Gameplay

In this game you are trying to become the new King of the Valley, by recruiting subjects, which gives you points and bonuses.

Players take turns performing 4 steps:

1. Recruit from the hill (not in the first round)
2. Take a tile from a 5*5 valley. This can be done in one of two ways;

• jump to an empty tile and claim it or;
• jump over multiple tiles of the same type and take them all (at least two of the same type)

3. Claim a royal bonus if applicable, if you have a set of five different nobles you can put them closed next to your playerboard to gain 5 points and 5 coins.

4. Replenish the empty spots in the valley and on the hill.

Each tile has its own worth in points and different ways of scoring. There are 3 specialist tiles that have certain conditions to gain certain benefits. There also is a Jester, which can impersonate any subject.

Game ends as soon as the hill cannot be replenished. The current round will be completed and after this scores will be tallied. Highest points wins the game!

Thoughts

When I first read about this game I was quite intrigued by the gameplay. Because of this I was very excited to walk by @thegamemasternl booth at Spiel. It was very nice to talk with Hans van Tol about how this game came to life.

I really like the way the hill and the valley work together with the set collection element of the game.

There are a lot of different strategies to try out, I always am a big fan of games like this, where you can just keep on trying different ways to victory.

This game shines at two players, I really enjoyed playing some game together with a good friend of mine.

7.5/10