We’ve heard the story before. The kingdom’s in peril and it’s up to a band of unlikely adventurers to take up the quest to rid the land of evil. The king’s dead, murdered by an unknown assailant. The queen has taken it upon herself to put out the call to heroes to help save the land under her rule. What sets For the King apart is that these heroes are pretty much just normal people with normal jobs that answer said call of duty.
For the King is a rogue-like RPG that can be played either solo or as a multiplayer co-op, each player taking control of one or more citizens of the realm as they go questing in dungeons and rid the land of evil evilness. Take on the role of the Hunter, Scholar, or Blacksmith…among several other unlikely classes like the Herbalist, Woodcutter, and Trapper. Travel the land in search of fame and fortune. Earn Lore to help augment your abilities and loot items for use in battle and out.
From the look of it, the “overworld” plays out like a hex-grid board game. In fact, it does have hex squares dotting the landscape. It also appears that movement is turn based as well just like its tabletop inspiration. The action, though, takes place in the procedurally generated dungeons. Combat plays out just like you would expect for a turn based game, letting you do various attacks and use special abilities and items from your belt (not bag like most games tend to use) to whittle the enemies’ health to zero. And then you get to loot the bodies.
For the King doesn’t really reinvent the wheel. It does take elements from a few different genres but at the end of the day you’ll know how to play the game with little effort. What I love the most about it, though, would have to be the artwork. The polygonal cartoonish look is so woefully underused these days.
Track the progress of the For the King Kickstarter in our Campaign Calendar.
