In this game, the players are petitioners at the royal court, trying to gain the King's favor. To do so, they must first gain the help of the servants and petty officials at the court, who can then help them gain access to the nobility, who, in turn, can help to reach the king.
The game is played in turns. On their turn, a player will gather their dice, roll them, set aside at least one, and roll the remaining dice again, until all dice have been set aside. After that, they select a character who will help. Each character requires a certain combination of dice (such as two pairs or dice that show at least 30 points). The character will give the player some benefits on later rolls, such as an additional die or the ability to modify the results of a roll.
The game ends when a player gains the support of the Queen (and temporary favor of the King, winning ties in the final roll-off). Now, all players try to gain a dice result of as many equal dice as possible (7x 2s, 8x 6s, etc). The player who gets the longest, highest result gains the favor of the King and wins.
Contents: 12 Dice, 60 character cards, 5 player aids, 1 marker, rules.
- real exploration of Yahtzee genre
- special powers
- innovative mechanics
- fantasy
- medieval
- Favor of the Pharaoh
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Formula D is really the epitome of roll and move games in the modern era
- Settlers of Catan which was perhaps the most significant euro game that really sparked this whole new wave of modern board games
- Yahtzee has become a mechanic in its own right
- epitomises dice games really and how far they've come
- this is a bit of a tricky one to learn, it's well worth the effort
- ridiculously more fun than it should be
- playing with children it's fantastical
- absolutely brilliant
- this is my top 10 different ways to use dice in wooden board games