Kingdomino vs Queendomino Review

Read more...

Sounds like I should stick with Kingdomino then. No need for Queendomino.


Am still looking at the Age of Giants expansion, which sounds interesting.

Jazzbeaux wrote: Sounds like I should stick with Kingdomino then. No need for Queendomino.


Am still looking at the Age of Giants expansion, which sounds interesting.

Yeah, Queendomino isn't bad, exactly, but the scoring is awful and it's in an awkward spot. Accessibility is a huge part of Kingdomino's appeal: if you take that away to make a more medium-weight game then, really, you're better off just choosing a medium-weight game. There are plenty around.

Even if you just use the dominoes in Queendomino as a "5-6 player expansion" for Kingdomino - which you can - it still just extends the play time past the welcome point.

Age of Giants is potentially going to suffer from the same problem. It will indeed be interesting to see how it turns out.

I'm getting a calculator is like a kiss of death statement for this level game.

I mean, it's not great for any game but I'll live with it on super heavy stock market euro or whatever.

I've argued here plenty that expansions get made for games that don't need them. Games that are wildly successful without them are a great choice for expansions from a publisher's perspective, but the games are successful (particularly in the euro genre) because they're clean, simple. No expansion can improve on clean and simple.

Games that struggle to work can be aided with expansions, but what publisher wants to sell to a struggling title? Indeed the publisher's incentives are a mismatch for the purchaser's.

Kingdomino sounds like the title of choice here, without the add-ons. I've heard the name plenty, but this is my first look at more than that. Thanks for the simple, clean review that hits the salient points.

It's better than sex toys.

Whoa there bud -- take care stepping outside your core competencies. That's a debate best not had on a geek website.

As a counterpoint, my one play of Kingdomino was very lackluster. It felt too inoffensive and uninteresting to even register. I haven't played Queendomino and probably never will, but I don't understand why anyone would choose Kingdomino over Carcassonne - unless perhaps you were playing with children who couldn't grok the farming rules.

charlest wrote: As a counterpoint, my one play of Kingdomino was very lackluster .... I don't understand why anyone would choose Kingdomino over Carcassonne

This is a really good question. Aside from the fact I'm not over fond of Carcassonne, I did talk about this a little bit in the Patreon post I made along with the review.

The biggest reason is that even compared to Carcassonne, Kingdomino is ridiculously easy to play. A surprising number of non-hobbyists I've taught don't take to Carcassonne because even though it's simple, it's unfamiliar. If you've only played Monopoly and Game of Life, Carcassonne is like some freakish foreign land.

Kingdomino though? Everyone knows dominoes and everyone knows how to multiply. Job done. Plus it plays in 15 minutes as opposed to 30-45 for Carcassonne. There's more of a sense of immediate gratification as you watch your kingdom grow instead of the will-it, won't-it use of followers. It scales better, too and yet I don't think it has less strategy than Carcassonne. It might even have a bit more.

Having something which is that accessible and easy and yet still has the potential to satisfy a gamer (I know it didn't satisfy you, but you can't please 'em all) is incredibly rare. That's what makes it a four star game for me.