We still wanted to get a new game in for the week and, just like last week, we planned out for a certain game but when it came time to play I decided on something lighter to play due to being tired from the days activities.
So now, we present to you a game from 25th Century Games called Kingswood.
KINGSWOOD (2020)
The King has assembled the most prominent village Guilds and issued a challenge: rid the surrounding forest of monsters to earn your Guild widespread fame and glory!
Players take turns controlling the guild's adventurers moving about the village. The purpose of traveling to different locations is to either build up new or refresh your existing resources. For example, you will visit the Blacksmith for your swords, the Academy for your spell books, the Market for coins, and the Tavern for your hearts.
Liquid courage perhaps? There are also 7 other locations in the game, of which you will use one per game. This adds variety to the playing experience as these special locations have a wide range of abilities.
Once you feel like you have enough resources, you will venture out into the Forest. There you'll encounter a variety of monsters. These monsters will give you points to add to your glory and some of them provide immediate benefits when they are defeated. The first player to gain 20 glory triggers the end game and once all players have had an equal number of turns, the guild leader with the highest glory total is declared the victor!
Kingswood features an action rotation mechanism that puts players at the heart of the game.
Each turn you select an adventurer and move them to a new location, taking the actions associated with both the starting and ending locations.
Since every player controls the same adventurers, your choices change your opponents options on their turn.
Kingswood: A guilded quest for 1-5 adventurers!
The game is designed by Henry Audubon (Space Park & PARKS) and illustrated by Tristam Rossin (3 Laws of Robotics & Rune).
Weight 1.36/5
A Little More Info
The description above does a good job of explaining the jest of the game. What I should add is that there are 3 Adventurer meeples and the King’s Guard meeple and only 6 location tiles in play. Which means you can only go to one of the two open spots unless you want to take action of where the King’s Guard meeple is at (which also means you take one location action instead of two).
The next thing to note is that when you move an adventurer more than one space away from the start location, you have to pay one coin per additional spot. This really makes you want to become a “little piggy” and go to the market often.
Regarding the game ending at twenty points, it is possible to go beyond that and also add more from certain monster cards that you collected throughout the game. So do not be discouraged because you are behind, if you have the right combination of monster cards you can pull out the victory (I did on our second game).
What we like about the game
The first thing we really like about the game is that is plays fast. Even with the distractions of our child, we were able to play a few games in about an hour total.
The game mechanisms of it being a worker placement/resource management combination works really well together. It is because of this you can plan out what you want to get but also expect to not be able to do what you want on your turn based on what your opponents did on their turns.
The seven different guilds to choose from is great with each one providing a different in-game ability and starting resources. Learning how to master each guild to the best of its ability doesn’t take long to do but you do have to take in consideration that the monster cards do change out once someone defeats them and/or are captured (an interesting part of the game) which can mess with your plans at the forest location.
It wouldn’t be our blog if we didn’t talk about the artwork. The artwork from the game, at first glance, you would think it is from “The Mico” but is actually the work of Tristam Rossin. My wife says the artwork is “adorable” (because we do not use the word “cute” in our house unless it pertains to our beautiful daughter). The artwork does fit the theme of the game and just puts a smile on your face.
The last thing to mention in this section is that all of the components is very well made. The wooden meeples and first player marker is exceptional; the cardboard components are thicker stock and durable; and the playing cards are of higher quality as well. We were very impressed by all of this in one game.
What we don’t like about the game
The one item for this section is that there is one, maybe two, of the guild cards that is “broken” meaning the ability of the cards give a great advantage than the other guild cards.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Easy to set up, easy to play, and quick to learn. What else could you ask for in a game. It does not take a lot of table space and the box is just the right size for the parts and will not take up a large section of shelf (unlike Everdell’s Complete Collection box).
We give this game a 8 out 10.
We recommend this game if you are looking for something simple to play with up to 5 players. We can’t wait to play it with others in our gaming group to see how it fairs with them.
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