The Witcher is a perfect fit for Reigns’ Tinder-like roleplaying

I never knew how easy it was to die in an orgy. But that’s just one of the many threats Geralt of Rivia faces in his latest adventure. The studio behind the Reign A Tinder-like, choose-your-own-adventure game series has now been adapted The Witcherafter a handful of original titles and a version Game of Thrones. And for François Alliot, creative director at Reign studio Nerial, the series’ structure actually makes it an ideal way to ease players into sprawling fantasies like this. “There’s something about the way you can turn very complex worlds and stories and scenarios into simple actions,” he says. “It can work in many contexts.”

What makes Reign the way he distills every action into a binary choice is so accessible. As you play, you are presented with cards and you progress by swiping right or left. In the case of The Witcherfor example, an elf might ask Geralt for protection, and your options are simply to say yes or no, then deal with the consequences. Each part of the game involves making a number of these decisions to progress the storyline until you die.

The idea was for Reigns: the witcher work on two levels. For existing fans, it’s a fun way to play and experience the world. “It’s not new Witcher” notes Alliot. “It’s a meta-game around this universe, sort of like a fanfiction simulator.” But for those who might be intimidated by the franchise, which spans multiple books, games and TV shows, it’s also a good place to start. “It works well as an entry point because you can really get a sense of the tone and rules, or lack of rules, of the world,” says narrative designer Oscar Harrington-Shaw. “But you don’t have to engage in a complex RPG.”

There are several aspects of Reign formula that had to be modified to work with The Witcher. One of the key ideas of the games is that you can die; in the original Reign you played the role of a king, and once that was over, you became their successor. But that doesn’t really work when you’re playing a character like Geralt who can’t die. So you’re not actually playing the role of Geralt; instead, you’re his bard friend Dandelion, singing tales of Geralt’s exploits that may or may not be true. This allowed Nerial’s team to “break free of lore,” as Alliot describes it, and have fun with things. This is particularly evident in the deaths, which take the form of the aforementioned orgies or even Geralt drinking himself to an early grave.

“It really helped in two ways,” says Harrington-Shaw of the idea for Dandelion, which grew out of discussions with Witcher studio CD Projekt Red. “One is that it helps explain the loop; it gives a really cool ending point. And we can have a lot of fun deaths because it’s just a satisfying ending to a song. But we think it adds a really fun tension because you’re playing the role of Geralt and you’re trying to survive, but you’re also trying to write good content.”

As I played, this setup made me much more open to experimentation. Instead of trying to play Geralt, I would often make strange choices just to see what happened. This, in turn, helps open up new storylines, thus rewarding a seemingly wrong decision. Even an early death can lead to something interesting in future races.

The other notable addition in Reigns: the witcher is a combat system. It wouldn’t be The Witcher if Geralt wasn’t killing monsters, but the idea of ​​battles also had the potential to complicate the streamlined process. Reign structure. The team opted for a sort of rhythm game, in which you move Geralt from side to side on a board to attack or avoid monsters. What makes this system work within the limits of Reign is that you always use the same commands; Whether you’re making a crucial decision or watching a strige, it all comes down to swiping right or left.

Despite these changes, Harrington-Shaw says that The Witcher the universe is an almost ideal choice for Reign thanks to its dark sense of humor and its often dark world filled with opposing factions. But the most important thing is the main witcher himself. “Geralt is always faced with these tricky binary choices,” he says. “The world of The Witcher is full of murky, gray morality, and it seemed perfect to translate.

_{Reigns: the witcher is now available on PC and mobile.}