Overthrown Preview

I got the chance to check out the demo for a game called Overthrown, developed by Brimstone and published by Maximum Entertainment. In this chaotic city builder (what?), you play as a Monarch who is out to establish their own kingdom with the help of an ancient soul-stealing crown. I’m sure nothing will go wrong with that little detail, will it? What got me interested in this game was the movement mechanics. I mean, what city builder lets you wall jump and air dash? Well, let’s find out and check out what’s available in this demo.

My play session started by creating a world and spawning in the middle of nowhere with nothing but my fists, not even the aforementioned crown. However, after getting to grips with the controls, I was able to quickly find it and establish a town hall. Unlike other city builders, you aren’t an omnipotent being that oversees the entire landscape, but a small yet extremely overpowered human. While you can shift to a top-down view, you’ll be on the ground with the townsfolk, researching structures, and placing down buildings that will turn an empty plot into a thriving community.

You’ll need to take care of your villagers, keeping them fed, safe, and happy while you’re out and about. If you’re an irresponsible and tyrannical ruler, some of those villagers will defect and become bandits themselves! Speaking of which, after completing a couple of tasks, the game indicated that I only had a couple of days to gather the resources needed to fend off a bandit raid at the end of the season, so I quickly got to work. You aren’t exactly one of the idle rulers who lead from the back after all.

Thanks to the power of the crown, the Monarch has gained a few special powers such as sprinting at breakneck speeds and the strength to rip trees out of the ground no matter how massive they are, and can even throw them at buildings to refine the raw materials. The only limit to your abilities is your stamina, and even then you have nine bars to spend. However, if they happen to encounter trouble like hostile wildlife or bandits, you can defend yourself by equipping weapons to help take out anyone and anything in your way. For the demo, I was able to unlock a sword, a shield, and a greatsword. They aren’t too different from one another, and the lack of a lock-on mechanic made it feel a little clunky, but it works well.

Overthrown’s demo was roughly 90 minutes, which translates to around six days of frantically running around trying to establish defences and stockpiling food to survive the winter, but it was more than enough to excite me for what’s to come. There’s obviously still quite a bit of work that needs to be done such as refining the UI and properly teaching game mechanics. I had a blast and I wanted to play more, but sadly the demo ended when winter rolled around! It was probably for the best as there were numerous problems of shortages that would guarantee the complete annihilation of my burgeoning kingdom. I look forward to further developments of Overthrown.