David Ripplinger is a software engineer with a love of several retro games from his childhood. He and his siblings grew up with a Nintendo Entertainment System in their home. There was something unique and exciting about growing up with the very first Nintendo console. It felt groundbreaking. It opened up a world of discovery and challenge.

David also enjoys finding the best movies and TV shows to watch and mocking the ones that do dumb things. When he is not working or coding, you can find him watching shows, spending time with his family, and enjoying outdoor activities like disc golf and hammock camping.

Reign of the Judges is essentially a mod of Destiny of an Emperor, one of David's favorite childhood games. As such, it is a retro RPG (role playing game) with a turn-based battle system. It does not use the same code as Destiny of an Emperor, but it does borrow its graphics, game mechanics, and music. Additionally, some music in the game was written originally for this game, and some was borrowed from other various NES games and other sources.

The story of Reign of the Judges is adapted from the war chapters of the Book of Mormon. While David no longer believes in the Mormon church, he's still happy to share the game with others. The game includes very little religious tone, as that was never its purpose.

The game tells the story of the ancient Nephite civilization somewhere on the American continent. For a long time, the Nephites were ruled by monarchies like most nations at that time. But at the start of the game, they introduce a government of judges elected by the people, in order to ensure that the people's freedoms would last longer than simply until the next wicked king came along. However, it did not take long after the establishment of the judges for unrest and bloodshed to arise...

The beta release is ready! Simply go to the Download page! The initial release is for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. We may consider releasing an Android version someday in the future.

Because the game is essentially a mod of an NES game, the controls are analogous to the NES controller, which has up, down, left, right, A, B, select, and start. However, this game is played with the keyboard, using the arrow keys, x, z, right shift, and enter.

Generally, x is used for selecting actions. Z is used for canceling or backing out. Right shift is for opening the team status while in exploring mode. Enter is for opening the pause menu. Arrow keys are for moving your party around or moving to a different menu selection.

While in exploring mode (the mode you're usually in), press x at any time to access the command menu. This is how you perform most of your actions, such as talking to people and adjusting the formation of your party. In the pause menu, you can access a map that shows everywhere you have been, including the names of places.

You will enter battle mode when you have random encounters outside and when you approach unconquered places. We won't explain much about how to fight in the battles, as part of the fun of the game is gradually discovering the ins and outs of the battle system. But we will give a few basic pointers:

• There are eight commands available in a battle: battle, tactic, defend, item, all-out, report, retreat, and risk-it.

• All-out makes your party members do simple battle moves automatically and can speed up the process. You can cancel all-out at any time by pressing z.

• Risk-it also does simple battle moves automatically, but it does the entire battle instantaneously, making it even faster and a riskier option to choose. This is a new feature in Reign of the Judges that does not exist in Destiny of an Emperor and can help speed up gameplay a lot when fighting easier battles.

• If you want to use tactics in battle, you must first choose an acting tactician/strategist for your party. This is done from the command menu in exploring mode by pressing x, then selecting FORMATION and then STRAT. Your acting tactician knows certain tactics based on your party's level and his intelligence. He has a limited number of tactical points shared across the party. Enemy warlords, however, are their own acting tacticians and do not share tactical points across their party.

• You must equip a weapon, body armor, and helmet if they are to take effect in a battle. They are typically not equipped automatically. To equip, open the command menu in exploring mode by pressing x. Then select ITEM, select which party member, and select which item. Then select EQUIP to toggle the item's equipped status.