What’s the best part about camping??? The campfire, of course!
I suspect our prehistoric ancestors might have thought the same thing. The more fire, the better!
KINGDOMINO ORIGINS is a prehistoric caveman themed game for 2-4 players ages 8+ that combines everything there is to love about the original Kingdomino, Queendomino, and Age of Giants games PLUS a few new features in THREE gameplay modes for the ultimate OOGA BOOGA experience!
First, choose a gameplay mode. There are three to choose from.
- Discovery Mode
- Totem Mode
- Tribe Mode
Playing through the modes in that order (Discovery, Totem, and then Tribe) your first time is recommended because they get consecutively more complex. None are over the top, so don’t worry! It’s still the same blast-o-fun game that you will recognize and love! Unless you haven’t played Kingdomino or Queendomino before, which is totally fine! Origins would be fun to start with too! They are all different, a collection isn’t complete without these great games!
Back to play modes…start with Discovery!
SETUP
The domino tiles are dispensed from the box, so make sure they’re good and mixed up and stored neatly there.
Each play mode begins by selecting the first 4 dominos from the box and placing them face down and in ascending numerical order in a vertical column in the center of the play area.
Flip the tiles over. Players choose which domino to add to their hunting territories in turn order by placing their meeple on the domino. A new stack f 4 dominoes is laid out and revealed. The player who chose the first domino in the stack (the lowest number) get to take the domino, place it in their hunting territory, and select a new domino from the new stack. Each player does this until all dominoes in the first stack are taken and all in the second have been claimed.
This basic process of revealing, selecting, and placing dominoes is repeated every round until each player has completed a 5×5 grid of dominoes.
DISCOVERY MODE
FIRE is king in Origins and is a special terrain type. Each volcano tile has 1, 2, or 3 volcano craters. When a volcano tile is placed in a territory, a corresponding fire token is also placed. Fire tokens are used as follows:
- 1 crater –> token with 1 fire is placed up to three squares away in any direction
- 2 craters –>token with 2 fires is placed up to two squares away in any direction
- 3 craters –>token with 3 fires is placed up to one square away in any direction
In each play mode, each region is scored by multiplying the number of squares in the region by the total number of fire tokens.
TOTEM MODE
This mode is played with all the rules of Discovery Mode PLUS the use of natural resources as a bonus. Each tile has a natural resource icon. Once the new set of 4 dominoes have been revealed, place the corresponding natural resource tokens on the tiles. The resources stay on the dominoes throughout the game, unless they are lost to fire. (If a square with a natural resource gets a fire token placed on it, the resource is lost and goes back into the box for the rest of the game.)
At the end of each round, the player with the highest number of each type of token gets a bonus tile. The bonus tiles can swap around throughout the game. Whoever ends up with the highest number of each resource token at the end of the game gets to keep the bonus points!
TRIBE MODE
This mode is also played with all the rules of Discovery mode PLUS natural resources AND cavemen.
This mode uses the Cave board and tiles, which are shuffled and placed in a pile, face down. Reveal the first 4 tiles on the board. After completing regular turn actions, players can recruit a caveman from the cave board .
- Spend two DIFFERENT resources to recruit a face up caveman OR
- Spend four DIFFERENT resources to recruit a caveman from any tiles in the face down pile.
Caveman can be placed on any square that does not already have a fire or resource. These industrious cavemen earn players bonus points at the end of the game. Each tile has a different benefit and point-scoring mechanism.
END OF GAME
After playing the last round and completing a 5×5 grid of squares (or almost completing, sometimes the grid won’t be complete depending on tile configuration), the game ends and it’s time to calculate score.
Because the scoring is calculated by MULTIPLYING fires by squares in a region, Kingdomino makes a fantastic gameschooling math game. Multiplication is not a skill used often in calculating game scores, and we love that about the Kingdomino games! The score sheet has a separate space for each type of region with all the different ways to earn points, so calculating score is super simple but not always easy! There are lots of numbers to add and multiply, which is awesome!
Kingdomino Origins is fantastic for more than just multiplication! Practice spatial reasoning, logic, strategy and follow the trail of curiosity into other branches of learning like social studies and anthropology. The gameschooling possibilities are many and varied, as with all of our favorite Blue Orange games!
{Thanks to Blue Orange for sharing this educational game with us!}
