Have You Played… Fit For A King?
Press "R" to reform the Catholic Church
Fit For A King is, very simply, one of the funniest games I’ve played. “Marry everything, execute everything, spend it all, go mad”, runs the tagline for this so-called “Henry VIII simulator”, and I couldn’t put it better myself.
The game itself looks like it was dredged from the bad end of the 1980s, complete with horrific, grindingly atonal sound effects, and a version of medieval belter Pastime With Good Company, that somehow sounds even better after being hauled through the depths of chiptune hell.
You play as an extremely basic sprite of a king, lurching jerkily and square by square through a world populated by courtiers, peasants, and one extremely aggressive bear. You’ve got a preposterous list of hotkey actions with which to interact with this world, including X for execute, Y for Yell, and - my personal favourite - R for Reform the Catholic Church.
While Fit For A King could have been full of lazy, bargain bin Blackadder jokes, it’s got a wonderfully dadaist edge to its humour instead, and an indefinable atmosphere I could only call early 2000s web game energy.
It doesn’t overstay its welcome, either. The game lasts just long enough that the goofs never get stale, nor the control scheme tiresome. I played it for exactly one hour, and felt perfectly satisfied that I’d had the best of it. For a fiver on Steam, that’s exactly what I’m looking for, and I’d recommend it to anyone.