Friday Filler: Kingdomino

Kingdomino is notable for both for the word play of its clever title and being the 2017 Spiel des Jahres award. Published by Blue Orange, the game combines the matching game play of traditional Dominoes with a tile drafting mechanic in a bright, attractive, and tactile package that can played and enjoyed by the family, whilst also offering just enough complexity to keep the experienced games player interested. It is designed to be played by between two and four players, aged eight and above, and can played in fifteen minutes. In the game, players will take it in turn to draft and play tiles to create the different terrain of their kingdoms. Some of the terrain is marked with crowns. Each player will score points for the areas of terrain that he creates, the bigger the area and the more crowns he has in an area, the more points he will score. The player at the end of the game with the most points wins the game.

The game consists of four starting tiles, eight King meeples, and four castles, all in four colours. The meat of the game consists of its tiles. There are forty-eight of these, eight centimetres by four centimetres in size, numbered from one to forty-eight on the back, and divided into two squares on the front. The front of the tiles are marked with six different terrain types—Field, , Forest, Lake, Meadow, Mine, and Swamp. Some have two different terrain types on the front, others have the same terrain on the whole of the tile.

At the start of the game, the forty-eight tiles are mixed up and a number randomly selected, adjusted for the number of players. These are mixed up again and placed face down in a draw pile. Four tiles are drawn and placed face up in ascending order. Each player places a King meeple on a tile that he wants, the order on the first turn, determined randomly. Then a second set of four tiles are drawn and placed alongside the first, again in ascending order. Then the player who selected the last tile, takes that tile and adds it to his kingdom, and with his spare King meeple, places it on the tile of his choice in the other row of tiles. Then the next player does the same, until the player who chose first gets to take the tile of his choice, adds it to his kingdom, and places his spare King meeple on the remaining tile which has not be selected. In later turns, the order in which a player takes a tile, places it in his kingdom, and then picks a new tile to place next turn, is determined by the tile number. Tiles with lower numbers are taken first and the players who chose them, get to pick a new tile before the players who selected a tile with a higher value. Thus, from one round to the next, the order of play will change and fluctuate.

Tiles with higher numbers tend to have crowns on them which are necessary to score points—if an area of terrain in a kingdom has no crowns, it scores no points! Conversely, lower numbered tiles, whilst not having crowns on them, do tend to have the same terrain on both squares. So, they have value in increasing the size of areas of terrain in a player’s kingdom. This essentially, is the flow of the game play.

When a player adds a tile to his kingdom, the terrain on one square must be placed adjacent to a tile which matches. The only limit on tile placement, is that the total kingdom size of any one player cannot exceed a five-by-five grid of squares. Tiles which do not fit into this grid are discarded and do not score any points.

Play continues until all of the tiles in play, have been drawn and placed. Then each player adds up the value of his kingdom. This is done for each area of terrain. The value is determined by the number of tiles being multiplied by the number of crowns on the terrain.

The luck of Kingdomino lies in the draw of the tiles. The skill lies in the getting the best tile available in what choice remains to a player and then placing it to get the best use out of it that will increase a player’s score. There is also a balance between taking a tile with crowns on it and then connecting terrain to it to increase its score, and perhaps building areas of terrain in the hope of being able to pick a tile with matching terrain and crowns on it. In general, there is a greater chance of scoring points with the former than the latter, but there is still the possibility of getting the right tile at the right time towards the end of the game.

Physically, Kingdomino is very nicely presented. The tiles are big and feel good in the hand and the rules are easier to read. The tiles would be easier to track if there were numbers on the front as well as the back. The rules cover play with two, three, and four players, and also include several extra options beyond the base game.

If there is a criticism of Kingdomino, it is that play order is sometimes determined by whomever is sat closed to the box containing the tiles when it is placed on the table. It feels oddly arbitrary and not random at all.

Kingdomino is a thoroughly attractive and pleasing game. It has a lovely flow back and forth so that no player has constant access the tiles with crowns and dominate the game, and this flow lies at the heart of the game, balancing it all the way to the finish.