i'm too goated at king of the castle
me and the discord decided to take a shot on the new web-browser-multiplayer-story-making-game-thing king of the castle. the basic structure is that one person runs the game on their own machine and act as king/queen/monarch. they are the newly crowned leader of a nation, with 3 regional factions all scheming to take the crown for themselves. the players are randomly sorted into the 3 factions and play via a browser window, a la jackbox games. each faction has their own 3 stage win condition and are ideally supposed to be manipulating the other factions or monarch themselves into doing their bidding.
the way this works is that each season, 3 random events will happen, with the outcome usually decided by court vote. these can range from things like land disputes, economy crashes, petty politics, etc. the crown can influence these votes, either indirectly via subtle manipulation (such as pointing out in plain terms why one choice clearly benefits one faction above all else) or direct action via laws (such as vetoing the one option that all 3 factions clearly would prefer). players vote on the outcome, and whichever outcome wins goes. simple stuff.
the reason why i think this game works hinges upon two important points. first, information is (mostly) cleanly laid out. the result of a choice are made apparent to players in general terms. the actual raw statistical impact a choice will have is never stated, but you know that when there's a little up arrow next to the stability icon, it means that the result will mean stability goes up. however, there are a lot of hidden variables, including events that affect stats without player input, as well as some consequences of player decisions that aren't immediately apparent at time of voting.
the second, and i think most consequential, reason why this game works is that players are stupid and make irrational decisions. well, at least they do in the games i've played. even when having mechanics clearly explained to them not a minute prior, people will vote in a way that directly harms them because of impulsive decisions. or they will establish a very early grudge that bites them in the ass by stage 3. or just simply not realize that they are being clearly manipulated into working in someone else's best interest. this is all very good.
the game does have clear issues, though. one of the biggest i think is that there isn't enough event variety for the early stages. i am well aware that there are, according to developers, nearly 1000 events in the game. however, even just in the 3.5 games my group has played, we've had several repeats. once you get further into a game and there's more variables event diversity is great, but i think i've seen the "we have a saint in our family ancestry" event in nearly every game we've played, and that's a problem.
the second issue is that the rebellion mechanic needs a lot of work. whenever a faction decides to rebel, the game effectively stops and a new one starts in it's place. starting a rebellion essentially turns this 4 player multiplayer game into a 2 player game. the two times we've had a rebellion in a game, the other factions essentially don't get to play the game until the situation is resolved. while schemes are only supposed to stop for the rebelling faction, it really stops it for all, since there's really no way for players to influence events. it also just doesn't really make sense to rebel unless you are extremely strong, and it makes even less sense for other factions to join the rebellion themselves. maybe i'm wrong, since we haven't actually had a game where multiple factions rebel, but it feels like joining a rebellion in progress is just helping someone that isn't you win.
lastly are some minor points. twice now we've had the same event come up with the exact same bug, where what seems like a dispute between two different factions ends up being a dispute between a faction against itself. this manifests in one potential option causing two separate defiance increases to happen at once. also it does seem a little silly that someone who owns the game can't join a game within the client. i understand why that would be hard but even just a fancy gussied up browser window within the game would be nice.
there's another issue with the game, which sounds like bragging but it genuinely really isn't: i am either too lucky or too good at it because i've won every time i've played lmao. the first game we played didn't end up getting finished, but that reign as monarch i was in a very good position iirc. next we played a game where, despite having a minority of voters, my faction won and achieved ragnarok. then we played a game where as crown i successfully established medieval cia. and finally in a game that genuinely didn't feel balanced whatsoever, the vampires easily created a doppleganger king. i feel so bad about it that i actually am intentionally not going to play in the next game we play, since i don't want to be a factor lmao.
anyway, cool game, needs work. maybe later i'll tell the tale of that first game i won, since it actually had a great narrative.