Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim

Got this free through the Amazon Appstore a few weeks ago. Majesty is a mostly hands-off RTS -- with basic mechanics not unlike Dwarfs, in that your troops mostly take care of themselves, but with a heavier emphasis on kingdom-building, upgrading, and managing the creation and maintenance of your foot-soldiers. It's a much lighter experience than something you'd play with a mouse and keyboard, but still with enough depth that there is some challenge, and it suits the mobile platform well.

Getting the hang of the game economy is a little rough - since if you don't set up your marketplace early, use its income buff frequently, upgrade your castle appropriately, and expand the reach of your kingdom, you're going to have trouble keeping up with the game's financial needs - and it's a little irritating that you basically need Rangers to explore at all, even though they die at the drop of a hat. But once I got past those mechanical gotchas, Majesty became a pretty good time-waster. The strategy isn't very deep, such that you typically don't need to worry about monster lairs near your kingdom, or any sort of sophisticated attack or defense; you just need to survive long enough that your kingdom can support a strong army, then send that army after each of your targets.

Interestingly, there are some brief hints of fantasy-satire humor in a few pre- and post-mission descriptions, a slight reminder of Magicka. But there is never really any meaningful exposition or plot in the game. It's just a series of missions, with objectives loosely based on some fantasy scenario.

If it wasn't free, I wouldn't have paid for it: Majesty is good for a mobile game, but still not really a good game; it's simple, short, and not particularly unique. Like I said, though, it is a fairly effective time-waster for dicking around on your phone.

Better than: any other mobile game I've tried so far
Not as good as: a real video game with a real controller or keyboard
There's a tenth, bonus mission: but I don't know if I care enough to unlock it (by getting a Gold ranking in the other nine)

Progress: Finished the main nine missions