that focuses on repelling incoming waves of enemies. The words, or the trailer for that matter, don’t do justice on describing the actual experience of the gameplay. Each elements are rather simple: tile activation only when “watched” is RTS, some of the units and enemies are fantasy based, and the rewards and enemy encounters are randomized like rogue-like. But the player still has some say in each and every moment. It does beg a question whether or not a rogue-like should never have a definitive dead end; however, the opportunity it offers is what I find idealistic in a rogue-like.

At the time of the writing, The King is Watching only has three playable maps. There are quite the unlockable contents: different kings, advisors, abilities, and so on, but none as game changing as the maps. For a game only priced at $14.99, it may be a word of a needy gamer — but $5 per map, especially when the first map does not have any game mechanics of its own, sound too much.

Conclusions: Short, But New Rogue-Like RTS

Remember what I said about physically demanding nature of RTS? The King is Watching, though the game is not competitive or supports multiplayer at the time of the writing, has an answer for that. It is a game I can recommend to who misses the light-hearted RTS experience of the old. The rogue-like nature guarantees the game will have contents for times to come and its generous game mechanics almost ensure there are answers to be found. However, it is also a short game at the time of the writing. The third map was only recently added. I look forward to see more contents, but for anyone who does not mind the expense, and possibly more paid DLCs, this is the one.