User:The Night Watch/sandbox4

Reigns was developed by the London-based games studio Nerial. Developer François Alliot was considering leaving the games industry after several failed projects, and pitched the game's concept to publisher Devolver Digital. The company's associate Nigel Lowrie enjoyed the game's demo, presenting it to the rest of the staff, and Devolver Digital arranged a deal with Nerial. The developers were especially influenced by the dating app Tinder, which influenced the swiping gameplay. Alliot wanted to make a game that would "mock the way our societies tend to deal with complexity" and drew comparisons between the game and the Brexit referendum, opining that the decision was as simple as swiping of a card but had lasting political consequences. The earliest version of the game placed the characters inside portraits, but the developers quickly subsituted these paintings for cards, as they felt that layers would be used to moving cards around, and removing the need for a formal tutorial.

The writing was designed to be quick and simple, which was in contrast to Alliot's usual style of writing with complex sentence structures. He introduced several subplots that ran parallel with the main narrative, and added that the writing of the cards was formatted to be a "short direct question, quick snappy answer, dire consequences". Alliot was particularly inspired by the Oulipo, a group of French writers who experimented with constrained writing. The plot centered on the Devil was introduced near the end, as Alliot needed a reason to explain why the characters repeated themselves and why the player would continue as a new king. The game was released on 16 August, 2016 for Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, and Windows. A port for Nintendo Switch was launched on 20 September, 2018. By August 2019 the game had sold 2 million copies.