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It takes a really special mobile game to tear me away from a bigger screen.
For some in 2016, that might have meant the pseudo-fitness app known as Pokemon Go or the wallet flirting Super Mario Run. While both of those games might have captured the wider public attention, there was one much smaller release that grabbed me by the finger and refused to let go. Reigns, also available on PC, is an absolute delight.
A gripping, often hilarious choose-your-own-adventure, Nerial and Devolver Digital’s Reigns offers hours of distraction with a simple premise: being the king of Tinder. Well, not quite, but the ability to make or break your kingdom with a swipe left or right is twice the fun as the digital dating “game” with half the emotional baggage.
Reigns expects you to fail, and you will. Keeping everyone happy, whether that’s the church or the army, is a balancing act and one that will result in your demise after a misjudged swipe quite often. Your life is especially precarious as not only will making a “faction” hate you result in them overthrowing you, but pleasing them too much will bring the same fate.
One of the game’s most intriguing aspects is how it goes against the grain, tricking you into making fatal mistakes which seem like the obvious routes to success. Think you can take on that dragon? No chance. You should forgive your treacherous son, right? Congratulations, you just unlocked another death screen. Reigns subverts tropes and does it with a giggle.
After a few (read: roughly eight billion) failures, you might expect that Reigns’ collection of cards would get thin on the ground. Luckily, there’s no shortage of variety here as the deeper you go, the more collections you can unlock. There are also objectives to conquer that start off fairly innocuous before becoming quintessentially Devolver. If you want to become the first ruler in history to allow two werewolves to marry, now’s your chance.
Reigns has a drive to it, the sense that you’re getting closer and closer to the endgame. The Devil is a recurring character with the spine of the game focusing on how you deal with him, but there’s so much else to contend with, too. You can send your army on holy crusades, start an affair, or even just try to be a fair and prosperous ruler (ha). After hours of playtime, I’ve only had one king die of natural causes while the rest of them have barely made it past half a century. Some of what you do will carry over to the next ruler, however, giving the game a welcome Rogue Legacy vibe.
The humour of Reigns is what will keep people coming back time and time again as weirder and more eccentric cards become available. Whether it’s your almost definitely insane scientist, the irritating Loosetongue family, or a mushroom that takes you on a wild trip, Reigns has laughs in abundance. It’s eccentric, irreverent, and the perfect excuse to go sit on the toilet for 4-6 hours.
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