Yes, Your Grace Is No More Robots’ Next Gem

Time to right the wrongs of Theoden.

Yes Your Grace

Being a king is hard. Whether you die from some gluttonous disease, get your head chopped off because human rights are unimportant to you, or an evil wizard has sent his scaly mate to whisper bad things in your ear, the crown comes with a weighty burden. Yes, Your Grace wants you to make the tough decisions, and even some menial ones to make you truly feel like you are your own king.

This was evidenced pretty much straight away in the demo build I played at EGX 2019, in which it asked me to choose whether or not to wear the crown during the day-to-day. Within seconds of starting the game, I was already role-playing as a stern but fair king as I placed the crown on my head and vowed not to be led to darkness. Stepping out into literal darkness, I walked to the top of a rampart and commanded my archers to let loose on imposing forces at my gate.

This is but a flash-forward, however, Yes, Your Grace then taking you to the calm before the storm. You play hide and seek with your children in the castle’s garden before sitting on your throne and listening to your subjects. Some of them may want to simply fill you in on what’s going on in your kingdom, while others will make requests. It was hard to get a gauge during such a limited build, but it’s clear that Yes, Your Grace will focus a lot of managing resources and trying to keep people happy — or maybe just being a tyrant.

Later in the demo, one of your soldiers will bring a foreign enemy to your throne room who is threatening your kingdom due to an old promise you made. You’re given the option of whether to execute, imprison, or free the enemy with repercussions likely for each decision. I impulsively decided to execute him because medieval fiction has taught me to not dick around, though I was told soon after that I had wasted the opportunity to interrogate him.

With war looming, Yes, Your Grace will turn into a more strategic affair with you trying to build your army, though I didn’t experience in the demo itself. The build was a little rough around the edges, it must be said. Dialogue options were sometimes wrong and I had to start over once due to a bug, but I really didn’t mind starting over and seeing how I could play things a little differently.

The development story of Yes, Your Grace is an interesting one. The developer, Brave At Night, has been wanting to get it made for years but were messed around by their previous publisher after a successful Kickstarter campaign. After working with No More Robots on Not Tonight, Brave At Night mentioned to them that they had always wanted to get Yes, Your Grace made, so the publisher gave them the resources they needed to push things forward.

I felt like I only scratched the surface of this long-in-the-making, ambitious game during EGX 2019. I can’t wait to help King Eryk protect Davern at all costs when Yes, Your Grace launches in 2020, or maybe even end up with a wolf head where mine used to be.

Too soon?

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