Dynasty

"Dynasty" is, well, a failure, and it's easy to see why. Often game developers bash out a lot of code, create a Steam developer account, pay $100 for Steam Direct, and then ask themselves, "Is this a good idea?". Ready, Fire, Aim! What do you do in the game? This is a social deduction game with the social aspect removed. Ah, you say, then they added content and narrative to replace the other players, this is better! Haha, no, they didn't. They use procgen instead. This is a contentless playerless non-PvP game. I wonder why it got absolutely zero attention from gamers? It is a mystery. This game features very lacklustre minimalist "art" for graphics instead of anything remotely contemporary. In fact, it's mostly text. So, just like they couldn't work out how to make this a PvP game, and they also couldn't work out how to create content and tried to use procgen as a substitute, they couldn't do graphics either. I'm sure the "developer" thought this would come across as "artistic", but it doesn't, it comes across as "really lazy". Yes, contemporary 3D graphics take a lot of time and effort to create. That doesn't mean it's okay not to bother! Developers must try to u…

I embarrass to admit one thing, I stuck on the first two day which there nothing to click and there no way to process this game anymore.

The game is unpolished, has bugs, janky to use, likely reliant on GenAI for art and with a barely functional UI. But as a game, especially a political sim, its quite fun. You have to balance the power of your advisors against their loyalty towards you. A powerful advisor will get things done, but if they turn unloyal then they are likely to usurp you from the throne. As the game progresses, you begin to realise the perverse incentives required to keep your trusted advisors loyal and start to plot against your would-be assassinators by stripping them of power, even if it comes at the cost of implementing programs. As a result, the sole reason for me to recommend dynasty is that unlike most political sim games, it focuses soley on questions of power and loyalty which make it a fun experience despite its overall delivery. Its very clearly unfinished, as both the Unitary and General lacked programs to use (thus rendering them useless as advisors). There is also a lack of variation, as advisors will be sent off for one to three days due to a generic event which runs stale quickly.

Needs a lot more polish, but still a fun time for being free.

undisclosed use of ai art

This is an excellent game with a bright future. At the time of this review the game is still in development so I am aware my gaming experience is far beyond the final game. I am quite excited to see the final development of this game as I can tell if it has few tweaks and fixes and the game fully gets developed then the game will be much more appealing to the audience. With the game is demo it is quite meh at the moment as I encountered few bugs (and one nearly made me have to restart when I only had 2 turns left but the treasurer saved me). Although, in my opinion the colours/background of the game do not quite match and can be quite hurtful to the eye as for the most game the screen is fully black and despite the game mostly relying on narrating and story telling, a more interesting display could definitely catch the eyes of more people and make it stand out a bit more to look professional. Though in the end, its a fun strategic game to play but at the demo stage the game lacks the basic functions of a good game. I might return to this game when it is further progressed and fully out!