The King Is Watching developers Hypnohead have announced The Crab Is Walking, a roguelite city-building game in which you alternate between laying out tetromino-shaped city neighborhoods on the back of a colossal crustacean and sending armies of Mad Maxalots to slaughter wasteland bugs. Unlike The King Is Watching, you don’t need to actively fix your gaze on your crab metropolis to keep it from slackening.
I have fun imagining the brainstorming cycles that led from one game configuration to another. “King Wattling? The king is watching? The king is walking? That’s absurd, kings don’t walk, they have sedan chairs. Wait, what other things can be kings? Lions? Ridiculous, you could never build a city on a lion – their spines are too narrow. But crabs? Crabs have nice flat backs.” I should point out that the developers already seem to have had enough of their own premise: one of the monstrous cities in the screenshots is actually a spider. What a slap in the face for oncologists! Here’s a trailer.
They promise “deep strategy combined with short-term actions.” Each race, you choose a different Ride on which to found a colony and a different Rider to lead your friends into battle against post-apocalyptic wildlife. Each Ride/Rider combo produces different playstyles. “Play to your advantages, work with your weaknesses, and find the pair that suits you,” the developers advise. “The rabbit was fast. The turtle was persistent. You have a giant crab.” Okay, Hypnohead, are you referring to a proverb or can I build a city on a rabbit in this game? Because if that’s the case, I’m going to report you for false advertising.
Between battles with the chirping wretches of the vast nothing sand, you’ll organize and combine districts on a grid to increase production, fuel your Ride, or strengthen your army. I’m not sure how the combat aspect works, but it looks like an autobattler in the trailer.
In a Steam blog post, Hypnohead addresses the question of why they aren’t (currently) making The King Is Watching 2. “We’re still working on The King is Watching and releasing new content for it, so now is not the time for a sequel,” they comment. “Our next update will focus more on gameplay variety, and we already have a fairly large file full of ideas for where its core mechanics could go. We also have a much better understanding of what players enjoy about the game, and we’ll incorporate those lessons into everything we create from here on. So, who knows? Maybe one day this file will become something more…”
They add that “The Crab is Walking gives us the opportunity to try things that weren’t possible or practical in The King is Watching”, which might sound ridiculous out of context, but it’s actually about how they became artists and designers. “We are working with a different resolution, allowing for more detailed pixel art and more elaborate animations,” the developers continue. “We’re also introducing more sophisticated unit behavior, combat stats, and a more practical, polished interface.”
The Crab Is Walking doesn’t yet have a release date, but testing will begin in 2027. Clawsome! Learn more about Steam.
