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By Paul Meekin

The iOS Game “Reigns” is about governing a country: You are king. You are in charge of making decisions that affect the church, the population, the army, and the treasury. Every choice you make will cause them joy or pain.

If you want to curry favor with the Pope, you can build a church, at the cost of your cash reserves. If you wish to invade a country of heathens, your popular opinion will rise, but your army’s numbers will fall. If any of these numbers get too low or high, you’ll die – be it by having no army to defend from invaders, anarchy in the street after losing the confidence of the people, saving so much money that the banks and businessmen control everything – and many more.

This is all delightfully intoxicating and incredibly easy to play, combing the swipe left/right nature of “Tindr” with simple to understand choices that illustrate their direct effect on your resources – and a unique art-deco style, presenting memorable characters and illustrations. You’ll know when you’re talking to the jester, general, queen, church, or your puppy.

As time goes on new discoveries are made and foibles are introduced. You can make a deal with the church that will consistently increase your rating with them – allowing you more leeway to make secular choices. You’ll discover the silk road and the new world. Time will march on, as you take control of each subsequent king in the heritage. Death is only a reset button. The goal is to die of old age, heralded as a fair and just ruler.

But that is quite hard and the choices are tough. Toss in the occasional dungeon crawl and mushroom trip and you have yourself a civics lesson for the ages.

The ultimate message? There must be a balance to government. You can’t bequeath too much favor to any special interest – even the will of the people, else risk a total destruction of everything the population holds dear.

It also illustrates the problem with a largely centralized government. One wrong move by a President, or King, or Prime Minister, and an entire country can be ruined. Spreading out the power, having checks and balances, guards against such an occasion.

But “Reigns” contains no such checks and balances. You have advisors, sure, but you are in charge of everything in a game that more-often-than-not, presents a no-win scenario.

The developer, Devolver Digital, has made a couple of games with a decidedly societal bent. “Block’hood” is a sort of vertically integrated “Sim City,” and “Gods Will Be Watching” is about the moral potency of tough choices – and their desired results – I.E is it best to get what you want any way you can, or does the path to it matter just as much?

Reigns is currently 3 dollars on the iOS App Store. If you want to try your hand at being king for a day – or a lifetime, there is no better way to find out.

EDITOR’s NOTE: The views expressed are those of the author, they are not representative of The Libertarian Republic or its sponsors.

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