The King's Dilemma: Chronicles

After two playthroughs I feel like I have a decent idea of the game. It's an exceptionally poorly designed game, with occasionally great writing, but an incredibly disjointed narrative and totally pointless gameplay. For the most part the writing is solid, but it collapses entirely when taken as a whole. The idea of the game is a generations spanning tale of politics, but essentially it boils down to you flipping a coin with every decision on an event, where sometimes you might have an idea of what the result is, but often you don't. You're not making informed choices for the most part, I would say. Sometimes yes, mostly not, and ESPECIALLY at the finale you're not. It's literally just flipping a coin, but you have NO idea what's the correct choice(and indeed there is a correct choice which makes it very frustrating). Most of the time you're given zero contextual information as to what the decision you're making might mean or what it might affect, and it's very annoying. Sometimes the decisions are illusory and are immediately backpedaled on, but thankfully that's extremely rare. For the most part the choices do have a lot of consequence on the narrative, but you'll only understand this on a second playthrough by making opposite choices. It's just that they're self-contained into their story arcs, so it makes zero sense at the finale where everything supposedly comes together. I had an immortal god queen, yet she wasn't even mentioned in the finale which was absolutely insane narrative wise and totally destroyed the immersion. The game has a slew of absolutely pointless mechanics, and would be better off without them. They serve no purpose whatsoever, and are incredibly easy to abuse to your liking, or in fact complete ignore as they have ZERO impact on anything. None of the numbers mean anything, except the buildings you can make which give you more choices at the end(since it's a coin flip, it's not really an advantage). I suggest paying them no attention. And that's the problem. The game has several supposedly important gameplay elements that are just in the way. You have a bunch of houses that vote on things, and you can influence them with money or ignore them by using a power resource. Either is irrelevant as it has no effect on anything in practice. There are a bunch of sliders these choices affect, but again, they have no effect on anything. There are no dynamic checks that inspect where a slider is, and then change the narrative accordingly, they're just there for, well, I'm not sure why. To make it seem like a game? The whole game has the feeling that someone was forced to add three or so gameplay mechanics into it, or felt compelled to do so since that's what games have. Had it just been a game where you choose how the narrative goes, it could've been decent. As it is, I can't recommend it due to the mechanics getting in the way of enjoying the narrative. And no, I'm not some storytelling obsessed person who hates interesting game mechanics, quite the opposite, which is why these fake-mechanics are so aggravating. It seems this is a port of a board game, which presumably doesn't have those mechanics, and it definitely shows. As for the narrative, it has many problems too. It's structured into several self-contained story arcs that have nothing to do with each other, which makes for absolutely horrid continuity errors and a general feeling of meaningless. If my previous choices aren't taken into account with the future ones, why bother telling me a tale about what happened? I got an infinite gold generator and accepted slavery in my kingdom, and the next thing you're saying is that my peasants are too poor to buy bread so they're forced to eat corrupted bread? And there's no mention of the slaves anywhere, by the way. Absolute nonsense as far as an immersive narrative is concerned. Long story short, the game is a massive waste of potential.

So yeah, this game is pretty good. It's definitely worth it's asking price. It'll probably take you 4-6 hours to get through a single playthrough, and the game gives opportunities for multiple playthroughs thanks to it's replayability potential. It has no voice acting and no sound effects. Okay it has a few sound effects, but it's mostly music that you'll be listening to but the music is great. The gameplay itself is kinda simple and boring, at least to some. It's basically reading dialogue followed by clicking "yay" or "Nay". Then watching the sliders go up and down. It's not really much for strategy so don't expect any of that here. It's mostly political simulation by saying either yes or no. ANd that's it. So it's gameplay is kinda lacking in that department. Don't get me wrong, there's still a lot of good here and I still think the game is worth it, but it's not as deep as you may think. It KINDA has resource management but not really. It KINDA has strategy stuff but not really. It's mostly just guessing and gambling that the decisions you make are the right ones. yet somehow this game still manages to pull you in and immerse you into it's world. I was so into the game I lost track of time and realized I had to get off and do this review. Basically you play as the king's second in command and help him rule his kingdom by making choices. Ally yourself with other houses who serve the king, and do what you think is best for the kingdom. But make sure you don't get the king killed or whatever. It's a lot of dialogue and reading, it's mostly dialoge and reading actually. But it's very good reading and it's very well done. It's slow and to some could be considered boring, but as a political simulation game in medieval times it's actually a lot of fun, considering there isn't much you can do besides say yay or nay. If you want a more in depth look with gameplay then please check out my video on YouTube (link below). Otherwise, thanks for reading and I hope I managed to help some of you out there to spend your money wisely. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9VuSOyZeIg

For those not in the know, this game is based on a very popular board game, simply titled The King's Dilemma (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/245655/kings-dilemma). It has a high ranking on most board game websites, and my own particular group had an excellent time with it for many sessions. When I heard it was being turned into a video game, I was quite hopeful. This isn't a board game review, so I won't get too bogged down with the game its based on, but I will say this: the board game was not perfect. A video game, I thought, might give the team a chance to fix some of the issues the board game had. However, I was also a bit worried. There was a lot that could go wrong. I'll be frank: almost everything I was worried about going wrong, went wrong. First off, if you're going to play the board game, [b] do not play the video game [/b]. I was a bit stunned when I realized that the video game has the [i] exact same plot [/i] as the board game. In fact, the scenarios in the video game are very often ripped directly off the cards in the board game. A lot of the fun of the board game came from the slow, but amazing exploration of the land and plot. That will be ripped from you if you play the video game. If you're in the opposite position, and you've already played the board game, there's still not much for you here. You can go back and find out what happened if you made X choice instead of Y, but that isn't all that exciting, sadly. The board game was also fun because each individual person played a council member. You would bribe, cajole, and threaten your friends to accomplish the shady goals of your house. Turning this into a single player experience completely robs you of the part of the game. This is just a mathy single player slog through the story. The hours and hours of combative fun of the board game are distilled into an exercise of spreadsheets and solitary reading. You don't feel any particular connection to your house in the game. Spoiler warning: [spoiler] your secret goals for your house don't even have an in-game effect, outside of earning yourself a check mark. [/spoiler]. Finally, the ending. I don't want to comment too much, but I'll briefly sum up what I think (spoilers ahead, don't read if you plan to play the board game): [spoiler] the ending to the board game was by far the worst part of it. It was almost entirely arbitrary, and had the effect of taking the wind out of the sails of an otherwise amazing experience. The ending of the video game, if you can believe it, is worse. It is almost entirely arbitrary on the first play through, and then totally unloseable in subsequent playthroughs. [/spoiler]. Some pros: -The story and writing itself is good. If you're looking for a good visual-novel esque experience, and never intend on playing the board game, then this is decent. -The world is still just really, really cool, no doubt about it. -Art assets are dank. -You can make choices. Pressing buttons that have different effects is fun. -One of the houses is a purple hedgehog. Some more cons: -Worth $15? Absolutely not, if you're a fast reader, you'll clear it in an hour and a half. Subsequent playthroughs are not as fun. -A lot of your choices will not matter in the way you anticipate they will. Once you see how the end up mattering, it will feel frustrating. I won't say more to avoid spoilers. -There isn't much "game" outside of the button clicking. Overall, this gets 3/10 from me, 4/10 if you never plan on playing the board. One final plea: seriously, do not play the video game first if you intend to play the board game. In fact, just get some friends and go play the board game. Save some money.

Good, but short ruler game. Played through twice in 3hrs. Very short game. You can literally play it through and still get a refund(not to say that is what you should do but you could) The game is similar to something like the Reigns series of games where you have to tossle diffrent columns like knowledge, money etc. they are interchangable and dont have much impact on anything. But the decisions themselves can end up leading you down seperate paths. For example decisions with the northerners can either lead to an alliance or war depending on choices you make. It isnt quite a "pick alliance or pick war" option, you can easily miss the important decision in the mission chain and end up going down path you dont want. Second playthrough is pretty much essential to get a hang of the mechanics. It is quite fun picking how you want the stories to play out, but they dont in the end matter much. Siding with Celestia or not has 0 impact on the ending slides for example. Kind of disappointing how generic the endings are. But main issue in all honesty is how the dethrone/abdication/mechanic works. It is fine as a boardgame but here in video game form it turns the entire thing into just picking the option that gives you the column you need (money, knowledge etc.) instead of being ideologically consistent with your playthrough otherwise. You can play as a diplomatic multicultural and equality type guy picking the right options and then you can just pick the option that says trading with slavers is A-OK. And again, this has no impact on anything. If I'm not completely mistaken there are 6 important decisions you get to make that actually has an impact on the story. Everything else is filler column jiggling. Just wish it was more focused on the narrative impact of your decisions instead of encouraging trying to minmax. For 15 bucks its tough. If you really liked the reigns games then check this out. But for the amount of content you actually get it is a tough sell for people who are on the edge

Sadly I can't give it a thumbs up. I found myself more worried about balacing the 5 resorces in the game on the right spots than caring about what I was actualyl deciding. This is not a good single player game.

The King's Dilemma Chronicles is a representation of a game that is tarnished in adaptation, as it is both too faithful and not faithful enough to its source material. It fails to really consider the shift in medium from board game, to video game or to really consider what going from multiplayer to singleplayer means. There is some brilliant elements here taken from the board game in writing, but for a replay focused game it lacks replayable. Pros Excellent Writing Interesting World Cons Low replayability for a replay-focused game Council lacks any Character Poor mechanical conceptualization and execution Read more: [url=techraptor.net/gaming/reviews/kings-dilemma-chronicles-review-tarnished-in-adaptation]TechRaptor Review[/url]

I love the boardgame. It did not translate well to a single player game I'm afraid. It looks nice and the events are still good. The problem lies in the way a lone player interacts with the game. The AI isn't interesting and the decisions therefore seems arbitrary. Also, knowing the endgame even for the first time you play lessens the appeal of the story. Not knowing where you were going in the boardgame was great. I guess this won't be changed in this version, if there's thought about a Queen's Dilemma version, single player needs an overhaul. Sad to give this a negative review, because there's a lot of storywriting and love behind this title. I'm going to add this here as I saw it in other reviews and thought it was excellent advice: If you are going to play the boardgame - DO NOT PLAY THIS FIRST!

Well made and polished, but the mechanics of the board game simply don't carry over well to a sing player experience.

Inability to review past decisions, other duchies' information, and built upgrades during votes and other important situations makes this game more frustrating than it needs to be. Glad to have played it for the price, tho if you plan on playing the board game please do that first as it is a much more rewarding experience!

I played this game at launch and I was ready to dive into something story heavy. Unfortunately choices matter little. You will always get a weird outcome one way or another and the minigames are not very well explained