➤ Kingdomino Review: Create the most beautiful kingdom in the whole realm 🎮

Have you always wanted to be a king with the most beautiful terrain in the whole realm? Good! Kingdomino review is the one for you

Kingdomino is a game published by Blue Orange and distributed in Spain by Oliphante2. This is a small game that has however won great prizes, such as the Spiel des Jahres 2017, and has also received a nomination at the As d'Or -Jeu de l'Année - Cannes 2017. In Kingdomino you are kings who have the goal to build the most beautiful kingdom in the whole realm and to possess all the same territories.

Game components and purpose | Kingdomino Review

The components of Kingdomino are:

8 meeple (2 pink, 2 blue, 2 yellow and 2 green),
4 castles (one per color),
4 starting cards e
48 dominoes

With regard to weave, are divided into 5 different types of territories: wheat, meadow, sea, forest, mud and mine. Some territory tiles have crowns drawn on them, from a minimum of one to a maximum of three, which are used to accumulate points, but we will see this later. The purpose of the game is to be able to connect their tiles in such a way as to be able to form a realm of 5 x 5 boxes and accumulate more victory points.

Kingdomino Review: Create the most beautiful kingdom in the whole realm

Game Setup | Kingdomino Review

The setup varies based on the number of players. As for the markers, see i players are 2, each takes both meeples of their own color, while if i players are 3 or 4 each takes only one meeple of their own color. As regards the dominoesInstead, these are the quantities that are used based on the number of players:

2 players: 24 dominoes are discarded at random and played with the remaining 24
3 players: 12 dominoes are discarded at random and played with the remaining 36
4 players: it is played with all 48 dominoes

To start the game, take the following number of tiles from the draw pile:

3 tiles if playing with 3 players
4 tiles if playing with 2 or 4 players

Arrange the dominoes on the number side and in ascending order, then you can flip them on the landscape side. Now it's time to place the meeples on the tiles, choose the first player and in clockwise order each one will have to place his meeple on a tile of their choice (one per tile); this mode is valid only for the first placement. NB in case of a game with two players, each player will place two meeples of their color alternately. After making the first placement, place more tiles next to the first ones. It's time to play!

How to play? | Kingdomino Review

Game turn

From the second round onwards, the choice of tiles is made according to the order in which the meeples were placed in the previous round. Two actions are performed during the turn:

place the tile in your realm following the connection rules
choose the tile for the next round

This continues until the end of the rounds which are 12 if you play with 3 or 4 players and halve to 6 if you play with 2 players.

Connection rules

The realm must be 5 X 5 squares, a tile is made up of 2 squares. It is possible to play a card if:

it can be connected to the starting card (the one on which the castle is to be placed)
it can be connected to any other tile, matching a landscape, but only vertically or horizontally.

If a card cannot be connected, then it must be discarded. The tiles must necessarily remain within the 5 X 5 space, but if due to an incorrect placement you find yourself exiting that perimeter, then you are forced to eliminate one or more tiles without getting points.

End of the game

During the last turn you only perform the action of placing a tile in your realm, without choosing another one. It may happen that some realms are incomplete because the conditions suitable for placement have not been met. The points are calculated based on the number of crowns per territory multiplied by the number of tiles, of the same territory, connected to each other: for example if our realm is made up of 6 forest tiles and on one of them there are two crowns, then we have to do 2 × 6 and we get 12 points. Uncrowned squares that are disconnected from other tiles with the same territory are worth 0. Then the points of each territory containing the crowns are added up and this is the score that will determine the victory. In case of a tie whoever has the largest realm wins, if the tie persists whoever has the most crowns wins.

Additional optional rules | Kingdomino Review

The following rules can be added to the basic rules to make the game more interesting:

Dynasty: 3 rounds are played in a row, at the end the points of all three are added up and whoever has obtained the most wins
Middle Kingdom: 10 additional points are earned if the castle is perfectly placed in the center of the realm
Harmony: 5 points are scored if the realm is complete, ie when no tiles have been discarded
The great duel: these rules apply to games in 2 players. All dominoes are used and the size of the realm to be built increases to 7 X 7 squares.

Conclusion

Kingdomino is a perfect filler. It is a game suitable for families, for those who want to start approaching board games. The speed with which you can start and with which you play the starts, allows you to use it in the dead time where you want to spend time in a pleasant way or even after playing a heavier game, to lighten the evening. It may not be loved by those who prefer more strategic games, because Kingdomino is mostly based on randomness.