Review: Kingdomino

[andrewducker]

When I saw that it had won the 2017 Spiel des Jahres I took a look at Kingdomino. On discovering that it was only £15, and that games could be played in about 15 minutes I decided to pick up a copy.

So far I've played games with both swampers and danieldwilliam and both of them picked it up quickly and enjoyed playing it.

It's based (surprisingly enough) on the idea behind dominoes - or, at least, the part of dominoes where you have tiles with two ends and need to match them against each other. In this case the different ends are different terrains (grass, mountain, etc), and you score by forming areas of the same terrain*. Each turn you have to make a judgement between going for the tiles that score the highest, versus going for lower-scoring tiles which allow you make the first move the next turn.

I enjoyed it, and I'm definitely taking it on holiday. If you're looking for a filler game then it'll do a great job of that.



*It's a bit more complex than that, but not a lot.

Comments

[danieldwilliam]

Yes, I enjoyed it very much. Thank you for bringing it.

It's one of those nice games which is pretty simple to pick up and can be enjoyed casually but which also rewards some thought and some learning. I was struck by how much my points total varied in the second game we played between the move I should have played and the move I actually played.

I will pick up a copy for the Captain and if he likes it perhaps a second copy for the cottage.

I also enjoyed Splendour although by the time we were playing it I'd had three pints on not much lunch. I blame the second pint. If ever you see me even looking sideways at any chocolate porter please remind me that whilst I love the idea of them my mouth thinks they are vile. Remind with a bit of 4 by 2 updside the head if necessary.

So, with only one play whilst slight tipsy I'm not sure I grasped the subtleties of the game play but another neat, compact game.

I particularly like the different storage solution. I'm increasingly grumpy about games being sold in large boxes and I'm even grumpier about games having deliberately oversized components in order to go in a large box. I think I mentioned Alhambra. 100 or so postage sized tiles, a couple of decks of cards and then a huge scoring track.

I get that the games manufacturers are trying to make a product that looks and feels like it ought to cost £20, £30 or £40 quid but I'm reaching the point where storage space not money are the limiting factors in my game buying.

[jack_ryder]

Have not yet played Kingdomino, but I did play one of the other SdJ nominees recently - Race to El Dorado by the sainted Dr Knizia and I loved it. Really wanted it to win and as it didn't, I fear I'm prejudiced against Kingdomino now.

[doug]

Thanks for this, it looks interesting - a bit like a quicker-playing and simpler version of Carcassonne?

[andrewducker]

There's also a mechanic where you have to balance higher scoring tiles against following turn order, which works very well.

[doug]

Yeah, that sounds good. Right, I'm convinced!