Reigns: Her Majesty

Reigns: Her Majesty takes over exactly the same system as the first Reigns — cards with requests from courtiers and a swipe left or right as the only response — but changes the main character to a queen, and with her, the perspective of the entire narrative. The queen faces different pressures than the king: succession intrigues, secret conspiracies, and even her own allies trying to control her from behind the throne, which gives the same mechanism a whole new thematic charge and a different overall tone, even though the rules remain identical at their core.

The four gauges — the Church, the People, the Army, and Money — work the same as in the first installment, and overdoing any of them still ends the reign, with the game continuing with the next generation of queens. What's new, however, is the emphasis on a hidden witch character accompanying the queen's lineage across generations, adding a layer the first installment didn't have at all and which is revealed gradually. The visual style stays true to its predecessor's flat pixel-art look, just with new characters, settings, and events.

Her Majesty showed that the Reigns system can withstand a change of perspective without losing its appeal or readability, and studio Nerial later built further sequels on it with entirely different themes and worlds. Controls are purely touch-based, the game is a one-time purchase with no ads, just like its predecessor, and it plays just as well without knowledge of the first installment, though references to it will be appreciated mainly by those who played Reigns before.

Why play it: For fans of the first Reigns as well as newcomers who will appreciate the same elegant swipe system delivered from the queen's perspective, with its own intrigues.