Fit for a King Review – Royal Retro Sandbox Sim

Fit for a King Review

Fit for a king is a keyboard-only retro sandbox sim game. You play a king in a fantasy land who is in competition with his rival on who has more money. This wouldn’t be a problem if you hadn’t lost it all. Now you must explore your estate utilizing, and abusing, all your kingly powers. Find a chest with gold or collect taxes to expand your powers.

The game opens with a dream sequence to give you a quick explanation of plot and game mechanics. This is important because in Fit for a King you have no mouse inputs. It is an entirely text-based game. You will have to remember the commands you can use as there is a key for each and type out one word questions to NPCs. I thought it would be terribly difficult to do well but after an adjustment period, you start to get the hang of it. Even typing the questions to the NPCs is nicely done. Most NPCs you speak to give you a hint as to what word will progress their dialogue. I’m impressed with how the devs managed to balance this freedom with a minimal amount of hand-holding. This game doesn’t tell you what you cannot do. Divorce your wife, marry a horse, take a bookcase as a second wife. This amount of freedom can be confusing, and the lack of a map can get you lost quick but that is part of the charm of Fit for a King. It chucks you into the deep end to figure yourself out through trial and error. It does give you some help though as you can ask your steward or wife for a point in the right direction. You can also have them executed if, like me, you wanted to see if the execute command works on them. *Spoiler* it does.

Keep an Eye Out for the Bear

You do not start with all your powers at the start. You will need to collect gold in order to finance your megalomania. After awakening from my dream, I got the wonderful chance to name not only myself, but my wife, and more importantly my rival. Yes, I am a child and named him Butt Sue Me. From here I left to see my realm. After getting lost a few times I found my way to the church. If I interacted with a bible, I could spend gold to make myself the pope. My dream of marrying my bed was at hand. Blast it, I was short the funds to allow both divorce and marriage to beds. I could execute my wife and truly live the Henry the VIII lifestyle, but I choose instead to continue my quest for gold. Continuing I encountered traps, boats, and a bear. BEWARE the bear.

The game plays fine once you get a hang of the controls. It’s a little tedious keeping track of the different commands but with the help option I quickly found my feet. The variety of interactions and commands was surprising for a game that uses such a retro art style. I had to remind myself that certain options are always available such as marrying my bed once they have been unlocked. The one complaint that I have is the sound. Background music and sound effects where generally good. Some sounds however due to the game’s retro-style choice where very piercing and could be quite loud. These sounds specifically when using the bible to rewrite the laws of the church where louder than other effects and could get me by surprise. These sounds where few and far between but something that got me good as I usually play with headphones.

Fit for a King is a surprisingly deep game with a wide variety of interactions. The retro theme is well done and provides a nice charm to the game. While the gameplay takes a little getting used to it works well with the free form format. Aside from some sound choices, this is a great pickup for people looking to enjoy a larp as a medieval king. For such a simple interface they were able to provide a wealth of freedom.

*** PC code provided by the publisher ***