Rocking out with Reign of Kings
The first loading screen tip I saw in Reign of Kings, the Early Access online survival crafting game, was this: "A sharp stone may be used to commit suicide." If a game's first 'The More You Know' moment involves instructions on killing yourself, you have to wonder what's in store for you.
The loading screen really buried the lede, though, failing to mention that 1) you can store this suicide-stone up your own butt, and 2) you have to bash yourself in the face with it for about two minutes before you actually expire.
I'm getting ahead of myself. We'll get to all that! Come read about my first hour playing Reign of Kings, won't you?
Bert the Oddly-Shaped
I'll say this: Reign of Kings provides far more flexibility than most games for tailoring your looks. Skinny arms? Giant hands and feet? A sunken chest and offputting beer belly and giant butt and bulbous forehead and gross beard and poop-colored face paint? Yes, you can do all of those things. My character, Bert The Oddly-Shaped, is ready for adventure.
Look, it's my butt
I spawn on a beach with a club and two torches. I know what I'm supposed to do: start knocking down trees and gathering rocks and crafting axes and stuff, but I spy a castle in the distance and decide to check it out first. I dash off, clad only in a loincloth, my giant feet slapping on the sand, my sizable buttcheeks glinting in the sun.
Night quickly falls, and after I accidentally lose both my torches because I was throwing them at a deer, I'm forced to creep around in near pitch-blackness. These two things happen:
1) I find a crate with a (human?) heart in it
2) Another player speaks in global chat. His username is 'festering anal wound.'
These are both good signs, right?
Strangers in the night
I run into another player. He is roleplaying, big time, and says things like "Well met, Good Sir!" and stuff like that. It's pretty great and he's having fun. He offers to become my ally in exchange for 200 of any resource. I tell him I only have 6 pieces of wood and a heart. He departs, politely, without making fun of my hideous body or asking about the heart.
What the eff
When morning comes, I'm looking at some player-made structures when some kind of weird monster thing attacks me. I didn't even know there were weird monsters in this game. I bring out my club and try to whomp it while it chases me with it's weird leathery body and long claws. It kills me pretty quickly.
A fair fight
Respawning back on the beach, I figure I'd better try to protect myself if the game has monsters and people named 'festering anal wound'. I hack at trees, I collect rocks and sticks, I pick flowers and flax, and raid the chests of absent players. I craft a few things, like an axe and a javelin and a skirt made of bark. I find a player asleep on the beach and throw a javelin into his neck. No reaction.
Bashing Face
I discover that I can craft a sharp rock, the one the loading screen told me could be used for suicide. I can also store it in my quickbar in the '0' slot, which is called 'orifice.' Basically, I can store the rock in my butthole. I do. I stick the rock right up my butt. Then I remove it and try to kill myself, discovering the process involves smashing myself in the face for several minutes.
You can click the 'enlarge' icon on the top right corner of the image to see the animation of me bashing my own face with a rock that was up my own butt. That is a thing you can do.
My butt again
It looks like it will take a long time to fill my 'Bashing Face' meter, so I put my rock back in my ass and move on. I take a little swim, which gives me a good chance to check out my giant feet and weird forearms and the crummy bark miniskirt that my giant rock-storing butt sticks through.
REIGN OF KINGS!
Shore party
I climb out of the water and find a bunch of crates and some stocks on the beach. I try to stick my head in the stocks but it doesn't work. I clonk one with my axe, and suddenly a dozen of those leather monsters appear as if they've been poured out of a bottle. An admin discouraging me from messing with his stuff, or a hacker? I'm not sure. Anyway, they kill me.
Dog things
I gather up more wood, find a fresh stone to stick up my ass, and continue exploring. My FPS suddenly takes a nosedive, and I discover why: there are roughly 100 monsters standing next to me. They are dog monsters this time. They don't seem to be attacking me, so I just stand there, but then they definitely seem to be attacking me. They attack me to death.
'There are 1000 monsters on the beach' I say in global chat.
'Someone's spawning them' is the reply.
Mountain king
Since the beach is covered with monsters, I craft a new wooden skirt and head toward the castle, which looks like a giant stone king whose sword forms a bridge. Cool. I decide to climb to the top. It takes me all night but I reach the sword and cross it. There's all sorts of player-made junk all over the place: blocks, crates, walls, doors, workbenches, stocks, cages. I don't see any players, though.
King of the King
I reach the top. The 'head' of the king is filled with player constructions: they've created steps leading to the top of the crown, there's all sorts of ramps and crates and walkways and things. I don't see any players inside, though. I don't feel like walking back down so I jump off the edge when I'm done looking around.
Two of my butts this time
Respawning back on the beach, I can't think of anything else I want to do, so I find a rock, put it in my butt, take it out of my butt, and smash myself in the face with it. When I die, for some reason, the game spawns two dead bodies of me, which both fall face-first into the sand, their butts sticking into the air. A moment later, a sack with my (our?) possessions appears above us and then plops to the beach next to our buttocks. The camera spins around us dramatically.
REIGN OF KINGS!
