Review | King Of The Castle - Return Of The King

I've missed party games. Before being locked away from the rest of the world, I looked down on them a little for their style and tone. But as I've matured, so too have they, and I find myself missing playing lower-stakes games with my friends. How we communicate has changed demonstrably over these past few years. Thankfully though, party games’  ability to fuel chaos and joy hasn't. Though it lacks in some areas, King of the Castle makes good on  the promise of party games and has enough unique elements to stand out from the crowd. 

King of the Castle is a game designed to play on Twitch. It's all about reading, voting, and handling the funny consequences that comes from a dozen players all chasing their own  goals. One player takes on the role of the king and all other players represent a single voter on the king’s court. The King is trying to rule and members of his court all have their own agenda.  It can be quite amusing with just four players - however, it is at its best when you get more than seven people involved. 

I’ve heard of a Kingmaker before, but this is another level.

As the king, your goal is to choose an heir and survive. If you manage to sire that heir, you have done enough to pass on your legacy. Surving any longer is just icing on the cake. As a voter, you are assigned to one of the handful of regions in the game and your goal is to further the aims of your specific region. 

King of the Castle throws tonnes of information at you at the start and just hopes you manage to catch on - luckily, it is easy things out as you play. It helps that the aesthetic and soundtrack are effective at putting you in a kingmaking mood, allowing you to focus all your energy on politic subterfuge. The game is all about the stories you create with your friends and the storybook art style adds to this greatly. 

Unfortunately, even having the recommended four players feels restrictive due to the nature of the game itself. Each kingdom has stats like trade, military, and faith. The kingdom draws upon all of these stats but also has its own categories in stability, authority and wealth. Each kingdom picks a single goal at a time to accomplish and goals rarely align in between kingdoms. 

This being said, you can make deals with other kingdoms or the king externally to further your own interests. Once you have done three tasks and have enough defiance, you can revolt. When you are playing with fewer player and control an entire section of the kingdom to yourself, it becomes easy to strategise and plan to take out the king. When four or five people are all voting together, things become a lot more amusing. 

Somehow, there is slightly less backstabbing in this game than a fifty turn game of Mario Party.

In the first game I played, a friend took the Northern Kingdom and was presented with the opportunity to look after a bear. When members of the Eastern Kingdom claimed it as theirs, we voted internally for who rightfully deserved it. This small decision started a rivalry between the North and East that ended in the Northern leader being mauled by a bear and me winning the entire game. 

Fundamentally, King of the Castle is at its best when you aren't playing but planning and plotting your rise. The way it almost actively encourages meta conversations and grudges makes everything feel more intense for the hour or so it will last. Unfortunately, the start of each game can be a little slow as everyone tries to figure out just what they want to do. It takes a while to set up all those chess pieces and requires you to go through a relatively extensive tutorial round. 

These don't entirely ruin the flow of the game but can leave you and your friends tackling the same handful of objectives each turn - leading to experienced players having an unfair advantage. It is one of those games that has a lot of depth to work out but also doesn't punish players for playing it in silly ways. Even when you vote for the funniest option, the results are varied and interesting. 

After you have gone on for a few years, players will start to hit revolutions - signalling the end game. As king, you have to withstand the onslaught of decisions and other players have to find a way to keep you alive just long enough to stage their own revolt. 

Honestly, jealous of this regal drip.

Choosing to revolt will leave the would-be revolutionaries out of all future voting decisions so players have to make sure their resources are great enough to take everything. Players will start to secretly make decisions and accusations will fly around the room. This game of cat and mouse works well and I often found myself unsure of what was going on until all the dust had settled. 

By time you get to your second or third playthroughs with the same group, strategies and tactics will begin to evolve and lead to subversive and suprising situations. Maybe, not having a big enough military fails the decision that you have won in previous games. Perhaps another player is secretly working against you and you just haven't figured out who yet. Though subsequent playthroughs are less fresh, it manages to shake things just enough for one more round. 

Only one person in your entire group of friends party needs to own the game so you can get an entire discord in on the fun - a great move given the already very cheap asking price.  

King of the Castle is a unique party game that doesn't get the chance to shine in smaller groups. This being said, if you can rally the troops, it's well worth throwing at your Friday night game group