www.Tobold.com
Tobold@GMail.com
A blog with my thoughts regarding games I am playing and other stuff in life. Please read my Terms of Service
RSS Feed
Thursday, January 16, 2025
Kingdom Legacy
Now this is a first for me: I bought a legacy solo card game (legacy in this case meaning that cards get altered or destroyed), played the game, and then bought the same game again to be able to play it again. The game is Kingdom Legacy, and the link goes directly to the webshop of the game company, as this game tends to be quickly sold out everywhere. They produced 5,000 copies in time for the Spiel Essen 2024, and sold out before the Spiel even opened.
Yes, I could have done some sorts of tricks, for example with card sleeves, to not alter the cards, and be able to play repeatedly with the same deck. But there is a certain fun to legacy game elements in board games, and I have enjoyed playing by the legacy rules in games like Charterstone or Clank! Legacy. My previous experience with legacy games was that by the time you are through with them, you don't want to restart anyway. Kingdom Legacy is special, in that it has both great replayability and those legacy elements, and that clashes somewhat. On the positive side, the base deck Feudal Kingdoms is only €12. And I'll think of some way to preserve my second copy for repeated play, now that I know the game.
You can also buy expansions for Kingdom Legacy, and a large expansion (Distant Lands) is available since recently, as well as two small expansions (Merchants and Adventures). Expansions are interesting here, because you don't modify your game from the start. Instead, you play the base game until the end, and then the expansion allows you to keep playing for longer with the kingdom you created up to then. You can use the expansions in any order, but I'll try the Merchants one first, due to the way the "purge" mechanic works when adding an expansion. The website of the game talks about other starter decks, called Northern Kingdoms and Desert Kingdoms, and I'm looking forward to trying those too. But according to what the dev said on BGG, those alternative starter decks won't come out before 2026, as 2025 is still dedicated to making expansions.
The basic idea of Kingdom Legacy is that a playing card has 4 possible orientations, and thus if you use both sides and print the upper and lower half in opposite direction, a single card can represent 4 different things. In many cases in Kingdom Legacy you get a basic version of a card, and then you can upgrade it up to 3 times by turning it either upside down, or backside to front. You start with a small deck, 10 cards, and in each turn you draw 4 cards, and you can use the resources on some of those cards to upgrade one of those cards. You can also draw more cards, 2 at a time. But as your turn ends when you do an upgrade, and your round ends when you run out of cards, your goal is to be as efficient as possible, and do as many upgrades as possible in each round. At the end of every round, you add 2 more cards to your deck, and the game ends when there are no more cards to add (thus the expansions allowing you to continue playing).
From this basic gameplay, a very interesting development of your deck, your "kingdom", evolves. Some cards have different upgrade paths. You can have choices to make: For example when bandits turn up in your kingdom, you could either destroy them with a sword resource, or in a more complicated way convert them into useful workers with a missionary. Permanent cards turn up, giving you goals to achieve, and victory points to gain, which you can then compare online. You tend to have fewer upgrades available in one round than there are cards you could upgrade, so depending on which cards you prioritize, your kingdom will look differently than the next one.
Kingdom Legacy: Feudal Kingdom is great fun. I might actually try to play this with my wife, even if it is a solo game. This also definitively is a game I might want to take with me when traveling, as it doesn't require a big playing surface. I do hope that the success of the game leads to it being reprinted in sufficient quantities for it to become easily available. That would make the legacy elements of the game less annoying.
- posted by Tobold @ 6:49 PM Permanent Link
Comments:
<< Home
Newer› ‹Older
Tobold: "My previous experience with legacy games was that by the time you are through with them, you don't want to restart anyway."
While is certainly the case (for me often with replayable video games), the physical nature reminds me heavily of ultra fast fashion.
When there is no reason to worry about it being 90% plastic or even washing as you are throwing it out on the morning after the party anyway.
We played one of the Exit escape "room" games for New Year's and it was a cool brainteaser that I enjoyed - but then we threw away the box, about 90 cards, the few pages of story leaflet and that didn't sit well with me.
Sure, we scribbled on three of the ten pages, cut one up and folded the box insert (sorry, spoiler) but could we have used a clear overlay and a marker instead? The puzzle could have been presented differently to be reused and the box insert, well, pretty sure that would have been fine when put back in the box.
Instead the paper, the printing, the shipping, all went into the bin for 2.5 hours of (unreplayable) fun when not even everything was destroyed.
I might feel differently had all the things been used up in the process and it really was game material and not only three pages that you draw on and a puzzle. But in this form it just goes against my sense of frugality and environmentalism.
While is certainly the case (for me often with replayable video games), the physical nature reminds me heavily of ultra fast fashion.
When there is no reason to worry about it being 90% plastic or even washing as you are throwing it out on the morning after the party anyway.
We played one of the Exit escape "room" games for New Year's and it was a cool brainteaser that I enjoyed - but then we threw away the box, about 90 cards, the few pages of story leaflet and that didn't sit well with me.
Sure, we scribbled on three of the ten pages, cut one up and folded the box insert (sorry, spoiler) but could we have used a clear overlay and a marker instead? The puzzle could have been presented differently to be reused and the box insert, well, pretty sure that would have been fine when put back in the box.
Instead the paper, the printing, the shipping, all went into the bin for 2.5 hours of (unreplayable) fun when not even everything was destroyed.
I might feel differently had all the things been used up in the process and it really was game material and not only three pages that you draw on and a puzzle. But in this form it just goes against my sense of frugality and environmentalism.
I was tempted for a moment, especially considering the price. Then I realised I haven't even played Patience in decades! Still, maybe I should check it out so I can say I tried a legacy card game.
At Christmas my family were playing games that have limited replayability even though the cards are not damaged. Both were coop games where you have a word or phrase to guess based on card clues or other attempts to convey it. In both cases - one was particularly bad, at least the other had a hundred or so cards with six clues on each - people who played before would soon remember them.
As for environmentalism, I kind of agree, but also I don't. The game is a small object made of renewable resources. If you spent the same amount of money on many other entertainments, the environmental footprint would likely be greater. If people were happy to spend their surplus on disposable card games, or beer, or things like that, the world's environmental problems would be much easier to solve.
At Christmas my family were playing games that have limited replayability even though the cards are not damaged. Both were coop games where you have a word or phrase to guess based on card clues or other attempts to convey it. In both cases - one was particularly bad, at least the other had a hundred or so cards with six clues on each - people who played before would soon remember them.
As for environmentalism, I kind of agree, but also I don't. The game is a small object made of renewable resources. If you spent the same amount of money on many other entertainments, the environmental footprint would likely be greater. If people were happy to spend their surplus on disposable card games, or beer, or things like that, the world's environmental problems would be much easier to solve.
I'm divided on the subject of disposable EXIT games. For me, all "escape room" type games have zero replayability, because there are only a few major lightbulb moments when solving such a game, and anybody who participated will remember that. So whether the material is designed to be destroyed by legacy elements or not probably doesn't make much of a difference, as few people would resell their used escape room game anyway.
Post a Comment
<< Home
