Roguelike city builder The King is Watching has a new demo, and I’m hooked

One of my favorite city building games of all time is Majesty, the self-titled ‘fantasy kingdom sim’ where you don’t actually control your units, but instead take the seat of an all-seeing monarch that just handles all the town management elements. Fitting that concept into a snappy roguelite format is the upcoming small-scale strategy game The King is Watching, and it’s just launched an updated demo on Steam. I had a chance to give the latest build a go ahead of its launch, and the loop already has me hooked.

The core premise of The King is Watching is relatively simple. To the left of the screen is your castle, which houses a four-by-four grid of squares. On the right is the path leading to its main gate – down which will march an increasingly scary series of goblins, orcs, trolls, dragons, and other nasty threats. To succeed in developer Hypnohead’s fast-paced city-building game, you’ll need to optimize your restrictive layout to earn the most resources possible while keeping your kingdom safe from attack.

You do this by placing buildings in the squares. Some generate resources – wells make water, iron mines harvest ore, and wheat fields produce, well, wheat. Others adapt these resources, such as a forge to smelt that iron ore into metal bars. Unit-creating options utilize your supplies to create peasants, swordsmen, archers, and so on. Finally, there are more specific utility structures: a market that sells spare goods for gold, or a research hall that generates spells to support your troops in battle, for example.

The kicker, however, is that all of your workers are eager for an easy life, and so the various structures you place will only function while they’re under the king’s gaze. This is represented by a border that starts in a three-square L shape, and expands gradually as you research upgrades. It’s an aspect that further enhances the importance of carefully planning out your town layout and making sure you’re spending your time optimally.

Enemies arrive in clearly marked waves, and after successfully defending against each one you’ll be presented with rewards. These can include new structures, upgrades, spells, or Denarii – the currency used whenever a merchant appears offering a wider series of boons and powerful trinkets to further amplify your potential. Intermittently, you’ll also meet with a fortune teller, who allows you to determine how challenging the upcoming waves will be – and the rewards you’ll earn from them in turn.

Things move quickly in real time, but you can hit the spacebar at any point to pause the action if you need to ponder your next decision. Alternatively, you can speed things up if you don’t have anything to do in the immediate future. While this latest demo version only lets you check out one of the rulers on a single specific map, the full game will offer a variety of both to test your management skills to the fullest.

My first run of The King is Watching ended in a messy failure after just a few short waves, but I found myself quickly coming back for more. It captures that essential roguelike spark, making each failure a series of lessons you can apply to your next attempt, and its tight space restrictions are compellingly frustrating in just the right way. If you’re curious to give it a shot, you can try the updated demo now.

A new demo for The King is Watching is available on Steam today, Tuesday November 5. You can download it via the store page, or wishlist the full game to stay up to date with its development.

Alternatively, take a look through the best roguelike games on PC for a wealth of run-based options, or put your organizational abilities to work in the best management games.

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