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Swipe Monarch is a free online kingdom decision game. You rule the invented realm of Aldermarch from a chair, and the whole job is answering petitions: a cleric wants the tithe in grain, a marshal wants a levy, a guild wants to set the price of winter bread. Each answer moves some of the four faction meters — Temple, Commons, Banners, Treasury — and a meter that empties ends your reign, as does a meter that fills. A Temple that loves you too much crowns itself; a Treasury too full buys a chancellor who does not need you. That two-sided danger is the whole game: you are not raising numbers, you are staying in the middle of four things that pull against each other. The card never tells you how much an answer moves, only which way, so it is a game of reading a court rather than doing arithmetic. Choices set the realm remembering: send riders north and the north sends an army back, mint the coin light and the guilds start weighing it. Every season the crown pays its upkeep whatever it decides, so drifting is not an option either. Five reigns, from a quiet accession to a long, loud one. No download, no account.
How to play Swipe Monarch
- A petitioner puts a request to you. Every request has exactly two answers.
- Drag the card left or right to lean toward an answer, and let go past the halfway point to give it. The two buttons underneath do the same thing, and so do the left and right arrow keys — or the 1 and 2 keys.
- Leaning shows arrows on the four meters: which ones the answer would move, and which way. It never shows by how much.
- The four meters are Temple, Commons, Banners and Treasury. All four start in the middle.
- A meter that empties ends your reign — and so does a meter that fills. Being loved too much is as fatal as being hated.
- Every season the crown pays its upkeep out of the Treasury, whatever you decided that season. Doing nothing still costs money.
- Your answers are remembered. Ride out against a raid and the raiders come back as an army; buy a relic and the Temple expects another.
- Survive the reign’s full run of seasons and you keep the throne. The counter shows the season you are on out of the full run.
- Each reign is longer than the last, the court reacts more strongly to every answer, and more of the four meters start out leaning.
- New Reign deals a different court on the same level. After a reign ends, Try Again gives you the same one back.
Tips
- Watch the meter that is furthest from the middle, not the one that just moved. The one about to kill you is rarely the one you were thinking about.
- An answer that fixes your worst meter while pushing two others outward is usually still the right answer. Nothing here is free.
- The Treasury falls on its own every season, so take the money answers before you are desperate rather than after.
- A meter near the top is in as much danger as one near the bottom. If the Temple is nearly full, start refusing it.
- Read the petitioner, not just the request. The Marshal never asks for something that helps the Commons.
- Consequences arrive a few seasons after the choice that caused them, so a cheap answer now often lands on a worse season later.
- When both answers look bad, pick the one that moves fewer meters. Fewer moving parts is easier to correct next season.
- The later reigns start with meters already leaning. Spend the first few seasons straightening them rather than chasing points.
FAQ
Is Swipe Monarch free to play?
Yes. It runs in the browser with no download, no sign-up and nothing to buy. All five reigns are included and unlock as you clear them.
How do I lose?
Any one of the four meters reaching either end. Empty is the obvious one — an unpaid army leaves, an empty treasury empties the court. Full is the other half: a Temple stronger than the crown reduces you to reading its prayers, and commons who adore you will happily crown a baker instead. Each of the eight endings has its own line.
Does the card tell me what an answer will cost?
It tells you which meters move and in which direction, and never by how much. That is deliberate — with the numbers on screen the game becomes arithmetic, and the difficulty is measured on a bot that sees exactly as much as you do.
What is the upkeep?
An amount the Treasury loses every season no matter what you answered — the same every season within a reign, though not the same from reign to reign. Without it the game cannot really be lost by anyone paying attention: almost every petition has one answer that pulls your worst meter back, so a bot that just followed the arrows survived every reign. The upkeep is the leak that forces you to take answers for the money even when they cost you elsewhere.
Do my earlier answers come back?
Yes. Fourteen petitions are consequences, each waiting on something you chose earlier: the northern raid you answered, the levy you called, the coin you had minted lighter, the midwife you saved. They arrive while you still remember choosing, which is what makes a run one reign rather than a stack of unrelated dilemmas.
Do the answers actually matter?
Yes, and it is measured rather than claimed. Three bots play sixty reigns of every level in the tests: one that reads the hidden numbers, one that sees only the arrows you see, and one that flips a coin. The coin-flipper holds the throne 23% of the time on the first reign and never on the last two; the arrow-reader manages 100% falling to 38% as the reigns get longer.
How many reigns are there?
Five, from fourteen seasons to thirty-two. Each is longer than the one before and moves the meters further per answer, and the later ones start with more of the court already leaning rather than all four factions in the middle.
Is the kingdom based on a real place?
No. Aldermarch, its factions, its petitioners and every line they speak are invented for this game.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes — dragging the card with a thumb is the natural way to play it. The meters sit two by two on a narrow screen and the two answers stack into full-width buttons.