Royal ball

Intro. King invites all the nobleman for the lunch before the Royal hunt tomorrow. Everybody will try to stuff their belly with as much food as they can and everybody will show off they prized dogs and horses. However King is very immature and insecure, so you can’t eat or have more than king or you will be punished, but if you eat and have more than any other nobleman you will get a favor from the king. 

Player count: 2-4

Inventory:

Game cards: 105 cards. 7 types of 15 cards each.

Active player marker

Preparation for the game. Depending on the player count, you will use different amount of cards for the game:

4 players – 105 cards, 

3 players – 88 cards (We recommend to remove one type of card (Horse or Dog recommended) and 2 additional cards (cake is recommended)), 

2 players – 72 cards (We recommend to remove one type of card (Horse or Dog recommended) and 3 cards from each type that are in the game).

Deciding on the first/active player. The first player could be the host. Alternately you could draw cards from the deck, player who draws horse first arrives to the part and is the first player (Keep in mind that if you removed horses from the deck, you can’t draw one. Just saying). 

Mix the cards and let the game begin.

Playing the game. Active player takes amount of players plus one cards from the top of the deck, places them face down in the middle of the table. So in 4 player game it means 5 cards, 3 – 4, 2 - 3. 

After placing the cards, he decides which cards to turn face up. He will turn face up all cards but one. Player sitting on the left of active player will choose one card and take it to his hand. He can take face up or face down card. This will continue clockwise until it will comeback to the active player. From two cards left on the table active player will decide: one card goes to his hand, one card goes to the king. Kings’ card is placed to the kings’ pile. If the card on the table was face up, it is placed face up, if the card on the table was face down, it is placed face down. During the game players see only the last card king had. 

After active player made a decision: took one card for himself and gave one for the king, active players’ marker moves clockwise. Game continues until the deck runs out. 

After the deck runs out, all players starting with current active player review their hand. They can give two, one or zero cards to the king. If they decide to give, cards are placed face down on the kings’ pile. 

Now it’s time to start scoring. First kings cards are revealed and appropriate actions are applied (see horse and dogs cards). It’s important not to mix the cards and take them from the top. So the last placed cards will be revealed last. Its important for dogs and horses actions. 

When each player reveals they hand. Score counted the following way: if player has exactly the same number of cards of that type as a king he gets 0 points. If player has more cards of that type than a king he gets negative points. If player has less cards of that type than a king he gets positive points. Point counting explained in the cards description.

Player with the most positive points get a favor from the king. Player who gets three favors first, becomes advisor to the king. We recommend to play this game until three victories to declare absolute winner of the game, however if you are in a hurry you can play just one round.

Cards

Cake – the simpliest card. Worth 5 points each. Be careful cake can be bad for you.

Carrot - can be eaten by kings’ horse, so be careful collecting these cards. Each card worth 2 points, but for a pack of three you get additionally 1 point. 

Apple -  can be eaten by kings’ horse, so be careful collecting these cards. Apple cards by themselves are worth 0 points, but in pair with chicken with give 2 points. So if play has 0 chicken drumsticks and 3 apple cards he gets 0 points. If player has 3 chicken drumsticks and 1 apple card, he gets 2 points for apple cards. If player has 1 chicken drumstick and 3 apple cards, he gets 2 points for apple cards. 

Saliami - can be eaten by kings’ dogs, so be careful collecting these cards. One card is 0 points, each next card is +1 point. So if player has 4 cards, points go like this: 0, 1, 2, 3 total 6 points. 

Chicken drumsticks – can be eaten by kings’ dogs, so be careful collecting these cards. One card is 0 points. Pack of 2 cards is 3 points. Pack of 3 cards is 5 points. 

Dog – can eat all meat (not live animals, so no other dogs or horses). If you see that you have more meat than a king, you can feed it to the dog. Turn the card of meat on the side and place it under the dog. One dog can eat one card. When counting Kings’ cards, dogs always eat. You take a dog card from the kings deck, the next meat card that will come from the Kings’ deck will be eaten by the dog. It can happen that this is the last card so, dog will go hungry. It can also happen that the next  cards will be vegetables, fruits, horses and dogs, so again, dog will go hungry. 

As for scoring dog card it works following way: One dog – 8 points, two dogs – 4, three dogs – 2, four or more dogs - 0 points. If player has 1 dog, and king has 0 dogs, player gets minus eight points. If player has 2 dogs and king has 2 dogs, player gets 0 points. If player has 1 dog and king has 2 dogs, player gets plus/positive eight points. 

Horse – can eat all vegetables and fruits. It works similar to the dog. If you see that you have more vegetable or fruit cards than a king, you can feed it to the horse. Turn the card on the side and place it under the horse. One horse can eat one card. When counting Kings’ cards, horses always eat. You take a horse card from the kings deck, the next vegetable or fruit card that will come from the Kings’ deck will be eaten by the horse. It can happen that this is the last card so, horse will go hungry. It can also happen that the next cards will be meat, horses and dogs, so again, horse will go hungry. 

As for scoring horse card it works following way: One horse – 0 points, two horses – 3, three horses – 0, four horses – 6 points, five or more zero points. 

Please keep in mind that eaten cards don’t count to points or cards amount. On the other hand, hungry and full animals count the same. So if kings dogs’ ate 2 saliami and only 1 left, king has only 1 saliami, not three. If you have 3 dogs and 3 saliami, nobody forces you to feed your dogs. You can keep them hungry. If you see that the king has only 2 saliami in that case it would be wise for you to give 2 (or at least one) saliami to the dogs to avoid negative points.  

Game idea.  Idea for this game came watching three amigos video about the best food themed games.

Number six is King’s breakfast. They describe the game as you can’t eat more than a king during the breakfast. It was enough for me, to start my brain working. 

I never played King’s breakfast and I couldn’t find video review of the game (which means the game is old or bad or both). As far as I know my idea has nothing in common with Kings’ breakfast except the theme, of course. 

I never played Sushi Go, but I guess this might feel similar to that game. 

Luck factor. Whenever cards are involved the luck factor is big. Each time you mix cards, you get different game experience and because of it some games might be good for you, some games might feel boring for you. 

One card on the table is left face down, which means that there is one more luck factor. I think this makes a game better. If you see all open cards and there is nothing that you like, you can still hope that the only hidden card will be your salvation. And all your hopes and dreams will be squashed away when you will see that the hidden card is as bad as the rest of them.

Of course we don’t want the game to be just luck and there are two things to combat it. First of all, at the end of the game, if you feel that you have too many some type of the cards, you can give them to the king. However it is a double edge sword. If you have a lot of meat and you give away a dog, you are hurting your chances to score good in the meat track. The same goes for horse. On the other hand if you are giving away carrots, you might help other players to score well on carrots.

Another strategy would be to save animals for yourself. If you see that king has little meat or vegetables, you can feed them to the animals. You can see that game encourages you to have a lot of animals, because huge group of animals is worth zero points, so you are not getting negative points. 

There is one more strategy to combat luck. At the beginning of the game all players should leave horses and dogs for the king, because first rounds cards will end up at the bottom and they won’t eat anything. If you leaving horses and dogs to the king at the end of the game, you are doing evil for somebody maybe even yourself. On the other hand if cards don’t fall well, it’s just a bad luck. 

Other game design decisions. When three amigos presented the game, they said that kings’ dragon might eat some food. I didn’t know how that worked, but it seemed like a good idea. So I had to figure out how I would like to implement eating in this game. I didn’t want a dragon that eats everything. That’s why there are two animals. You can go for meat and dog strategy or horses and vegan diet. Of course you can try to do everything. But there is only so many cards you can have in your hand (21 for 4 player game) and you still have to have less than a king. 

There is a cake card which gives a lot of points and if you don’t get a cake, you should be sad, like in the real life. On the other hand, cake gives you a lot of points, but you have to share it with the king or you will be punished. Because it gives a lot of points all the players will be seduced to grab it, but no animal eats it, so you can’t get rid of it if you there too greedy.

At first I wanted to make this game for 5 players, but to do that I would need to add 21 card to the deck so in total it would be 126 cards, which seemed like a lot to me. Maybe I am wrong? 

Game Art. The art you see in the post is made by me. I can call myself a beginner at best. I would love for this game to have Last will art style.

Will the game be ever published? I don’t have any contacts with any publishers. At the moment I am not interested in publishing the game myself. And no, I am not doing a kickstarter. 

If you would like to think from the publishers perspective, this is a good game:

    • Game is only 105 plus active player token which could also be a card, so total 106 cards. It’s cheap to print, you don’t need any fancy miniatures or even meeples. 

    • There are 7 different cards and active player card, so in total you need 8 unique designs which is way cheaper to make than player or main board. You don’t need Scythe level art for this game. 

    • There is no text on the cards, so only the rules needs to be translated and there aren’t many of them. So it means that it’s easy and cheap to sell game internationally. 

    • You don’t need to go Point Salad on me when making a game box. Seriously, why did they make the box so big?

    • This game can go the path of Dale of merchants or Claim. I mean, there is possibility to publish second game on exactly the same rules with different animals and food item. It could be stand alone game or you could mix with the original game this way breathing new life into game and creating new interesting combos. 

You can help. Because of the pandemic (not the board game, but situation in the world), I couldn't play test the game. This is there you come in. If you can play test (PDF file of cards) it or give any feedback, it would be very valuable to me. I still don’t know the future of this game, and if I get a lot of negative feedback, when there is no future. Anyway, all you feedback will definitely impact my future ideas. So please share, test, comment. Thank you!