Kingdom of Dice

• Designer: Reiner Knizia
• Publisher: mandoo games
• Players: 1-4
• Age: 8+
• Time: 30 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link: 
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Once upon a time, in a distant continent, there was the Kingdom of Dice.

The King of Dice was getting old and, having no heir, he announced a grand contest to secure a successor. Aspiring rulers from far and wide are invited to enter the kingdom and prove their worth. Their task? To win the hearts and favor of the kingdom’s inhabitants in just three days.

You quite fancy the throne. Each day, try to get as close to the castle as possible to win over the most influential inhabitants of the Kingdom of Dice!

Players roll dice to achieve a valid result. If they succeed, they will place one of their markers on the board. At the end of each round, based on the positions of their markers, players will encounter kingdom inhabitants who grant points. At the end of the third round, the player with the most points wins the game.

To set up, place the three special characters (chancellor, queen, king) aside and shuffle the rest. Deal out 6 cards from the deck next to the board and add in the lowest valued special to the mix, making a market of 7 cards.  Organize these cards in highest to lowest order.

The start player takes the six dice and will roll them. Faces are 1 thru 5 and then a crown. After a roll, at least one die must be set aside and then the rest can be re-rolled. 

When you are out of dice to re-roll OR you choose to stop rolling, see if you have a valid combination.  A valid combination meets ALL of the following rules:

• At least one Crown
• At least one number (See further rules below)
  • If there are 2s, there must be at least 2 of them
  • If there are 3s, there must be at least 3 of them
  • If there are 4s, there must be at least 4 of them
  • There can no more than one 5

Note that you are not obligated to use all your dice in your combination.

If the combination is valid, then you calculate the score – this is the sum of all the numbers, multiplied by the number of crowns.  Place one of your player markers on the board space of matching number.  If that space is already taken, place it on the first free space of lower value.  You can always choose not to place your marker if you do not like the result.   If you do not have a valid combo, your turn ends and you do not get to place a crown marker.

The round ends when there are 7 crown markers on the board.  The players now collect character cards from the highest rolled value to the lowest – each taking the most valuable card remaining at the time.  Cards are kept face down once collected.

Play two more rounds, each with 6 cards at random from the deck and one special character.  At the end of the third round, players sum all their character card values. The highest score wins.  Ties broken in favor of the highest single card collected.

My thoughts on the game

Sometimes I look forward to a new game because I’m interested in the new mechanisms or novel themes.  Other times, I just want something comforting and relatable.  Kingdom of Dice mostly falls into the latter group – it’s just a good ole dice-chucker. But, the multiplicative scoring system combined with the novel number restrictions does add a bit of strategy to the game, albeit not much.

Most turns, my strategy is determined by the initial roll – generally, this sets me down the path of collecting 2s, 3s or 4s for the turn. Of course, you also need the crowns to really get the high scores, so you might even not freeze all of the scoring dice if you still need to get your crowns.

Additionally, as you are forced to freeze a die with each roll, you do have to make some decisions on whether to press your luck or not.  Say you have frozen crown, crown, 2, 2, 5.  That would be 18 pts (2 x 9).  Do you re-roll that final die?  You have a 50% chance of still rolling a valid combo as a 1, 2 or crown would work.  Is that worth risking your guaranteed middling points for the 18?

Yeah, it’s not rocket science, but it’s also not inconsequential nor obvious which is the best play.  For us, push your luck games are about pushing your luck – so it’s likely that I’m rolling for it on a 50-50!  

This one would certainly not get much play here amongst my regular game group, but it did immediately find a home with a family whose teenage boys will most likely love this one.  It’s a quick dice chucker with rules that are fairly easy to grasp after a few turns.

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Ben B: So I really enjoy a good push your luck game. One where everyone is rooting against you (Ryan!) and you still roll the needed 1/6 chance dice, twice in a row that forces the table to errupt in raucious joy and laughter. This is like sausage sizzle where your turns are quick, you roll ‘dem dice and most of the time the choices are quick and fun. This is a great little family game. It wont overstay its welcome. The table presence is small and it promotes basic math while everyone is enjoying it. I have now had my family play it five times and its a hit. 

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it. Dale, Ben B.
• Neutral.
• Not for me…