Hi guys,

My best friend and I are currently developing our dream game: a turn-based 4X strategy game condensed into one-hour matches. Our goal is to bring the joy of the genre to people who does not want to spend the whole weekend for one playthrough 😉

The best part: the demo was released last week so you can try the game for free! Every wishlist and everyone who tries the game matter sooo much for me and my partner. We spend 2 years on the project and now we would love to see people play it. Btw. I think we created a rather smart enemy-AI that can easily compete with good players without bonuses/advatages.

So if you have 60 minutes and want to support a small indie studio, I would love to see you try the game😊

Cheers,
Eric & Emanuel

Hi guys,

My best friend and I are currently developing our dream game: a turn-based 4X strategy game condensed into one-hour matches. Our goal is to bring the joy of the genre to people who does not want to spend the whole weekend for one playthrough 😉

The best part: the demo was released last week so you can try the game for free! Every wishlist and everyone who tries the game matter sooo much for me and my partner. We spend 2 years on the project and now we would love to see people play it. Btw. I think we created a rather smart enemy-AI that can easily compete with good players without bonuses/advatages.

So if you have 60 minutes and want to support a small indie studio, I would love to see you try the game😊

Cheers,
Eric & Emanuel

Hello everyone,

this is Eric & Emanuel - we are two friends who know each other since kindergarten and we've just released the demo of our dream game.

Imagine Civilization but in a shorter format... that's Monarchs at Play! I am here to tell you, that the demo is out NOW. So if you'd like to play a match of Civilization but don't have the time, feel free to try our game for free and tell us what you think.

We are happy about every player and hope that we can bring the joy of strategic 4X games to an audience that does not want to spend hours on just the early game or rerolling several times ;)

P.S. to all hardcore players who beat "Deity" with ease: I think we've crafted a worthy AI (with no advantages/bonusses) that is really crunchy to beat, you should def try it yourself!

That's all from us for now - we wish you happy building and I am looking forward to your feedback, opinions and highscores in the challenge mode.

My partner (and best friend, we know each other since kindergarten) and I had one goal we wanted to reach while developing our indie 4x game: bring the strategic depth and joy of Civilization into a much faster format. The main reason for that: we love the game series (Civ5 & Civ6 are the best 😉) but we do not want to spend our whole free time for 17 re-starts and one half-finished game.

1 year ago, we spoke with some people at a physical indie-gaming event and found out that a big part of civ-lovers share our wish in a “Civ but fast”-game.

Today, we are just a few weeks away from our demo and the hard part of being a game dev starts: marketing🥹

So I'm throwing this into the community:
If “Civ, but fast” sounds like something you'd enjoy, I'd love to hear what you think.
And if you want to follow the project, a Steam wishlist would mean a lot to us. ❤️

My partner (and best friend, we know each other since kindergarten) and I had one goal we wanted to reach while developing our indie 4x game: bring the strategic depth and joy of Civilization into a much faster format. The main reason for that: we love the game series (Civ5 & Civ6 are the best 😉) but we do not want to spend our whole free time for 17 re-starts and one half-finished game.

1 year ago, we spoke with some people at a physical indie-gaming event and found out that a big part of civ-lovers share our wish in a “Civ but fast”-game.

Today, we are just a few weeks away from our demo and the hard part of being a game dev starts: marketing🥹

So I'm throwing this into the community:
If “Civ, but fast” sounds like something you'd enjoy, I'd love to hear what you think.
And if you want to follow the project, a Steam wishlist would mean a lot to us. ❤️

My partner (and best friend, we know each other since kindergarten) and I had one goal we wanted to reach while developing our indie 4x game: bring the strategic depth and joy of Civilization into a much faster format. The main reason for that: we love the game series (Civ5 & Civ6 are the best 😉) but we do not want to spend our whole free time for 17 re-starts and one half-finished game.

1 year ago, we spoke with some people at a physical indie-gaming event and found out that a big part of civ-lovers share our wish in a “Civ but fast”-game.

Today, we are just a few weeks away from our demo and the hard part of being a game dev starts: marketing🥹

So I'm throwing this into the community:
If “Civ, but fast” sounds like something you'd enjoy, I'd love to hear what you think.
And if you want to follow the project, a Steam wishlist would mean a lot to us. ❤️

My partner (and best friend, we know each other since kindergarten) and I had one goal we wanted to reach while developing our indie 4x game: bring the strategic depth and joy of Civilization into a much faster format. The main reason for that: we love the game series (Civ5 & Civ6 are the best 😉) but we do not want to spend our whole free time for 17 re-starts and one half-finished game.

1 year ago, we spoke with some people at a physical indie-gaming event and found out that a big part of civ-lovers share our wish in a “Civ but fast”-game.

Today, we are just a few weeks away from our demo and the hard part of being a game dev starts: marketing🥹

So I'm throwing this into the community:
If “Civ, but fast” sounds like something you'd enjoy, I'd love to hear what you think.
And if you want to follow the project, a Steam wishlist would mean a lot to us. ❤️

My partner (and best friend, we know each other since kindergarten) and I had one goal we wanted to reach while developing our indie 4x game: bring the strategic depth and joy of Civilization into a much faster format. The main reason for that: we love the game series (Civ5 & Civ6 are the best 😉) but we do not want to spend our whole free time for 17 re-starts and one half-finished game.

1 year ago, we spoke with some people at a physical indie-gaming event and found out that a big part of civ-lovers share our wish in a “Civ but fast”-game.

Today, we are just a few weeks away from our demo and the hard part of being a game dev starts: marketing🥹

So I'm throwing this into the community:
If “Civ, but fast” sounds like something you'd enjoy, I'd love to hear what you think.
And if you want to follow the project, a Steam wishlist would mean a lot to us. ❤️

My partner (and best friend, we know each other since kindergarten) and I had one goal we wanted to reach while developing our indie 4x game: bring the strategic depth and joy of Civilization into a much faster format. The main reason for that: we love the game series (Civ5 & Civ6 are the best 😉) but we do not want to spend our whole free time for 17 re-starts and one half-finished game.

1 year ago, we spoke with some people at a physical indie-gaming event and found out that a big part of civ-lovers share our wish in a “Civ but fast”-game.

Today, we are just a few weeks away from our demo and the hard part of being a game dev starts: marketing🥹

So I'm throwing this into the community:
If “Civ, but fast” sounds like something you'd enjoy, I'd love to hear what you think.
And if you want to follow the project, a Steam wishlist would mean a lot to us. ❤️

The public playtest is live NOW for our turn-based strategy game Monarchs at Play where matches only last an hour instead of a whole weekend.

We appreciate every feedback on our Discord Server

— Made with Godot by two lifelong friends —

Hi guys, we‘ve build a new version for our game Monarchs at Play - a turn-based strategy game where one match just lasts one hour!

Feel free to try the new playtest an leave feedback on Discord😊

Link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4179890/Monarchs\_at\_Play/

Hi guys!

I am currently developing a turn-based 4x game with one-hour matches.

We are getting closer to our demo and need to plan the rest of the project.

How important are Steam achievements for yourself? I like them, but of course it is some work you have to do as a game developer so I want to evaluate whether it's worth the amount of time or not :D

So please let me know if achievements are something that you need/like/dislike in a 4x game.

Cheers,
Eric

Hey! Thought I’d share some results from our first closed playtest in case it’s useful.

We’re working on a small turn-based 4X where a full match only takes ~1 hour, and everything (even military) is handled through building placement.

TL;DR

First playtest went great, but a technical issue skewed some metrics. Still learned a ton.

The Numbers

• 557 invites sent
• 78 via Steam friends feature (~14%)
• 228 unique players (~40% activation)
• +400 wishlists
• +50 followers
• avg. 31 daily active users

Playtime stats:

• median: 21 minutes
• BUT 16 players had 200+ minutes

The Big Issue

We had a D3D12-related bug that made the game barely playable for some users. That likely explains the low median playtime. Good news: already fixed for the next playtest.

What Surprised Us

• Challenge mode scores went WAY higher than expected → clearly some players already min-maxing hard
• Steam friends feature actually mattered (more than expected)
• Small but very engaged Discord growth (+12, but high quality users)

External Traffic

We got really lucky here:

• Nookrium streamed the game
• Writing Bull also played it on stream

They both turned the streams into YouTube videos, which helped sustain interest.

One Fun Detail

Our wishlist graph formed an “M” during the test.
We’re choosing to believe it stands for “Monarchs” xD

Final Thought

Even with a broken build for some players, the response was super encouraging. Next playtest isn’t far away, curious to see how things change with a stable version.

Happy to answer questions if you have any :)