How does one go about writing a review for their favourite game of all time? After all, a wise man once said, ‘one does not simply walk to Mordor.’ I had the pleasure of meeting the team behind The Old King’s Crown when I was helping Zatu at UKGE a few years ago and also got the chance to play the game early. I fell instantly in love. And I have been waiting eagerly, day and night, impatiently for years. YEARS!
And now I have it. Finally. My precious. There have been changes to the game since I played it all those long years ago. But the main question is: does it still hold up to my expectations? I originally rated The Old King’s Crown a perfect 10 on BGG. The first and only 10 I have ever awarded. I have played a couple of hundred games since then. Did any of them topple this from the top of the pedestal? Did the changes that were made to the game work against its favour? Did our time apart leave a gap in my heart so wide it became unbridgeable?
How does one go about writing a review for their favourite game of all time? After all, a wise man once said, ‘one does not simply walk to Mordor.’ I had the pleasure of meeting the team behind The Old King’s Crown when I was helping Zatu at UKGE a few years ago and also got the chance to play the game early. I fell instantly in love. And I have been waiting eagerly, day and night, impatiently for years. YEARS!
And now I have it. Finally. My precious. There have been changes to the game since I played it all those long years ago. But the main question is: does it still hold up to my expectations? I originally rated The Old King’s Crown a perfect 10 on BGG. The first and only 10 I have ever awarded. I have played a couple of hundred games since then. Did any of them topple this from the top of the pedestal? Did the changes that were made to the game work against its favour? Did our time apart leave a gap in my heart so wide it became unbridgeable?
No. Spoiler alert: this game is simply incredible. No need to read ahead, just go get it. Right now.
Note: my provided pictures use the metal coins. These are not included in the base edition.
Why Are You Still Here?
If you really want more of an in-depth analysis of The Old King’s Crown then I suppose I am obligated to provide for you.
The monarch has passed. And the line of succession is up for debate. In The Old King’s Crown each player takes control of one of the factions that are vying for the coveted thrown. There are four factions you can helm. The nobility is as you would expect, the royals who believe their rule is an expected outcome. The clans is a collective of outcasts once heralding from the kingdom, now sailing back to the mainland to take their rightful place as its ruler. The uprising is the commonfolk, the oppressed, the ones who are world weary and ready to force a change. The gathering is the people of the woods, the cultists, almost paganistic group that seek to shape the world in their vision.
The game is a hand management, deck building, lane battling, bidding and bluffing game. Yeah I know, all of those things should not belong together. But by gosh it works.
Each one of these factions start exactly the same. Each one gives you control of the same deck of cards that you will be using to interact with each section of the game. Each card has a number value between 0 and 10 to signify its strength. You ultimately gain access to more cards as the game progresses that make each faction uniquely asymmetrical. The game is broken up into several phases wrapped up in a seasonal proceeding of events. And the main board does an excellent job of navigating you through each phase in order and makes it very clear what needs to be done at each step, and what abilities and commands can be used at these steps.
In spring there will be a series of kingdom cards revealed, ready to be bid on. The factions are powerful cards that usually give you game changing abilities, boons and abilities. Each player will blind bid for the chance to be the first player to select a kingdom card to claim. You do this by playing one of the cards in your hand face down, then everyone reveals simultaneously. Everyone (in bid strength order) takes a kingdom card or returns their bidding card to their hand. The card you used to bid will be placed behind the kingdom card on your player board and is now being used to protect this kingdom. In later spring steps you can steal kingdoms from other players if you bid with a card with higher strength than the one they are using to protect the kingdom. Everyone then places their herald pieces on a location on the main board (in turn order) to signify what location they intend to try and claim (or feint a false claim and trick other players). Everyone then places a card face down into each of the regions on the board and places any supporters.
Summer is where all the fun happens. And I don’t mean going to the beach and eating ice cream. Though that is definitely fun. Summer is essentially when each region houses a battleground for each faction in play. A region has all its faction cards flipped up to see who has put the most strength into it. But it is not as simple as whoever has the biggest number. In summer, there is a day and a night cycle. Cards can have actions trigger in the day cycle including moving to an unresolved area, retreating back to the hand, playing an extra card from the hand etc. All based on the card played, faction abilities and kingdom cards etc. There are also assassins that can kill all other cards in the region during the night phase. Plus, perhaps some other triggers based on what is in play. And when a card is killed, it isn’t put in the discard pile, it is put in the lost pile. Which is essentially removed from the game. The assassin may also be killed off if a card with a shield is in play. There are many little interactions to discover. Winning a region allows you to trigger a location reward and its benefit and it is entirely possible to win (or loose) all three locations each summer phase.
Honorary Subtitle to Break This Section up a Little
In autumn we get to send our character cards to govern in office, go on an adventure or frolic in the crunchy fallen leaves in the local park. These actions require a card to have gavel icons for governing and scroll icons for adventuring. Sending them into one of the 3 seats available for political intrigue has them staying in office and not returning to your hand or deck. Sending them on adventures will earn you some scrolls, which you will use (and need) to purchase your advanced cards. But sending a card on an adventure that doesn’t have a map icon will see them joining all other cards in the lost pile and not returning. Both of these actions are optional but are definitely necessary to interact with if you have any hopes of claiming victory in The Old King’s Crown. There are also certain cards that can trigger abilities from your hand in autumn that give you benefits for the following year.
Next is the winter phase where we give all our character cards an excursion and allow them to work on their snowman crafting skills. It is essentially the clean up phase where you reset the board, return your heralds to your board, move used cards to your discard etc.
But here is the real juice to the game. The card you used to claim and protect a kingdom card stays where it is to protect the kingdom. The cards that were assassinated, they stay dead. The cards that were sent on an adventure without a map, they stay in the lost pile. The card you used to place in a seat of power for governing reasons, you guessed it, they are stuck in the office pushing pencils and validating parking tickets. This is the crux of The Old King’s Crown. Every step of the game requires you to use a card for its strength and abilities at the risk of losing them, making your deck weaker at the expense of procuring victory. Which is the crunchiest self-balancing I have ever seen a game utilise. This is also where unlocking more cards is vital, and every faction interacts with the game state in different ways. Which just makes the game come together in the most satisfying way imaginable.
This Game Should Not Exist
No game should be this satisfying to play. It is quite frankly unfair towards every other game. On top of that there is just so much joy to be had from The Old King’s Crown. If you are familiar with Ryan Lauket games (Sleeping Gods, Near and Far etc) you will likely be aware that the man himself does all the artwork for those games, as well as design them. Pablo Clark has done the same with The Old King’s Crown. I am sure you have absolutely salivated over how this game looks simply from the pics here. Pablo created the game and also meticulously illustrated every single inch of this game. This is also his first ever game design. Its actually insane.
And following on from that detail, it is worth noting how much I love the art. Not only is the board, box and character cards intricate and full of life, but there are also subtle details I love. Each of the faction decks are not only a different colour, but they are also uniquely illustrated with charming, creepy, intricate characters. Also, the back of the cards look the same at glance but are actually each designed with a different pattern. Intricate details like this are not needed but make a game feel so much more loved.
Even though I had played the game before and was taught by the team at Eerie Idol Games, I pooped the bed when I realised the rulebook was 51 pages long. But I have never read a better rulebook. Not only is it expertly written and easy to understand, but it is also laid out perfectly. With plenty of game state examples, full descriptions of abilities, triggers, commands etc. I can happily claim that I did not need to check BGG for rule clarifications etc which I usually need to for most games. Which again, from a designer and team who claim this as their first game, is so, so impressive. I even had one niche situation where me and another player tied for a location, initiated the secondary skirmish to determine the victor. Then we tied the skirmish and had to initiate a tertiary skirmish which neither of us could actually participate in as we had no cards left in hand. The rulebook provided the answers needed.
Every single facet of this game has been expertly tweaked and developed to be super smooth and crunchy. The kingdom cards make every single game asymmetrical from the get-go as they are all powerful abilities and claiming them is the very first thing you do in every match. Every faction has 4 unique faction abilities that are also super powerful. They are so strong that most of them can only be used once. In the entire game. Finding the perfect opportunity to use these can flip the entire game state in ways your opponents are not prepared for. The game is simple on the surface, but every action, every season, every decision will play out in interesting ways that all depend on what cards everyone plays, what kingdom cards get used and what abilities get triggered. And I love it. I love every single part of the game.
More to Come?
There is already an expansion for The Old King’s Crown in Wild Kingdom. This expansion adds 5 modular additions to the base game that can be added and removed at will. A review for this will be along soon I am sure. But what this tells me is that the base game has so much room to bring in additional modules that can change up the game in new and interesting ways. There can also be room for new factions to be added at some point or sets of new kingdom cards perhaps. I believe the game has proven even more popular than most anticipated it to be, so I am hopeful we will get even more juicy goodness at some point.
Now The Rest
So, you all know how reviews go. This is the section where you would usually find the negatives and the things worth noting. And you may expect with how positive I have been so far, this is the hardest part for me on this review.
I think to enjoy this game fully; you need to embrace that there can be turns that are completely out of your control. Turns can get a little chaotic with more players and more abilities in play. And I can fully sympathise with players who may not enjoy games where you can’t fully strategise due to hidden information. Blind bidding is a pillar of this game, and it is not a mechanic everyone enjoys. I played one game of The Old King’s Crown where I got outclassed, outplayed, outbid, and outsmarted in every single interaction. I literally finished the game with a score of 0. I found it comical after a while but can see others being put off completely if it happened to them.
A big element of this game is collecting scrolls in order to unlock the rest of the cards for your deck. I think this is the weakest part of the game. The only way to collect scrolls is sending your characters off on adventures. There might be certain kingdom cards that help this but I haven’t come across any as of yet. I think the game could benefit by having a little more in terms of options for this important resource.
The only other little hiccup I noticed in my play group was that there were certain actions (such as placing our herald) that we kept doing simultaneously instead of in turn order. This is because the game flip-flops between some actions being simultaneous and some being in turn order. This is made clear on the board however and was more of a player presumption issue. Just something to be aware of.
Also, no matter how I pack the game away, I just can’t seem to get it all to fit back into the box properly. The Old King’s Crown will seemingly stay as one of those games in my collection where the lid lifts ever so slightly.
Final Thoughts
The Old King’s Crown retained its perfect rating of 10 on BGG for me. And it has remained the only game to ever earn that accolade. For me, it is the perfect game. It has tact and crunchy gameplay that can lead to spats of chaos and seeing the game pivot in ways you couldn’t imagine. But when you win a location it feels really important. 1 point in The Old King’s Crown can be a crucial amount at the end of the game.
I don’t think the game is as heavy as the box size (or amount of pages in the rulebook) would suggest. And I think it would appeal to a wide range of gamers. After the first full round has played out the realisation of how important your card choices are will dawn on you. And that is when you will know if you are as in love with the game as I am, or if it isn’t for you. But I would take a wager (or a blind bid) that if you have reached this point of the review, you already have an idea that you will have a good time with The Old King’s Crown.
If it wasn’t at all completely obvious, I recommend this game more than I have ever recommended a game before. And I have recommended quite a few games at this point.
Zatu Review Summary
Zatu Score
95%
