For the King

For the King Review

**Spoiler free**

Overview: For the King is basically a boardgame version of a lite RPG with D&D influences, and I was pleasantly surprised by what this game achieves. This high fantasy world with skill checks aplenty imbues the hex-grid map and turn-based fights with a sense of adventure in mini-campaign scenarios. The results of gameplay might be too random for some players, and the campaign stories are bare-bones. But for those who want to experience their own emergent adventure unfold in this atmospheric board game style of play, there is much to appreciate here in the kingdom or Fahrul.

Gameplay: For the king is best thought of as a digital board game with a lite-RPG theme and D&D influences. Each of your 3 party members takes turns on the hex grid map, combat is turn-based ala classic Final Fantasy, and almost every action is dependent on skill checks, which are basically invisible dice rolls.

Skill checks are the most important gameplay mechanic which drives your entire adventure, and the most likely indicator to signal whether you’ll enjoy this game or not. Skill checks are based on a binary pass/fail system, and every combat and event will utilize this. Instead of visible die rolls, each skill check is represented with a number of tiles that indicates the number of checks you’ll make. The number of tiles that fill in as pass/fail will determine your outcome to that attempt at combat or engaging with an event. Combat checks usually present themselves as “max damage potential” if you pass every tile skill check, and events usually present themselves as “number of passes/fails” varies your outcome.

Every character has a 0-100 stat rating on their attributes (strength, vitality, intelligence, awareness, talent, speed, and luck). Your stat rating is the percent chance you will succeed on one skill check tile that uses that attribute. For example, if you have an intelligence rating of 77, you have a 77% chance to pass a single skill check tile. If there are 3 tiles to check, you will have a 46% chance of passing all 3 tiles.

Every attack/ability in combat uses skill checks. Even enemies use skill checks (though they usually pass with flying colors). The attribute used for a skill check is based on the weapon you have equipped, and often make class thematic sense. Swords will usually check your strength, staffs will usually check your intelligence, etc. The number of tiles checked can also add to some decision making. For example, a weapon that makes two tile checks is more likely to fully pass for max damage versus a weapon that makes 5 tile checks. However, failing one of two tile checks will reduce your damage output far more than failing 1 of 5 tile checks.

This leads to the other big gameplay mechanic, which is loot management. This game is full of loot that you are constantly keeping track of to determine how to best spec your party members. Sometimes it feels like after every battle you’re going into the menu to analyze and manage the loot you acquired against the gear you have equipped. It seems like there is always a reason to be looking into your inventory and assessing your current loot.

A little nitpick, but the UI for entering the inventory is a little buggy. The keyboard shortcut doesn’t really work well, which means you have to manually click a little button with your cursor. It’s annoying, but not too bad.

The game comes with a primary campaign which covers 4-5 biomes, and extra smaller campaigns/modes. The campaigns take about 1-3 sittings to complete, more-or-less. There is a lot of content for a game that’s meant to be re-played. However, the core of your gameplay experience will remain the same. So, if you don’t like the skill checks and inventory gameplay loop, the extra content isn’t going to help.

You will also get to choose your 3 party members prior to any campaign. There are a variety of classes, each with their own skills and attributes stats. You can also customize their starting look and their names. I think you start out with 4-5 classes, and you can unlock more later.

There’s also a meta-game unlock store for rewards from new classes, to new encounters, to new weapons, to new cosmetics (all using in-game lore you collect).

So how does this all come together? Well…you can probably see why I initially described it as a digital board game with an RPG theme and D&D influences. But what it does is give you a pseudo Table Top experience where you go on an adventure, overcome challenges, get some lucky breaks, suffer some hilarious fails, and maybe just squeak by to beat a campaign. It can be riveting, exciting, and heartbreaking. But in the end you have a story to tell.

On my first play through, by the time I got to the final boss I thought I was toast. But because of some amazing rolls I was actually making a stand. Two of my 3 party members died. I had my one archer left. I was rolling incredibly. I was chipping away, and making some incredible dodges. With barely any heath left, I was one attack away from actually winning. I made the skill check, and whiffed! I completely missed! He goes to attack me. If I can just dodge, I can attack one more time. But no! I was hit and killed, and campaign was over! I was 1 turn away! Hahah! It gave me such a rush, and I laughed as I failed! I came so close, but I was thrilled at how fun it felt. Even to lose. Because I had a story about a group of unknown adventurers who almost saved a kingdom.

Atmosphere: Atmosphere: For the Ling is full of Immersive atmosphere. There’s not much of an official story, but the environment and presentation makes you feel like you’re on a small RPG adventure. From the different biomes to classic high fantasy enemies, you feel like adventurers exploring a land full of dangers and dungeons. There are even some clearly inspired D&D enemies, like “mindflayers” and “gelatinous cubes”. The environment is very “nerdy”, and I love it.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the low-poly art style, but I was a fan of the overall stylistic choices. All of the characters have disproportionally large heads and it somehow makes it feel more like a board game. Maybe because they remind me more of meeples rather than real characters. And all of the little locations and little animations made for a fun and not too serious experience.

The music is really good too. Each biome has its own theme, and the overall score composition feels like it’s on a smaller scale, which fits the scale of the game well. After a while some of the instruments can get a bit repetitive. But overall it adds a very helpful dose of atmosphere.

Despite no engaging story, this game does a good job at immersing you into a world and engaging you in the fantasy of it all.

Things to Note: This is a rogue-like with no ability to manually save. Once your party dies, it’s game over, and your campaign save is erased. Meaning no redos. You start a new campaign.
Also, there’s not much of a tutorial. Either look for an explanation online, or read their glossary like a board game rule book.

Performance tips: On my GTX 1070, I used the NVIDIA control panel to enable vsync and limit my FPS to 60 (I have a 60hz monitor, no gsync/freesync). I would stay away from the vsync in the game. I don’t think it’s implemented very well and made my screen stutter. Using the control panel vsync instead worked much smoother for me.

Conclusion: For The King gives you a fantasy adventure in a small scale package with all the atmosphere and skill checks right for its scope. It can be a frustrating game depending on your mindset and expectations, but it can also be a great time. I would highly encourage you to try it out it if you don’t mind skill checks and want that zero-to-hero adventure within a 2-4 hour window of time. For RPG and board game lovers, this is an easy decision. Recommend!

For The King is a fun little turn-based game where the primary goal is to race against the clock, get enough loot and levels to get your characters strong enough for the final boss to roll around and get smushed into nothingness.
It gets its uniqueness from its aesthetic and from the variety of items and weapons; the roguelike elements are really just that your meta currency lets you unlock more weapons, armour and events, that's about it. The characters have minor traits they start with, but the rest of their variety is small adjustments to their stats (if you're familiar with d100 systems like Call of Cthulhu, it pretty much works like that. 1 point in a stat is a 1% bonus to succeeding with a check to that stat).
I wouldn't buy this game full price, personally, but for the prices that it goes on sale, it has enough content to stay interesting with a friend. It's a very 'background' game. It doesn't take much mental focus and you can do and think on other things while progressing and watching the little polygonal ragdolls go flying when your Blacksmith crits and dunks on a fool with his hammer.
Story definitely isn't something to write home about. World is under threat, go fix it. The way it unfolds isn't particularly unique either, just mini quests and searching the land to reveal the fog of war and killing mini-bosses (hopefully before they wake up) both for their equipment and to prevent their curses from bothering you too hard.
It's just something that's there. I've had it installed as a fallback if I don't feel like playing much else or just want to chat with a friend without the backdrop of complete and utter silence, and that's how I treat it.

I did a single play through of this game several years ago and fell in love with it, but my party disbanded. When FTK2 came out, I played it through to 100% over the course of a year with some friends, and we've decided to backtrack into FTK1 now to do the same. I was a bit worried as FTK2 is one of my favorite games of all time given the memories I made with the people I played with. While we miss certain UI upgrades and abilities from the sequel, there's a serious charm about the art and how this game runs in comparison that is making us happy, and it's kind of trippy to go back in time and see a lot of scourges/main characters as younger versions of themselves (and some that aren't even in the sequel!). Everytime certain characters speak we just chuckle because we know what their futures hold. If you want a smoother gaming experience, just hop to 2, but if you're in it for the funsies and the fandom, this is a great game.
Plus, if you are hit with a bleed, you bleed triangles. Highly recommend screaming, "Oh no! Not my spicy Doritos!" in response.

really struggled with the game first time trying; it was just me and my bf aand it was very hard to manage support/damage balance as a group of only two- we either went full damage and suffered on healing/buffing and died as a result; or either one of us would take up full support role and we'd still die due to insufficient party damage.
it seems the sweet spot is to have a three people group; we had a friend join up recently and we're currently on our third map. been really fun. idk how it goes on hard mode but we're slowly getting there. game has its ass moments sometimes; you get f load of gold at the final objective- the campaign ends :D can't spend it or have it accumulate in some sort of other type of currency too...wow you're trolling your players!! how unique of you XD

good game. I played it when I need to reduce study stress and to play with my little bother. it will be nostalgic someday.

Very enjoyable and re-playable game, as there are many different classes, gear, and cosmetics.
Story mode is more like a board game with Hildabrants cellar being strictly turn based fighting.
This game can be played casually or not with the various difficulty settings, and only gets more fun as you can unlock more items just from playing.
The only downside being that you cant exactly play this game solo, as it requires at least two players to complete the story mode or get past level 30 in the cellar. You can play as multiple characters and play that way but It slows the game down.
9/10 :steamthumbsup:

bought the game, played it for 12 hours straight with two of my buddies, loved it.