Bruno Cathala is one of my favorite board game designers. From his hand were such titles as: Cyclades , 7 Wonders of the World: Duel or Five Clans . He is also the author of the Kingdomino series , in which several titles have already appeared. Thanks to the FoxGames publishing house, players can also get to know the prehistoric version in which instead of kings and queens, we have cavemen and mammoths.
I have managed to play Kingdomino Duel and Dragomino in the series so far . The dueling puzzle did not impress me much, and the dragon version for the little ones was nice, but actually very simple. The third approach turned out to be a bull’s eye, because I liked the box and the graphics at first sight.
Kingdomino: Prehistory is a tile game that shouldn’t take more than half an hour. The goal of each player is to arrange a 5 × 5 (7 × 7 in a two-player game) field of land tiles in such a way as to get the most points from them. There are three modes to choose from, each of which is slightly more difficult.
“Discoveries”
This is the simplest option and provides the basis for moving to the next levels. At first, everyone receives a starter tile, places it in front of them, and places their hut on top of it. From the face-down pile of double terrain tiles, take the top four and place one under the other, starting with the one with the lowest number printed on the back. Then we flip them over and randomly place the leaders of the players’ colors on them, and next to them we prepare the next four in the same way.
On his turn, the person with the figure on the top tile, i.e. the tile with the lowest number, takes his pawn and adds the ground below it to his starting area. The chieftain is moved to the tile of the next four chosen by the player. The new setting will determine the order for the next round.
The tile must be added to the field with the same type of terrain. Volcanoes are also important – depending on how many craters they “throw” lava by 1, 2 or 3 fields in the direction we choose. Then we place the appropriate fire token on the space where there is no fire yet.
Points are counted separately for each type of terrain and then added up. We strive to have as large areas as possible, with as many fire symbols as possible, because both values are multiplied (e.g. 3 desert hexes with 2 wisps equals 6 points).
„Totem”
The preparation is the same, but after turning the tiles over, place the resources on them as indicated in the lower corners – a mammoth in a meadow, a fish in the water, a mushroom in the jungle, and a stone on the rocks. The markers go to our territory and stay there until the end of the game. However, if we put fire in a field, the resources in that field are discarded.
Ward tokens are also added to the game, which should always be in front of the person with the most tokens in their territory. When, by adding new fields, we overtake someone, we take the appropriate totem from him. This will give us extra points at the end.
“Tribe”
We prepare the game as for the previous variant, but without any totem tokens. Place a cave above the columns of tiles and lecture four uncovered cavemen. On your turn, after selecting a tile and shifting your chieftain, you can discard two or four different resources to choose one face-up caveman or one of the face-down piles. It is placed on an unoccupied space in your territory, but similar to resources, it must be discarded when fire starts there. Additional figures earn points, e.g. for resources or fireflies adjacent to them.
Cavemen on top
Of the three Kingdomino games that I had the opportunity to read, Prehistory is definitely the best. Even though I didn’t play the original or Queendomino , I heard opinions from other players that she also broke them, which I will definitely check at the next opportunity. What all the titles definitely have in common is the target audience. The rules are simple, the fairy-tale graphics pleases the eye, and the short game time allows you to invite even younger children who will be able to play the whole game.
Despite the three difficulty levels, we won’t spend much time translating the rules. This accessibility is the strong point of Kingdomino: Prehistory . At the same time, we can regulate the difficulty of the game, which is most important when playing with younger players, for whom the “Discovery” variant will be just right. On my shelf, the latest offer from FoxGames will take a place next to other games introducing new players to the board game hobby.
