Another abstract from Lee Sedol

Korea Boardgames released 3 abstract games last year, all of them having one main thing in common: they are all created by the Go Grandmaster Lee Sedol, and thus all of them are inspired by Go in one way or another. We already covered one of these games, Great Kingdom, now time for the second one of this series: King’s Crown. 👑

King’s Crown requires lots of strategy, memory and trying to read your opponent. Bluntly put, this is a beefed up version of tic-tac-toe. But it is beefed up with several additions.😉

Each game begins with drafting rounds. Players will reveal 2 numbered chips (either from a bag or from those on the table) and then pick a chip to hide behind their player screen. After every turn, revealed chips are turned face down, turning this into a bit of a memory game as well. When both players have 12 chips, then the real game begins. 💪

You play on a 5x5 board, with a joker space in the middle - it counts as an already filled space for both players. In turn order you will be placing down your crowns with chips on the board, trying to fill a full row/column/diagonal with your crowns. If no one manages to do this, whoever places the last viable chip wins.

The main challenge to this are the chips of course, as they restrict how you can play. If you want to place a chip orthogonally adjacent to another chip, the number has to be one lower or one bigger, or the same number of the other color. Chips come in 2 colors, going from 1 to 24. This makes the game quite difficult, as often you might not be able to block your opponent if the values are missing, and thus this makes the drafting phase very important too. Trying to keep track of what the opponent is taking is essential. 

💭As you might see from all this, King’s Crown is a real abstract game, full of strategy and reading your opponent. Personally we don’t enjoy memory elements in games, which is why this one doesn’t hit as hard, but big fans of abstract games will have really tough duels with this game.