Kingdom Death: Monster (2015)

How to Play Kingdom Death: Monster

Campaign System

Embark alone or with up to 3 friends (5 with game variant) on a 5-30-lantern-year campaign, with each year consisting of a cycle of hunt, showdown, and settlement phases. The settlement phase is an intricate civilization building game in which you spend very limited resources to build buildings, research new technologies, train your warriors, and set up your strategy for survival.

Monster AI System

Each of the 7 monsters included are controlled by their own pair of decks that scale to 3 levels of difficulty (except for the final encounter, which has only 1 level and it’s HARD!). Every encounter, even with the same monster, is highly variable and no two showdowns will resolve the same way. Players will have to plan their gear and keep their minds sharp to prevail.

Gear System

In Kingdom Death: Monster, survivors will craft gear from resources earned from defeating monsters or found on their hunt. Each survivor has a 3×3 gear grid. Selection and arrangement of your gear cards is critical, as many provided bonuses and activate special rules when aligned correctly.

Story Event System

40+ Story Events plus over 100 hunt encounters will shape and guide your campaign. Story Events detail important evolutions in your civilization, introduce new monsters, and provide rich detail for your campaign. Some will trigger automatically as you progress through the campaign, but most will be entirely based on choices players make.

Story Events cover everything from setting up and fighting a monster to key events that happen within the overall story. Some are triggered directly from the timeline and others from choices you make in game.

Kingdom Death: Monster Review

“Kingdom Death: Monster is savage and unfair in the best way. A simple die roll determines the fate of your favorite character and one wrong roll can be heart-breaking. But the beauty of the game are the stories the intricate system can generate. They feel as engaging as they do outlandish and terrifying. As expensive as Kingdom Death: Monster is loaded with well designed content and unique content to keep the most masochistic of players coming back to discover more of this world again and again.”

Jason Palazini, waytoomany.games

“It really is unlike anything you’ve played before. I mean once you get the first four miniatures assembled and play the opening “tutorial” game you will be hooked. And as you progress through the “lantern years” and start unlocking new structures and new armors to build, you come to realize just how addicting this game is. The components are excellent and the story telling is intriguing and personally, I love the theme and art style included.”

fuzzyllamareviews.com

“It’s surprisingly elegant. Yes, the box is bigger than my first car. Yes, it’s a crunchy, dense, chewy feast of gaming, but when you get down to it, many of the mechanics are pretty straightforward. The box aids set up, and each phase runs remarkably smoothly given the complexities of what it’s trying to simulate. Kingdom Death: Monster earns further kudos from us for the way in which its prologue streamlines the entry point to the game.”

Guy Hiscott, boardsandbooze.com

The content of this article is originally from Board Game Geek. For more information and a better understanding of the game, you can watch the videos below.