Another modern classic of the board game world enters the digital world – Kingdomino has dropped to mobile, PC and Nintendo Switch recently. We tested the Steam version, and here’s our impressions. This is the XboxEra review for Kingdomino, played on PC!
Short burst fun
I always had a sweet spot for board games, and in post-COVID years, I’ve even joined a rather large board game group, with which we meet up several times per month. Extremely complex deckbuilders, D&D, party games, easy-going strategy games – anything goes, and we like to switch it up. A frequent timewaster we keep going back to, usually played before or after a longer game, is Kingdomino.
This modern classic from 2016 really has all the right elements to make for fun and short little sessions. Up to 4 players select their domino-shaped pieces, featuring terrain types like water, farm and so forth. Players will have to connect similar pieces and strategically placing elements with crowns to score a ton of points, while they fill up their little 7×7 grid. The best laid out strategies will be tested, as the perfect pieces may just be stolen by another player, forcing us to pivot and adapt on the fly. It’s simple to understand, quick (a match rarely goes beyond 20 minutes), and offers decent strategic depth.
Digitalized
Such a simple formula makes a ton of sense in videogame form – where the short burst fun becomes even more immediate, with the game calculating the scores, unveiling the next pieces and not even having us put away the box! The most immediate consideration is: yes, the game precisely reproduces the game’s rules in this videogame form. This lets us quickly play a round or two against AI opponents, local players, and even online. Content from the Age of Giants expansion is here, too. Neat!
The game is rather comfortable to play, with very simple controls and on-screen pop-ups reminding us what can and can not be done. At first it may feel weird that you seemingly can not rotate the piece before placing it, but actually you have to put down the piece and then rotate it – which may take a little getting used to. The game features two distinct artstyles, a classic one based on the board game and a more modern one – but are colourful, readable and enjoyable on their own.
Take your time
Despite Kingdomino‘s matches being short, with only the time needed to fill up the small 7×7 grid with 1×2 domino pieces surrounding your castle, you still normally need someone to be present for that duration of time. Well, Kingdomino has a robust online, not only featuring cross-play across the various versions (including mobile), but also asynchronous multiplayer. This means that you can run several matches at the same time, as you wait for your opponents to make their turn in an hour or the next day. A popular way to play board games online, nowadays, and I’m happy this version of the game supports it. Oh, and there’s even leaderboards!
All in all, the official videogame for Kingdomino is just that: Kingdomino, digitally. It features two artstyles, a strong online module and various settings, but it also doesn’t do anything special or different compared to the board game. No particularly fancy animations, no extra game modes, no campaign to play through. If you want Kingdomino on your device, this is perfect – it’s even a light-weight game that runs on weaker machines, so it’s got very little in terms of downsides.
Kingdomino
Played on
PC
PROS
- Flawless transposition of all rules
- Easy yet deep strategic options
- Excellent online and local play options
CONS
- Nothing particularly fancy about the presentation
- Nothing really added, compared to the board game version
- Tile-rotating takes a little getting used to
