This game has seemingly confused "depth" with "amount". There is a LOT of things to do, but none of them are particularly interesting, complex, or engaging. Instead of focusing on a few key ideas or mechanics and making them great, it spreads itself thin across hundreds of mini-games, silly events, and small individual locations to explore. I definitely see why some people may like it, but it wasn't for me.

It's also not anything like the games you'll commonly see it compared to on the store page and in reviews: it doesn't offer a complex procedural world like Dwarf Fortress, the ludicrous detail and mechanical depth of Caves of Qud, nor does it offer the emergent narrative gameplay of Crusader Kings. That's fine, and I don't think Warsim was actually trying to be any of these things. It struggles to find an identity for itself and so it's compared to games with a surface-level similarity.

Warsim IS quite surface-level sadly, and for a game promising tons of depth that was pretty disappointing to me. It is still being worked on, but the "lateral expansion" design philosophy has me not all that interested. Though I may not recommend the game I'm also not trying to discourage you completely. If you still think this game is up your alley and have the extra money to spend, go for it. A lot of people enjoyed it way more than I did!

Being an old coot that started out as a PC gamer pecking at stuff like 'Zork' and 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' many moons ago, I have a certain fondness for text based games of yesteryear. I thought maybe 'Warsim' would scratch the itch for a new text-based game and take me back to a simpler time, but I just don't think this one is for me. I like the retro feel/presentation here and I applaud the level of ambition and the potential depth of the game, but as some other reviewers have pointed out, the tone and the developer's offbeat sense of humor really left me cold and often clashed with what I assumed to be the serious nature of kingdoms waging brutal war with one another. I also found a number of scenes repeating themselves several times over with the court visitors in particular after just an hour or two of playtime, which makes me think this mechanic may need some more tweaking in terms of either the number of possible events or the RNG.

0/10 no yuri

When I saw this game on Steam I knew this would be right up my alley. Sadly it doesn't seem to work in fact I spent over an hour trying to get it to work. I suggest just to refund it, if it doesn't work immediately. It's not worth the effort, no matter how much you think it is worth it.

Good game, you dont see many text based games these days

In this game you play as a wise king who shrewdly gambles his entire kingdom's treasury at the arena, while in the middle of multiple wars and under threat of a looming apocalypse.

It reminds me of the Text Adventure/text adventure game I wanted to play in the 90s. I believe it was on Arthur. I didn't have a computer (or at least not the disks) to ever play those as a child. That being said, as an adult it feels like what I would of imagined it to be as a child in the best way possible. I've only just started but its incredibly humorous and so far it hasen't been super repetitive but just living out the life as a ruler playing how you like is nice. It's like a text adventure of Mount n Blade. Just do what you want. Have fun!

It kind of reminds me of old gamebooks like Destiny Quest. The core game loop is pretty simplistic, the mini-games are minigames in name only, and the procgen doesn't really add much besides some light variety. Because of that, there is a lot less meat on the bone for roleplaying than something like CK3. Once you get into a nice groove, you can just spam end turn and watch as you wipe your enemies while rolling in cash. The depth is mostly surface level, as there's really no point in engaging with any of the additional mechanics like slavery or even the throne room.

Despite everything I said, I think the foundation is solid. It's just that the core gameplay loop is so nice and smooth, it feels like the perfect backbone to a more deeper system that adds more run variety and a reason to engage with all the different mechanics and build your kingdom in a different way each time - but then none of that exists. There's a spark but no bang. I think the first item on my Want list is to give more options for managing the populations. The proc-gen claims to add a lot of depth, but whatever depth it added is invisible in the moment-to-moment gameplay and I think forcing players to actually consider their population's traits and likes/dislikes, penchant for the arena, willingness to be taxed, or how entertained they are would add that back.

I did get the game on a sale for $3.99 so maybe I'm being a little generous. I'd probably not get this game yet for $10, but it is on the path to being worth that price.

I called heads and it was snails and I lost my kingdom