It is obvious that it’s more pleasant to work when no one is watching you, right? When your boss is looking away, you can relax, do something of your own, maybe slack off a bit… But, under the watchful eye, you have to give it your all. This is the fundamental mechanic of the strategy with roguelite elements The King is Watching.
Developed by Hypnohead and published by tinyBuild, the game was released on PC on July 21, 2025. The King is Watching will have you managing a kingdom that only works as planned under the supervision of its own king – you. At first glance, it’s a pixel tower defense for a couple of evenings. But half an hour in, The King is Watching reveals itself as one of the most addictive roguelite strategies of this year.
This game is not about winning. It is about understanding why you lost, and about that special excitement when everything almost worked out, and you just need to try it once more.
The primary task in The King is Watching is to develop the economy of your kingdom. You need to build buildings like wells, fields, and sawmills. Production buildings provide resources that are needed for further construction and to hire an army. A gold mine, for example, is built for gold, which eats up a significant share of the precious metal profit. Buildings drop in the form of cards and have a limited supply of resources. You will receive these cards for completing the waves of enemies, with the help from buildings will produce basic resource cards, and for completing tasks.
Basic buildings give you resources: water, wood, magic stones, iron, wheat, etc. Each building has a limited amount of resources it can provide. Some add only around 200, some more, up to a thousand or so. Having been mined clean, the building disappears, which frees up space for another building, and you will have to take into account the free construction spaces very, very wisely.
Your kingdom is an area of 5 by 5 squares, some of which are occupied at the beginning of the game, and now you have to build your buildings on the free squares. The occupied cells can be freed up a little later, when you start upgrading the passive bonuses of the kingdom. There are advanced buildings that give 2 resources at once, or that process basic resources into advanced ones. Those, in turn, are used for stronger troops.
As an example, imagine golden trees that give both wood and gold, or a smelter that processes iron ore into ingots, or, finally, a mill that makes flour from wheat. There are more and more interactions with each upgrade, and the cards’ quantity grows as well. But more on that later.
So, why do we need so many different resources? Because our kingdom is attacked by orcs and goblins, then undead and mutants… And, as the ruler, you can hire troops using these resources. Simple peasants require wheat, skeletons – water, archers – wood and wheat… There are about 20 different basic buildings in the game that produce different troops.
Each warrior has its own characteristics, for example, from the Almshouse you get madmen who can bite the enemy and run away, not allowing themselves to be hit in retaliation, the necropolis produces skeletons that poison enemies, archers shoot from afar, swordsmen strengthen each other in battle and so on, and so forth for each type of troops.
Competent planning and production of different types of troops helps to combine their bonuses, however, you will not be able to choose troops for yourself, you will be offered one of 3 cards to choose from, originating from the entire pool of mercenary cards. Fighters’ barracks also take up space and require resources, and the warriors themselves can die, but then be rehired for additional resources.
Of the initial fighters, militiamen, soldiers, crossbowmen and black lambs are most useful, while the rest play the role of cannon fodder. In one of the runs, I tried to create an army of skeletons. Unfortunately, the passive bonus upgrade for the undead simply refused to drop, and this was not enough to defeat the boss. Each wave of monsters can be strengthened, you decide whether to strengthen the enemies for big prizes at the end of the waves, or make the wave easier.
You can choose wave boosts that give you troop upgrades at the end, basic improved resource-producing buildings, basic barracks or Veteran Barracks, resources or currency for the store. Each veteran barracks building requires its own resources. Veteran and elite barracks have similar problems to the previously outlined basic ones – musketeers are much more useful than worm riders – with the addition of a new one. A production building that creates the necessary rare resources for hiring does not always drop in the run where you get a card for rare troops. You need grapes, but you did not get any production buildings for it. And in the end you have veteran barracks, which give strong warriors but… You can’t use it, because you don’t have vineyards!
Troops are needed to protect the kingdom from the raids of all kinds of evil spirits, bad guys and monsters. The player is free to choose the composition of the enemy army. You can take a risk and face a crowd of stronger fighters, or play carefully, but get a smaller reward. For repelling a wave, the player receives rewards: A production building card; A barracks card; Fighter reinforcement; A set of resources; Artifacts that give nice bonuses; Spells. Periodically, after a wave, a merchant comes. This is a funny old man on a giant toad, from whom you can buy buildings, artifacts, reinforcements, resources, and spells.
Even if you lose, you can be much more to blame for this than you might think. It’s all about the mechanics of predictions – the court arcanist can reveal the next boss, as well as “everyday” waves of enemies, and the reward. We design the latter ourselves – you can choose one, two or three affixes that complicate the battle, the more of them, the better the reward. And at the end of the waves comes the Boss.
Another roguelite element: random events. They happen once in a while, but reading through them is not exactly interesting, since the consequences are already revealed in the answer options. You just read the bonuses and choose what you like. It would be better to hide them to motivate players to read and think.
The main test is the battle with the boss. Bosses have an impressive amount of health, a powerful attack and some unpleasant abilities. Some bosses are much more dangerous than their comrades. Like a giant dragon, which not only has impressive characteristics, but also soars into the air three times and incinerates everyone in its path.
An alternative to him is a big guy who spawns fighters – a much less dangerous opponent. Or a boss who gets stronger if you let his younger brother die, who at the beginning of the game requires the carousel, a building that we need to build up and get to work. After completing the run, the player is given resources in the form of coins and crystals. They are used to purchase various improvements: Obtaining initial resources; Increasing damage from spells; New buildings and fighters; Expulsion of aristocrats interfering with construction; New spells; Opening new kings; Opening advisers, who give pleasant bonuses.
After a successful run, you will have access to a new level of difficulty on the map, so far there are only 2 maps – a village and a cemetery, but hope there will be more in the future. After each level, you will receive crystals and coins that can be spent on improving or unlocking new Kings, new maps and new Advisers.
The Kings are your avatars, each coming with 3 abilities (which also need to be unlocked). And, in turn, each ability gives its own advantages in the game. For example, summon 3 peasants for 100 water, or make all buildings built in your kingdom work for 10 seconds, give warriors a berserker boost, etc.
Advisors give passive boosts and new conditions on maps, such as disabling some buildings, but in return they give various bonuses. With some upgrades, you can take several advisors to the battle. Boosts generally greatly diversify your games and give more opportunities to create a flexible setting before the start of the map.
Battles are automatic, and can only really be influenced by spells. Some of them are permanent and belong to a certain king, others are one-time scrolls that you receive during the game. Spells are easy to underestimate: with their help you can easily, if not destroy, then properly weaken the enemy army. You also need to consider the bonuses from the troops – as an example, here are the bonuses of the troops from the cemetery map, which can be hired through the merchant for relics: Ghosts increase the attack speed of all undead. Bonebreakers poison enemies upon death. Bone warriors increase the evasion of the undead. Bulls heal allies. Cultists increase the damage from spells. Horror Guards increase the damage of the undead. Reapers restore health. Wyverns bring additional resources.
Consider the width of the King’s gaze, under which the buildings work, rely on the bonuses that you will get after the waves, on what you can buy from the merchant – taking all this into account, you will build your kingdom.
Fortunately, both the maximum number of troops in the game and the width of the gaze can be upgraded during the playthrough for earned resources. True, you cannot change the shape of the gaze, and will have to play with what you have, but it’s still better than nothing .
The game has a lot of nuances that should be taken into account, but I want to stress it again – your goal is not victory, but competency and counter-acting RNG as much as you can. It will be extremely difficult to win, but even from a loss you still will receive resources for upgrades and unlock new Kings, advisers and bonuses.
The game has excellent visuals, despite its pixel graphics. The style is very suitable for the theme of The King is Watching, especially pop-ups such as events. You will be able to recognize both various memes and pleasant references in visual comics. The descriptions of some events will make you laugh and remember the good old memes.
There is always something happening in your kingdom, units are working, water is being extracted, and all this is animate. The map around the kingdom lives its own life: a druid goes to his hut, then witches fly to the cauldron and perform a ritual. Peasants are working in active buildings; the king is making funny faces; a fisherman is catching fish in war conditions. Buildings located outside the walls are vividly destroyed by the spells used, warriors are fighting with enemies. The music echoes the visuals in its theme.
For dozens of hours, I did not get tired of the musical style of the game and the soundtrack, and although it is not so variable, it is competently selected, relaxing in peacetime, and invigorating during battles. As a result, we have an excellent game that can keep you busy for more than one day. It has excellent visuals, humor and variability of development, capable of giving you both problems and pleasure. So far the game has problems with randomness and balance, but this only makes the game more interesting.
I hope that the developers will continue to develop and improve the game, and also add new cards and kings.
