Nine Minute Kingdom
Rome wasn’t built in a day. It probably took about 9 minutes, or a little longer.
For an empire building game, Nine Minute Kingdom has very simple rules. Keep one of the ten starting cards to build and pass the rest to the next player. We play until a colorful field of his kingdom grows in front of each player.
Before the game, we define goals – scoring methods. These focus on specific areas (their number and size), symbols and dots on the longest path. To the points for not adding a bonus for proper arrangement of symbols and … already. The whole game.
The devil is, of course, in the details: which card we choose and where we place it is crucial for scoring. We compete with other players for specific achievements, but when we see a matching card, it is worth changing your strategy and counting on gaining an advantage in a different field. This gives you a satisfying mix of long-distance planning and opportunistic / tactical play.
Nine Minute Kingdom after a few games can actually be played in a few minutes, which makes the game a nice break between other titles or as a dessert after playing a heavier title. Unfortunately, after two games we will rather hide the box than play the third.
The individual games do not differ enough to play kingdom building again and again. Randomizing targets gives you a sense of variety when those really only differ in color or symbol. The first two or three turns are also problematic. We choose one of the many cards when we do not know yet which way the game will go – the choice is then considerable, but paradoxically the impact on the score is small. It starts to get interesting only in the second half of the game, when we see which goals the opponents want to meet and we can make it a bit more difficult for them.
To sum up – the game can be fun if we do not expect it to delight us for many hours. Dosed in moderation – up to 9 minutes at a time – it can be an ideal filler for many groups.
Playability: 7 Build
Quality: 7
Originality: 5
Replayability: 5
Our rating: 6
