King of the Castle

The Good
King of the Castle features humourous, occasionally clever, and interesting writing – mostly in the form of dialogue. It's fun to see the various interactions between the nobles, and what they result in.

The visual style is delightful. I enjoy the character options, the colour palette, the user interface and the fonts, as they all come together in a very palpable cohesion. The various styles of medieval-inspired outfits are also impeccable.

I think the button-pressing gameplay was fine, though not too engaging, which might be suitable for significantly larger groups or livestreamed sessions (where stream chat members might join). As a non-hosting player, there is very little to do, whereas the hosting player appears to have a lot of options and control over dialogue, and even votes.

The Bad
If your goal is for your faction to win, it's incredibly difficult unless you're already ahead. Your faction's goals are very highlighted, meaning that with the odd chance an option that would sway in your favour is presented, there are rarely any reasons for the other two factions to vote for it.

The gold-spending phase, where players may spend their gold to increase or decrease a random assortment of values, is a bit ... silly? In my experience, there were options that would benefit my faction, but then another option that would directly negate that purchase – this led the other factions to ensure that if the beneficial options was purchased, the negating option would also be bought. Thus, money on all accounts were wasted for no results.

When playing with few people (e.g. friends), we liked to voice "our" parts of the dialogue. However, there was a great imbalance in whose characters would be shown – whereas my noble appeared quite often in my faction's scenes, my comrade's was only shown twice.

With the group size I played in, there was little faction-based overlap during votes. I wish there were more incentives for this, though I'm not able to concretely name any solutions – perhaps making sure options that might benefit multiple factions and/or the monarch occur is something.

The Bottom Line
This game seems definitely suited for a larger group or a livestreamed audience – where chat members may join in. I played it in a group ranging from 5 to 7 players (including the host).

If not taken too seriously, it's a charming storytime with friends. If you're looking for a strategy game, however, I would look elsewhere. The visual style and dialogue is very enjoyable, but the gameplay left something to be desired in my books.

I am likely going to play it again, but I might have to force myself to be less strategic about it, and simply enjoy the interactions.