My Majesty review - Really doesn't rule

My Majesty is sort of like Reigns. Although it's sort of like Reigns if you took all the interesting bits of Reigns and threw them in the bin and then sent the bin to the landfill and never thought about the contents of the bin ever ever again.

So it's a pared back monarchy simulation that somehow pares things even further back than Reigns, gets rid of the interesting Tinder-style interface, and makes pretty much every choice you make dull as soggy turnips.

And the fact of the matter is you'll watch your coffers dwindling, try desperately to get them back up, fail, and then go and do something much more interesting. Like staring at a brick wall for eight hours.

The game casts you as the king of a small country. There are eight factions constantly vying for your attention, and you need to try and keep them all happy for as long as possible while not spending your entire budget.

Each turn you choose one of the factions to have an audience with. They'll ask you a question, you decide the right course of action, then you find out who you've upset and who you've pleased. And that's about it.

Like someone probably once said, you can't please all of the digital people all of the time, so the game is essentially a game of balancing. Maybe you can upset the Thinkers this turn because they really like you and annoying the peasants any more might make them revolt.

Your popularity is marked by crosses next to the names of the various groups. Get your rating high enough and you'll start earning money. Drop it down too far and you might have to throw an entire chunk of the population in jail.

There are occasional events as well, and you earn money at regular intervals. Although it's rarely enough to actually upgrade your treasury, which will make you earn even more money. It's sort of a catch-22, but not a very interesting one.

Eventually your rule comes to an end, usually because you've run out of money or everyone hates you. You get a brief description of your time in charge, then it's back to the start to begin all over again.

And in the end it all feels utterly pointless. There's none of the good humour or tricky decisions of the game My Majesty apes. You can use spells to find out the path of least resistance, but to be honest you won't really care.

What little shine My Majesty has floats away long before it's had a chance to impress you. Basically it's dull, and manages to make a genre that's pretty much only two games old feel formulaic.