I played and completed Long Live the Queen in one setting. It was not my intention to spend four straight hours of the late evening (and early morning... up until 1:45 AM) playing this game. Nevertheless, once I began, I felt a tenacious urge to figure out how to beat it.

I came into this game knowing that there would be some frustration - there would be many different ways to die, no matter what strategy you chose. While this is true, and there were several times I had to completely start over because I played myself in a hole from which there was no way to survive, it only took me five main tries/restarts before I reached a successful ending. Given all the screaming reviews on Steam talking about the challenge, I thought it would take a little longer to win than four hours... I'm no supreme strategist... so while I would say that the game isn't easy to breeze through, I also wouldn't call it a BEAST of a challenge. It can give you moderate frustrations, nothing to the point of making you angry, but simply amused at dying yet again, and more determined to best the game.

I will say that, even though it took me only four hours to finish the game my first time, I feel as though it was worth the experience. I had fun!

From a gameplay standpoint, Long Live the Queen doesn't sound interesting. The gameplay aspect certainly didn't sound interesting to me when I first heard about this game. You basically click a few buttons and then read what happens. That's the full interactive element of it. Yes. All you do with this game is click choices. You click which classes you want to take (aka, what skills you want to invest in), you click which political/dialogue choices you want to take, and you click which activites you want to do over the weekend (to change what bonuses you get for learning different skills).

But again, there's this gripping quality of taking on the challenge. The game does have a way of making you not want to quit until you've made it to the end. You WANT to figure out how to survive. You WANT to beat this game when it tricks you into dying yet another way. You WANT to see if your gut choices will lead you to a good ending, or if you'll be surprised by something turning sour. That's the reason I played this game straight through with no break... I wanted, stubbornly, to reach the end.

Long Live the Queen is, in some ways, a game about the story. I wouldn't say that I found the story particularly gripping or the characters all that interesting. No character seemed to have much personality, for instance. It was also hard to keep track of the countries and characters in Long Live the Queen. The plotline does have a rise in action to a decent climax point, but it's not that deeply satisfying narrative you get with a story well-structured. But where Long Live the Queen has an interesting story is in how your choices affect yourself, the people around you, and your kingdom. It's interesting in how you will or won't survive, and in what state your kingdom will be if you finally do get crowned queen. That is what is primarily engaging about this game: the multitude of options, and the player's choices to tackle any one of those options. So it's the strategy, and how the strategy that affects the story, that makes this a worthwhile experience to have.

It really does have a multitude of options, by the way. I'm sure I've only experienced a fraction of what's possible to occur in the story. This will probably make the game have some good replay value... I can explore other choices, strategies, and avenues... and see if I can survive those treacherous routes, too!

One other small thing that's cool is that you can save your file - with the full text of the version you played - for a keepsake. It's a small thing, but I like that a lot. I can automatically store the choices I made and see what the story was start to end for my personal playthrough.

Altogether, I would say that this is an enjoyable game. I would recommend it to people who want to get mildly frustrated for a few hours, people who like the puzzle of beating semi-challenging odds, and people who like to explore many possible routes and possibilities.

I played and completed Long Live the Queen in one setting. It was not my intention to spend four straight hours of the late evening (and early morning... up until 1:45 AM) playing this game. Nevertheless, once I began, I felt a tenacious urge to figure out how to beat it. I came into this game knowing that there would be some frustration - there would be many different ways to die, no matter what strategy you chose. While this is true, and there were several times I had to completely start over because I played myself in a hole from which there was no way to survive, it only took me five main tries/restarts before I reached a successful ending. Given all the screaming reviews on Steam talking about the challenge, I thought it would take a little longer to win than four hours... I'm no supreme strategist... so while I would say that the game isn't easy to breeze through, I also wouldn't call it a BEAST of a challenge. It can give you moderate frustrations, nothing to the point of making you angry, but simply amused at dying yet again, and more determined to best the game. I will say that, even though it took me only four hours to finish the game my first time, I feel as though it was worth the experience. I had fun! From a gameplay standpoint, Long Live the Queen doesn't sound interesting. The gameplay aspect certainly didn't sound interesting to me when I first heard about this game. You basically click a few buttons and then read what happens. That's the full interactive element of it. Yes. All you do with this game is click choices. You click which classes you want to take (aka, what skills you want to invest in), you click which political/dialogue choices you want to take, and you click which activites you want to do over the weekend (to change what bonuses you get for learning different skills). But again, there's this gripping quality of taking on the challenge. The game does have a way of making you not want to quit until you've made it to the end. You WANT to figure out how to survive. You WANT to beat this game when it tricks you into dying yet another way. You WANT to see if your gut choices will lead you to a good ending, or if you'll be surprised by something turning sour. That's the reason I played this game straight through with no break... I wanted, stubbornly, to reach the end. Long Live the Queen is, in some ways, a game about the story. I wouldn't say that I found the story particularly gripping or the characters all that interesting. No character seemed to have much personality, for instance. It was also hard to keep track of the countries and characters in Long Live the Queen. The plotline does have a rise in action to a decent climax point, but it's not that deeply satisfying narrative you get with a story well-structured. But where Long Live the Queen has an interesting story is in how your choices affect yourself, the people around you, and your kingdom. It's interesting in how you will or won't survive, and in what state your kingdom will be if you finally do get crowned queen. That is what is primarily engaging about this game: the multitude of options, and the player's choices to tackle any one of those options. So it's the strategy, and how the strategy that affects the story, that makes this a worthwhile experience to have. It really does have a multitude of options, by the way. I'm sure I've only experienced a fraction of what's possible to occur in the story. This will probably make the game have some good replay value... I can explore other choices, strategies, and avenues... and see if I can survive those treacherous routes, too! One other small thing that's cool is that you can save your file - with the full text of the version you played - for a keepsake. It's a small thing, but I like that a lot. I can automatically store the choices I made and see what the story was start to end for my personal playthrough. Altogether, I would say that this is an enjoyable game. I would recommend it to people who want to get mildly frustrated for a few hours, people who like the puzzle of beating semi-challenging odds, and people who like to explore many possible routes and possibilities.