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- Frogdice
- Frogdice
- Frogdice
- Frogdice
ReignMaker
Released On: Apr 16, 2014
Metascore
Critic reviews are not available yet
8.6
Where to Buy
Where to Buy
All Platforms
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Critic Reviews
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User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 29 User Ratings
8.6
76% Positive
22 Ratings
22 Ratings
14% Mixed
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
10% Negative
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 29 User Ratings
8.6
76% Positive
22 Ratings
22 Ratings
14% Mixed
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
10% Negative
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
When most think of Match-3 games, they think of Bejeweled and Candy Crush Saga. This game, though, has very little in common with those. Instead of making matches to get a high score within a time limit or to fulfil small objectives within the gameboard, ReignMaker charges the player with making matches in order to send out elemental projectiles (fireball, water missile, etc) along the same row, which hit enemy monsters, walking toward your castle. Every level has multiple waves of monsters and interesting new board layouts, to keep it challenging. On top of that, every ten levels is a unique boss that can be felled using different strategies. When kicked, enemies drop gold, which the player can use to build up their city (more on that later) and buy gear to use in battle. The player also levels up and can learn powerful spells to help make matches and send out loads of projectiles. The city building is more of a break from combat, where you buy new builds and upgrade them, increasing your population and unlocking new gear/spells to take with you into combat. After each new level cleared, the player has to make a decision in their city (multiple choice) which then determines what type of city you control. The visual aesthetics of your city changes based on different decisions and different city types. Some of the unique answered have some pretty cool effects (like flooding the entire city). All in all, I found this game to be pretty entertaining and was able to hold my interest for many hours; and that's exactly what I look for in a game.
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PC
I have spent around 36 hours playing this game. It has a lot of elements that I like. I can walk away and not feel left behind, I can grind it out hard and be serious about it, in both cases I feel that I am getting more than my money's worth out of it.
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PC
“I personally enjoyed everything that ReignMaker had to offer and greatly appreciated all I was able to do in the game.”
****/2014/06/17/review-reignmaker/
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PC
Frogdice has proven once again that they know how to make a well-crafted puzzle game.”
“ReignMaker is a genuinely fun experience you shouldn’t miss if you are a fan of the genre. “
****/2014/05/07/reignmaker/
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PC
ReignMaker is a match-3 game similar to Bejewled or Candy Crush Saga, where your matches are used to kill invaders coming after you. Overall, this game is a mediocre time waster that falls way short of its promises. I'm going to copy/paste the first line of its Steam store page: "ReignMaker is a city building political strategy game with match-3 tower defense combat." Calling this game a city builder, a political strategy game, or a tower defense game is a serious insult to those genres, and this is coming from someone who enjoys those types of games.
You technically build a city, yes, but the "city building" is little more than waiting to collect resources and upgrading buildings. The only choice you make is what order you build things in. There's no real planning, no infrastructure building, and really, nothing interesting at all about this city building parts. They only serve as a vessel to get you upgrades, and are absolutely no fun on their own. Also, resource collection is really annoying. I never had nearly enough lumber, so I had to wait for hours, checking in every 30 minutes to harvest. Another annoyance is the gold, which appears on the ground as you fight. It spawns so frequently that it's a huge distraction from the puzzle, and you won't get nearly enough if you don't pick it up. Scouts are a necessity if you want to progress since they take that element out, but that's one fewer person you can take into tough levels.
There is technically political strategy, yes, but it amounts to a series of questions, one per level, that almost never have any consequences at all. When there are, they're minor at best. It has all the depth of an Internet quiz. After making choices, you can find out your city's "culture", which matters none at all, really.
When it says it's a "tower defense" game, though, that's completely misleading. In a tower defense game, you place towers strategically to impede and attack units that are trying to get through, and that's not what this game has. In this game, you defend towers with match-3 combat.
Now, for the match-3 elements. The core match-3 gameplay is present in this game, and it does provide some challenge. The spells and the people you hire are interesting additions that shake things up. This game suffers from poor design decisions overall, though. The difficulty curve is a mess, with a huge spike at level 10 before varying wildly between really easy and very difficult. The boss battles are mostly luck; you have to attack very rapidly with matches and spells and hope that you get enough combos to win before your opponent murders you (even worse, you can defeat the boss but still lose the match and be forced to replay). Also, some of the levels are excessively long, which really **** when you run out steam and lose 20 minutes in to a level.
This isn't the worst game I've played, not by a long shot. I still played this game to the end, probably just because the match-3 combat was enough to hold my interest for a while. This game is really heavily flawed, though, and it spectacularly fails to deliver on its promises. Sadly, this game is little more than a time waster, which isn't good enough for me. It looks like this game is still being worked on, however, so hopefully some things can be ironed out, but it will never be a "city building political strategy game" with "tower defense combat". Ultimately, this game is just a second-rate Puzzle Quest. This game's a joke at $15. I think I can only recommend this game if you can find it for $2 or less.
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PC
Summary ReignMaker is a city building political strategy game with match-3 tower defense combat. From your capital city you lead your Kingdom against the invading Void Army that threatens all life.
Platforms:
- PC
Initial Release Date: Apr 16, 2014
Developer:
- Frogdice
Publisher: Frogdice
Genres:
