Kingdomino: The Lost Treasures Review - The Lost Levels
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Transcript
Hey everyone, welcome out to the Dice Tower. My name is Chris Yee.
I'm Zeke Garcia.
Today we're taking a look at this. This is the Kingdomino Lost Treasures expansion, which is a little booster pack type expansion for Kingdomino, a game that you and I have both enjoyed for has it decade now.
That's right. Yeah, yeah, long long time. And this is not a random boost by the way. Everybody who buys this gets the same thing. So, you know, Magic the Gathering experts need not be afraid.
That's true. Have you heard there's like this controversy that that Pokémon is making so much of this like anniversary print scalpers are like, "Hey, that's not fair to us."
Go get them, Pokémon.
Get them. Uh so, yeah. So, this is a tiny little expansion. It's just 16 tiles. Uh so, we'll show you how this game plays and then we'll be right back with our thoughts. Kingdomino the Lost Treasures is just really these 16 tiles over here and two rules cards which fit into that little booster pack. Now, the treasures are shuffled up and you'll have two on display and you can grab from one of these two on your turn when you meet the qualifications and then you'll refill it. And then the next player can take from these two in the display at a time. Now, the way that you earn one of these treasures is by playing the normal turns of Kingdomino. So, as players take their turns and add tiles out to their kingdom, uh when you are in a situation where you can add a tile that creates a 2x2 square where all four of the squares are different types of terrains like this here, you still have to legally place there. But, if you do create that, you get to grab one of these two treasures on display. You can add this in such a way that it's going to add crowns to specific regions, so you can rotate it however you like. Uh but, in this case, I'm going to add a lot more crowns to this grass area here.
Fill this up. we'll refill the display again, and then we'll continue taking turns. Now, you'll notice that you're going to have to be very intentional how you create these regions because if you try to play kind of quite normally, you're not going to create very many of them. So, it's going to take some more tactical play. Now, the other interesting thing to note is that at the end of the game, normally, you're going to add these crowns to the multiplier, but there is also a path for immediate victory. If you're able to obtain all five of the different colors shapes in the game, then you'll win instantly, and there is also one tile which is a joker that counts as any one of the colors. The blue tile over here has triple crowns in one area, but the skull also is going to get rid of all of the crowns in the area that it's touching. So, you'll have to be very careful not to negate the crowns you do have. And that's everything here for Kingdomino: The Lost Treasures.
You can actually see a live play that we did of this about a month ago or so. So, Blue Orange sponsored that live play, of course, but when we review games, we give our honest thoughts and everything about it.
Yeah.
I'm inclined to enjoy it cuz Kingdomino is one of those games that I think it's like it's pretty much perfect.
Yeah, my only sort of the only thing I could fault Kingdomino for is that it is very simple, and with repeat plays, especially if you play it a lot in quick succession, it maybe it it becomes a little simplistic, maybe.
Mhm.
In which case then I think that this small expansion comes in a cinch, you know, it's it's really it's just a little something to sprinkle on top of the game. It doesn't change the the sort of overhead of the rules of the game, and yet you throw this in there, and suddenly you're thinking about things you did not need to think about or thought about in the original design. And I think that's if you can pull that that sort of magic trick in a small expansion like this, then my hat's off to you cuz I you're you're adding in like you said a few tiles and suddenly I have to re re-sort of con- conjecture, [snorts] that's not a thing. I I have to like understand Kingdomino again from the ground up, you know, I love that. I love that idea.
Right, cuz normally I I grab a tile that has grass and wheat on it. Where am I going to put it? Right next to my grass and my wheat, right? Not a surprise there. And that's part of the reason I like the game is because it's so simple that the turn order play then is just kind of a little more where the bite is and laying the tiles out to each other is important, but it's so simple.
Right.
And with this one it it is exactly what you said. It kind of makes you second-guess like, well, maybe I want to put this in a weird spot so that I can build into it and get one of those big jewels there. Uh and you can't do it willy-nilly because then you're going to add these jewels that are going to add multipliers to nothing.
Mhm.
So you have to be it it balances those two things I think quite well. You don't go hog-wild just making strange mashups of of space that don't work together, but also it's it's enough like there's enough juice in it that yeah, getting two or three extra crowns in a spot kind of a big deal.
Right, and it could easily be worth it to make a quote-unquote dumb move by not having two things line up if then down the line you're getting that multiplier, that plus two, you know, or times two multiplier. Um there's even that sort of shoot the moon idea where if you get what is it? Four or five, then you just win the game. I haven't seen it happen yet, but you can get close. I've seen you you know people getting close. So I I like that idea. I like that this is the kind of expansion that takes very little explanation that you can fully ignore if you want to. That might happen anyway maybe once and you go hey look at that I did the thing. All right yeah sure I'll get a little extra something on top. But you can also aim all your big guns at it and go I'm going to go in on this. I'm going to try to make every mismatch play I can so I can get all these things and it just might pay off you know um it doesn't rewrite you know the or reinvent the wheel here but I and I don't know if I would always throw it in either you know it's not the kind of expansion that I'm like put it in the game and forget that it never came in there.
I would still teach this game without it but if you're looking for a little something to spice it up this is a good way to do that. Kingdomino has had expansions in the past that that giant's expansion probably a decade ago. Um and it's cute. It's it's a nice expansion but it had a lot of rules. It has a lot of little things going on. This doesn't. This is simpler. It also is sort of less uh thematically prickly. This game sort of barely has a theme anyway in the original expansion is like you there's giants stomping about and what okay sure. This is just oh you find some gems. Cool. That's great.
That's a good way to put it not thematically prickly yeah. Um
Yeah. You can and I think people are going to ask can you use this in Queen Domino? You could. There's no reason not to. I don't think though that that game needs more is all one of my drawbacks about Queen Domino is that like whoa that's a hefty that's a hefty game for as light of a framework as it has.
Right. Right.
You could use it in any of the other offshoots, Moon River and Origins.
Yes, so I don't know if I would recommend any of that. I'll be honest. This is clearly for King Domino and they're not you know, the company is not saying like, "Yeah, throw it in anything." We're saying that.
Yeah, we're saying you could.
You could, I suppose, but
You could also throw this in a Nemesis if you wanted to. I'm not
anything you want. You can put this in Ticket to Ride for sure in Ticket to Ride. Um I would say it clearly benefits this game. I don't know if I could say that it would benefit any of those games. Obviously, untried, unseen.
Mhm.
Um all of those games have a little bit more going on than King Domino and I like to see King Domino after now a decade of being out there, getting tons of love, selling tons of copies. There'd be a little something else that is that feels right. It feels almost celebratory. This is This is small enough and then inexpensive enough that it more feels like "Hey, we're putting out a little celebration of King Domino. It's a It's a little module than an expansion."
It didn't feel predatory like, "You own it, you better own this." No, this is a nice little treat.
Yeah, I agree. Which also there therefore makes it really hard to rate this because it is so slight.
Mhm.
It's just you know, if you like King Domino, like you should not put a lot of thought into whether you get this or not. Is King Domino hitting the table for you? You should get this. It's It's a tiny little thing. It's fun. It's neat. Plus, you can watch us play and like immediately have your mind made up for you. Um I think I'm going to come down at an eight on this one. I can't I feel like going higher than that is is sort of ringing that bell too hard. But I have no real issues with this. You know, uh an eight feels right to me.
And I I agree with you. I'm giving it an eight. Thank goodness, otherwise.
Why did you ring that bell so hard?
I agree. It's slight, but it's significant enough at the same time and it doesn't feel tacked on. It it flows right in. You would not imagine that this came out a decade after the the basic game. But I'm glad that it did. I think that it's worth picking up if Kingdomino is hitting the table for you. So we're both recommending it a high score of an eight giving this a seal of approval for the Lost Treasures expansion. Thanks for tuning in to this Dice Tower review. My name is Chris Yee.
I'm Zee Garcia.
And uh go digging go digging the yard for some treasure. You're guaranteed find something.
Yeah, and then put that treasure in Ticket to Ride.
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