Yes, Your Grace Review: A Kingdom Sim With Heavy Choices

Leadership isn’t easy, even if games often make it out to be simple. Titles like the best-selling Civilization 6 turn towards the big picture of world domination, not concerning its players with the trivial matters of the people within such expansive kingdoms. Yes, Your Grace takes a different approach, including the day-to-day worries of individuals during a period of national trouble for a beleaguered monarch.

Yes, Your Grace comes from UK-based indie studio Brave At Night, and it’s been in the pipeline for some time. The game first appeared on Kickstarter all the way back in 2015, and over time Yes, Your Grace has grown into an ambitious project that combines kingdom management with a focus on character ties. A lot of the time it hits the mark, although sometimes its own limitations stop it from truly having the impact it attempts.

One of the core successes in Yes, Your Grace is the way that it ties mundanity into its larger plot. Although the player, cast as King Eryk of Davern, is thrown into the more exciting issues that a medieval fantasy king would have to deal with – such as invasions, assassinations, and plots – it never shies from how basic concerns still continue. The majority of the gameplay is spent on these aspects, as petitioners come to Eryk asking for support with business needs and low-key problems.

This grounded tone works in Yes, Your Grace‘s favor. Its overall lynchpin and gameplay direction revolves around the binary choice to either help or not help people, as Eryk tries to handle the resources of gold, supplies, and contentment. Although the game has gained comparisons to Papers, Please, in reality it feels closer to card-based management sim Reigns in its approach.

Yes, Your Grace does build a wider overarching plot out of its lower-key actions. It’s a complex and strong story, filled with prophecy, Game of Thrones-esque political machination and emotional weight. Davern is under threat from a dangerous external force following a promise made by Eryk many years earlier, and the player is tasked with finding a way to keep the kingdom safe.

It’s here that Yes, Your Grace shines, as it allows its characters room to breathe. Eryk’s family has a lot more personality than one might expect from a management-heavy game, such as youngest daughter and animal lover Cedari. As such, the game gives the player plenty of time to try and support the family itself, acting as another dynamic to manage through the threat of invasion.

This leads to the main positive friction in Yes, Your Grace. Resources and time are limited, and the scope of the king’s power is also under strain. Because of this, the player then faces that conundrum of whether to care for the individuals in their court, be they family or not, against the tide of larger political goals that need to be addressed.

Yes, Your Grace makes this particularly true when dealing with the various lords that the player can turn to for support. None seek to help Davern out of pure loyalty, asking for everything from assisting with drug smuggling through to uncovering the fraudulent heroics of other lords in the realm. As the plot moves on, the question of who to trust becomes another aspect that needs to be thought about, as Davern’s list of allies grows smaller and smaller.

Unfortunately the positives of Yes, Your Grace are undermined by the fabric of its core mechanic. By its nature Yes, Your Grace relies heavily on binary choices – whether to help or ignore those in need – and the volume of these ultimately leads to many being disappointed (including the player through hindsight). This wouldn’t necessarily be an issue, but its lack of subtlety causes problems.

This leads to a lot of frustration, particularly when the kingdom comes under trouble and the minor foibles of the population still hold as much resource weight as they did in chapters gone. It’s easy to choose between increasing siege effectiveness and a religious festival when faced with destruction from an outside force, but Yes, Your Grace treats them with as much weight mechanically.

There are things that break up this issue throughout Yes, Your Grace‘s playtime. Key examples include battle management or the minor point-and-click puzzle elements that are introduced to help solve the mystery of its second act. Unfortunately overall Yes, Your Grace lacks the charm of fellow No More Robots stablemate Not Tonight, which utilizes similar simple mechanics with more precision.

Despite its flaws Yes, Your Grace is still an interesting game with a strong enough core concept. Those after a clean-cut kingdom simulator will come away uncomfortable with their lack of control, but that’s really the point; Yes, Your Grace is about how even leadership has its limits, and all we can do is try to do the right thing where we can.

Yes, Your Grace releases March 6, 2020 for PC. Screen Rant was provided with a download code for the purposes of this review.

About The Author

Rob Gordon
(639 Articles Published)

Rob Gordon is a writer and musician from Brighton, United Kingdom. A Creative Writing Masters graduate from the University of Exeter, Rob has his roots in fiction writing but also has extensive experience writing about video games and the video game industry. As well as this, Rob is at home with a focus on film and television, particularly when it comes to the realms of horror. Alongside his writing, Rob plays in two UK-based musical acts, the electro-pop band Palomino Club and rock band Titans & Kings, and also lends his vocal talents to the Big Boys Don’t Cry podcast, which reviews and discusses romantic comedies. The bands and the podcast can be found on all good digital distribution platforms, and Rob can also be found on Twitter.

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