Kingdomino

12th July 2019

It's time for the second game of 'not WFRP' night. 

The second game of the night is 'Kingdomino'.

Kingdomino is a tile placement game that's about creating a kingdom with dominos. Hence the name kingdomino - those professional 'board-game-namers' earned their wages with Kingdomino eh?

What's in a game?
Unsurprisingly, the main component of Kingdomino is... dominoes.

• Dominoes: There are 48 dominoes. These are not typical dominoes. Instead of 2 sets of dots, the dominoes depict different landscapes such as forest, field, lake, etc. Some dominoes will have crowns on them. The other side of each domino is numbered from 1-48.
• Castles: There are castles and starting tiles in 4 colours.
• Meeples, there are 8 meeples in the same 4 colours as the starting tiles and castles.

That's it for components. It's worth adding that all of the components are cheerful and bright with colourful illustrations on the dominoes.

How's it play?
First there is set up.

• Each player is given a starting tile and matching castle and meeple (2 meeples are only used in a 2 player game.).
• Shuffle the dominoes: The amount of dominoes used is equal to the number of players multiplied by 12. Take the required number of dominoes and put them into a draw deck face-down. Any remaining dominoes will not be used for this game.
• Draw a number of dominoes equal to the number of players. Keeping them face-down, lay them out in a line, arranging them in ascending numerical order. Then turn dominoes over so their fronts are showing.
• Determine a starting player.

Now you are ready to go. There are 2 stages to a round. Firstly selecting and dealing dominoes and then laying dominoes. Selecting and dealing dominoes is explained below.

• Beginning with the starting player and going to the left, each player puts their meeple on a domino that they want (A starting player is only determined for the first round, after that meeple placement determines turn order.).
• Once all players have chosen a domino: As described deal a second line of dominoes face-down, then rearrange them in ascending order and turn them over.
• Now; in ascending order, each player takes back their meeple and the domino it was placed on. The domino is placed in the player's 'kingdom'  and then the player puts their meeple on to a domino they want in the new row.
• Once all players have selected dominoes again, a new row of dominoes is dealt again as described above.
• This is the method for dealing and taking dominoes.

Next are the rules on how dominoes are placed to create a player's kingdom.

• The face-up side of each domino has 2 halves that depict landscapes. some of the landscapes will have 1 or more crowns on it. This is for scoring and is explained below.
• The first domino must be placed with any one of its 6 sides against the starting tile.
• Subsequent dominoes can be placed against the starting tile or against another domino.
• When a domino is placed against another domino, the sides that are 'touching' must have matching landscapes.
• The objective of the game is to create the biggest 'regions' of the same landscape type. So you want to match landscapes as much as possible.
• All the dominoes must be placed (Along with the starting tile.) within a 5x5 grid. If placing a domino would make the kingdom bigger than that; then it must be placed in a way to not exceed that limit. Otherwise it must be discarded.
• Play progresses until the deck of dominoes has been depleted.

Endgame
Now that all the dominoes have been placed, it's to score them.

• For each 'region' count the number of spaces in that region. Then multiply the number by the number of crowns in that region.
• If a region has no crowns in it, it scores no points.
• A single space is still a region and has a size of 1. Thus if that space has 2 crowns, it would score 2 points.
• Tally points for all regions.
• Highest score wins.

Overall
Kingdomino is a clever and unique game that seems to genuinely draw some inspiration from dominoes.

Players are usually always given a meaningful decision to make.
Which tile to take?
How to place a tile in your kingdom?

Kingdomino also has an interesting mechanic to determine turn order. The  most important dominoes (Those with crowns on them.) have the highest numbers on their backs. This means that taking a valuable domino in one turn will result in being further down in the turn order in the following turn. It's a clever balancing mechanic and something to think about when selecting dominoes.

There's also a potentially higher level of play. Watching your opponents gives your the opportunity to try and anticipate their moves and guess which landscapes they want to prioritise. Although, as with a  lot of games, you have to be careful not to scupper yourself when trying to mess with other other players.

Kingdomino is a small, colourful, quick to play and easy to learn game. Perfect for a start or finisher to an evening of gaming.

It has enough depth and variation to give it replay value. And that's a good thing.