Changing Kings Sequence – Review – WGB

to me, A Succession of Changing Kings it brought back memories of old-school adventure books, the kind where you could make a decision and flip to 234 to see how well it went. Spoiler alert: it didn’t happen, because you used a fucking thread like 30 minutes ago, so now you’re screwed. The point is, A Succession of Changing Kings it is a very literary matter in that ancient mould.

The idea is that he is next in line to take the crown and be proclaimed king, but before that, he needs to serve as a dauphin for 444 days. Apparently, very few governors make it that far before dying either of natural causes or catching a nasty case of wefuckingtoldyounottodothat. Yes, it is a real disease, and it is absolutely fatal.

Structurally, the game revolves around a simple daily loop. Each day, you are presented with a bunch of events on a small world map, with pictures showing which group you are related to, and you can choose two. You read the situation and choose from a list of options, some of which are locked behind previous options, built structures, or hired characters. Sometimes the results are immediate, sometimes they may not appear until later.

At the end of the day, you go to the throne room for a few big, story-driven decisions. These tend to carry more weight, feeling less like side events and more like moments that actually shape your rule.

There is also a management layer where you can use the First Step to build buildings such as dormitories, mansions, or barracks, or hire useful people like detectives. This can improve the team’s reputation, adjust stats like health or safety, and unlock new events and chat options. Most of them also drain a bit of Initiative, though, so continuing to spend money is a good way to ruin your future.

Initiative itself serves as the main currency of the game, and almost everything goes into it. You’ll get it for some decisions, but more often than not you’ll be using it, whether that’s helping rebuild after a fire or agreeing to the request of the warlord, Bardican. Let it dry out, and you’re in big trouble, so keeping one eye on your savings at all times is essential.

As you would expect, every decision you make is likely to upset someone. Whether it’s ordinary people, officials, the church, or one of the smaller groups, keeping everyone happy is impossible. The game quickly becomes a collective action where allowing any one party’s opinion to go too far can result in you being stabbed, poisoned, hanged, or removed from the equation—sometimes in an undignified manner.

That balancing act is made difficult by the fact that the team’s opinions are hidden unless you unlock some upgrades so you can check the cold hard numbers. Offend the church a few times, and you’ll need to remember that and work diligently to repair the damage before it comes back to bite you. The game also relies heavily on random chance, with higher difficulty increasing the chance of death tied to certain decisions. In easy mode, at least you get a warning when a choice is fatal. Normally, you’re blind, and that includes options when you’re doing something that seems perfectly safe.

Yes, that means you can do everything right and just die. Randomly. Is it real? Definitely. Still kind of annoying? Abso-fucking-lutely.

The issue is not just the disorganization itself, but how clear its causes are. Sometimes it is obvious that you took a risk and lost. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell if your death was tied to a decision you just made or something you did an hour earlier. Autosaves usually set you back a few days in-game, so they aren’t destroyed, but they do lose the sense of control over the game you’re trying to build.

There are also a few useless endings. I encountered many instances of events referring to things I had not done, such as a character making a binding promise that I never made. It’s rare, but it happens often enough to be noticeable. And I also noticed that at some point in my journey, the game recently stopped using quotation marks in character speech and replaced them with dashes. What is that about?

Indeed, this is a game that lives or dies by the quality of its writing and overall narrative. Did I enjoy it? Was I woven? The answer to both is…meh.

The writing is decent enough from moment to moment, and many of the individual events are well crafted. They are often presented in such a way that each side has a reasonable argument, making the role-playing an incredibly fair and just ruler. Sometimes they lean funny, sometimes they are serious, sometimes they are thoughtful. It’s good stuff.

The problem is that the broad cast doesn’t get the depth they need. The three main team leaders, in particular, feel underdeveloped, which turns most interactions with them into little more than a calculation of which reputation spot needs to be boosted at this point so I don’t get killed in my sleep. The side characters don’t fare any better, rarely leaving much of an impression. That culminated in one story beat completely falling apart when it was revealed that a certain character was actually someone else, and my dumbass stared at the computer screen and said out loud, “who?”

That lack of depth also clashes with gameplay. While that’s the case looking for to support role playing, everything ultimately comes back to numbers. Sooner or later, decisions stop being about what feels right to the aspiring ruler, and begin to be about what keeps the relevant barriers down. Perhaps that is a deliberate comment on leadership. After all, when you take care of millions, they start to become numbers. Maybe not. Either way, it limits how those decisions feel in the long run. I will never properly condemn the church or overthrow the nobles or strike down the common people. I always have to keep them at least a little bit happy, rather than turning hard.

To the game’s credit, I enjoyed exploring the game modes afterwards to see what I could change. The problem is that the range feels smaller than it first appears. In my second run, I tried to be on the big side with the mysterious group of red heads, but I found that I could not support them in a meaningful way. Even more surprising, the threat they posed seemed to dissipate by the end of the first chapter without much resolution. The further I went, the more walls I found. But again, this is an inexpensive, small project, so my expectations are probably wrong.

Still, it left me with the feeling that the game isn’t quite sure how to react when you’re pushing too hard towards a certain area, which detracts from the action experience it’s trying to create. I probably saw it the most in the last chapter, where I could not for the life of me find any way to support a certain character, which was a shame because I had spent a lot of time trying to set that decision. And it felt like the game was laying the groundwork for me to do it.

In total, the game promises six different endings, as well as many minor variations depending on your choices. Chapters can also play differently, whether that’s avoiding conflict with a neighboring country or preparing for war. But while there’s clear variety on paper, I didn’t find enough unique events to keep repeat games consistently engaging, making seeing everything on offer feel like a chore rather than rewarding. However, again, the scope is understandable.

Look, there is an undeniable quality A Succession of Changing Kings. It’s cheap as chips and has an incredibly cozy vibe—to the point where you’re dying because you decided to go skiing. Yes, that is a realistic possibility. It’s a comforting, but occasional, quick reminder that your lifespan is looking pretty grim.

Mostly, though, this feels like a solid foundation rather than a fully realized experience. There’s a lot of power in the core idea, and you can totally see how a sequel could build on it with deeper characters and a more engaging narrative. However, as it stands, it is very small in those areas, making it difficult to stay planted for long.

However, every time, it’s a game it does find a moment when a past decision comes back to bite you, and in that flash, it shows exactly why this concept works. It’s just a shame that those moments aren’t frequent—or impactful—enough to carry everything that’s happening.