Yes, Your Grace: Snowfall

Developer: Brave At Night

Release Date: 2024

Rule your crumbling kingdom as you try to satisfy the petty needs of your people in this cinematic kingdom management RPG. Balance your resources, collect taxes, hire agents and make difficult decisions to see your kingdom prosper or fail.

It feels really important to preface this post by saying – Yes, Your Grace: Snowfall is a direct sequel and I highly recommend playing the original game, ‘Yes, Your Grace‘, first. Deciding not to is a viable and reasonable choice, but since I had such a phenomenal time with it, it would be a disservice not to explain why.

Firstly, this game opens with a recap of all the major story beats of the first. This was fantastic for me as it is quite a while since I played it and great for anyone who isn’t going to, but if you even have a slight interest in a Game of Thrones the video game, kingdom simulating, stressful decision making, trauma inducing, jolly old time then do consider going back and playing before spoiling it. If you like this game you will almost certainly like that one too and it is worth your time. Secondly, if you wish, choices you make in the first game carry over into this one, meaning that everyone can have their own slightly different canonical story. How much do these choices impact this game? Only time will tell but at the very least – somewhat. For me, I love the idea that some of my desperate decisions to survive the first game may come back to bite me in a sequel that I had no idea was even going to be made at the time. It is almost poetic with the themes of the game.

Alright, I have made my pitch, now onto Snowfall itself. This demo raised my blood pressure. As soon as I found myself perched back into my familiar throne room I was overcome with feelings from the first game. Feelings of life or death stress, trying to please everyone and barely scraping by… and it made me so happy. Even from the hour that I played, the demo confirmed that at it’s core, it is going to follow a very similar structure to the first. A structure of impossible choices, humorous and heart felt family time, tragedy, responsibility, treachery and hope, but with some shiny new upgrades.

The intensity of the resource management is felt after the very first week where you may be finding yourself squeezing your community for all its worth just so that you can pay one of your staff. This is also when we get to feel some of the new mechanics of the game. Resources have categories, and while it may feel harder to have stock of everything you might require, satisfying villagers needs can be more flexible as a result. More flexible, but also difficult to optimise most efficiently. Excursions beyond the castle have also been upgraded, adding another weight to balance on the scales, attempting to do enough to drive folks stories forward while still being able to tend to new folk in need.

Finally, and possibly the most grateful change to me is the ability to ask your people to wait once they have told you their woes. The one little change that changes everything – “Hold up a minute sir, let me back out this request for a second, let me go and have a mooch around to see if I can scrape some supplies together before I commit to rejecting your cry for help, dooming your friends to death. I am back! Yeah sorry I couldn’t afford to buy what you need but at least I tried, come back in a few days and maybe I will have saved enough money to pay for the funeral.” In the previous game you had to make a decision there and then so talking to people felt like a huge commitment in itself.

Of course there are other things to mention like the graphical and cinematic updates, but the biggest thing that I want to point out is that this demo gave me faith that this sequel is the perfect kind of sequel. It takes what was good about the first game, makes some QoL changes, presents a slightly different challenge while retaining the tone that made me fall in love with it originally. I can only pray that this game goes smoother than the first did as I am not sure how much more the King can take.

Demo Length – 1+ hour
At a glance
+ A true sequel.
+ Maintains the charm and draw of the first game.
+ Cinematics add to the drama.
+ A fun family to follow through their life.
+ Weighty decisions.
+ QoL upgrades.
+ More layers to the resource management.
+ Decisions follow from first game.