How To Play Kingdomino Origins

Discovery Mode: Initial Set-Up

Discovery Mode runs parallel in many ways to regular Kingdomino. For set-up, give each player a starting square tile and a 3D hut, which sits on it. Players also get a cavemeeple of their colour choice (which matches the colour of their hut). Keep the 48 domino tiles shuffled within the box. They sit snug inside their ‘tray’ within the insert; there’s no need to take them out the box until later. You will need to place the 10 Fire Tokens out, though. Five have 1x Fire symbol on them; four have 2x Fires on them, and one has 3x Fires on it. Place them face-up nearby.

To begin, draw four dominoes at random from the box (regardless of player count). Each has a number on the back, ranging from 1-48. Arrange these four tiles in numerical ascending order, so the lowest number sits closest to the box. Then flip all four tiles face-up. Pick a first player at random to be the start player. You’re ready to begin playing Kingdomino Origins!

Discovery Mode: A Gentle Sidestep Away From The Familiar

To begin with, the first player picks which of the four face-up dominoes they’d like to draft into their kingdom. To do this, they place their colour Tribe Chief meeple on that domino. Then the next player clockwise does the same, placing their Tribe Chief. Then the third player, and last of all, the fourth.

If you’re playing a two-player game, then each of you get to place two chiefs per turn. You have to decide: do you want the first and fourth domino? Or the second and third? You can’t take, say, the first and third domino. In a three-player game, one domino won’t get picked. (Awww, like that poor kid in P.E. classes…) This tile gets removed from the game.

Once all players have placed their Tribe Chief, then you select four more dominoes at random from the box. Again, you line them up in numerical order, lined up away from the box. Sit them parallel to the first set of dominoes, then flip them over. There’s a super-smart rule with regards to turn order in Kingdomino: Origins. The first player is always whomever drafted the lowest-value domino in the previous round. (As in, the domino closest to the box.) Player order now occurs according to the Tribe Chiefs on the domino values. This means it's not guaranteed to be clockwise.

The first player moves their Tribe Chief onto the next domino they’d like to draft. Then they get to place the first domino into their grid. As a rule of thumb, domino placement is thus: you have to connect a domino adjacent to any previously placed tile. At least one of the terrains on it must match the adjacent domino. Your square starting tile (with your hut on it) is a wild terrain, so any domino terrain type can sit next to this. When placing, you can sit your new domino vertical or horizontal. But you have to situate it so it sits within a 5x5 grid. Your hut does not have to sit flush in the middle of this grid.

In Kingdomino Origins, some tiles have flame symbols on them. Remember, at the end of the game, you’ll count up each square within a contiguous same-terrain type. Then you’ll multiply this figure by the number of flames within that terrain. So dominoes with flame symbols on them are important! Some terrains are more common than others, and some have fewer flames than others. (The exact quota breakdown for this is on page 6 of the rulebook.) In regular Kingdomino, this multiplier system was crowns, instead of flames. Why the change? Well, you’re in the Stone Age, here in Origins. The cave people valued fire and heat more than any kind of monarchy!

The Perks Of Volcano Fire

And, talking of fire, there are 10 Volcanoes within the 48 dominoes in Kingdomino Origins. These are special tiles, and they ‘erupt’ as soon as you place it into your kingdom. Drafted a volcano tile? Check how many volcanoes are on it (one, two, or three). Then take a matching flame chit in accordance to the quantity of volcanoes on the tile. (A one-flame chit for a single volcano; a two-flame chit for two volcanoes; a three-flame chit for three volcanoes.)

You then get to place this fire chit into your kingdom. This helps boost those terrain multipliers I mentioned (up to three-fold)! You place the flame chit a distance away from the volcano domino you just placed, itself. You cannot place a flame chit on a domino square that already features a flame icon. Neither can you place flame chits on volcano regions, themselves.

A single flame chit can sit up to three squares away from the erupting volcano. (This includes diagonals.) A two-flame chit can sit up to two spaces away, and you guessed it. The three-flame chit must sit a single square away from the triple-volcano. (This distance is on the back of the flame chits, in case you forget.) There’s only the single triple volcano (and triple-flame chit), so it’s hard to pass up when it arrives!

When playing Kingdomino Origins, rounds continue as per standard Kingdomino, always adding another four tiles each round. There’s twelve rounds, so you can build a 5x5 kingdom. Reach a stage where you cannot physically place a domino? (Due to lack of matching terrains, or space remaining in your grid?) You still have to draft one. And if you can place a domino on your turn, you have to place it – you can’t forfeit it. After twelve rounds it’s then onto final scoring. Go through each of your regions, and count the number of squares within it. Then multiply it by the flames within the region. (You won't ever score this multiplier for Volcano terrains though.) Most points wins!