On the final evening of Steam Next Fest, I had a choice to make. Several uninterrupted hours lay between me and the end of the week, and several hundred demos meant I had myriad potential ways to fill that time. I narrowed my search to try and find a quick, popcorn-y roguelike, the kind of thing that might let me turn my brain off for a while before the start of the work week, but my eye wandered to the bright red banner of The King is Watching.
A roguelike, yes. But a roguelike city-builder? On a quiet Sunday evening, I wasn't sure I had the brain space required to start micromanaging peasants, let alone when there were actual stakes involved. After all, I'd get enough of that at work on Monday (editor's note: rude). Nevertheless, I resolved to try out the demo, safe in the knowledge that many easier options would still be available if I bounced off. Five hours of city-building (and three crumbled cities) later, that turned out to not be an issue.
