You have inherited a palatial stately home, but sadly it’s in a terrible state of repair. The house is falling down and the grounds are being reclaimed by nature. You must tackle this fixer-upper before you can move in. Protect the historical features and cover up the worst of the blemishes to gain the most points.
One player rolls two dice. Play is simultaneous. Each
player plays at the same time on their own scoresheet. Each player chooses how to use the two dice. Other players may make other decisions.
One die shows the location (area) for the construction while the other shows the shape of the area that can be renovated.
Each player fills in their chosen shape type within their selected area. Players should aim to cover the squares containing the triangles and leave the squares containing the circles uncovered.
If you can't draw a shape, you must cross off a 'no throw' box. The game ends when someone has crossed off all three of their 'no throw' boxes. The player who is furthest through their renovation wins.
You just need 2 dice and a pen. To play, you write directly onto the scoresheet.
Any number of players can play the game. Palatial is also ideal for playing online via videoconferencing.
—description from the publisher
- Fun name
- Simple rules with push-your-luck tension
- Plays ages eight and up, offering more strategy than some other Haba games
- Galaxall creatures
- Space
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Area Control — Players deploy creatures onto a board divided into regions, aiming to occupy regions without busting.
- Card Drafting — Players flip over cards that indicate a number, influencing where they can deploy their creatures.
- Push Your Luck — Players decide whether to keep deploying creatures for potential points or stop to avoid busting if they deploy more than one creature into the same region.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- this is a horror comedy game because you are in a world where sheep are mutating at night and turning into horrible things that will attack you.
- it's pretty silly, but also kind of scary at the same time.
- you will get these little shape pieces. They're just these little abstract pieces and they'll stick to your magnetic board which is kind of satisfying, right?
- it is not easy. uh it is it is difficult to indicate what you want to indicate with these little uh with these little wooden pieces.
- Excalibur is full of trash talkinging. It's full of social, memorable moments.
- it is chaotic, but it's fun and memorable.
- now the retail version is much more affordable and it's still the same sort of social gameplay. You just don't have these metal swords that you can clink together and stuff.
- this is a lighter weight card game but a strategy game. This is not a party game. This is a strategy card game.
- there can be these sort of cascading triggers like boom boom boom, you know, sort of thing.
- It's a clever little game of sort of planning and cascading uh your cards.