The King is Fed
A downloadable game
The realm has been re-unified. The leaders of its three factions (the English, Scottish, and Welsh) will soon arrive at the royal castle for a celebratory but tense dinner. If the dinner is a failure, the realm will descend into chaos yet again.
You are the royal hosts’ waitstaff, plating dishes and serving guests while following royal protocol. The fate of the realm now rests on your shoulders. Only you can maintain peace in the realm by making sure that all faction leaders are served fairly and that the royal hosts are satisfied.
Components
Setup
Objective
Your goal is to serve three meal portions (i.e., cubes) to every guest, with each guest receiving one cube of each color.
Gameplay
You play the game in turns. On each turn, you must take one of the following actions:
- Dish a portion - Move a cube from a waiter’s tray to a square on one of the three serving dishes in front of the waiter.
- Serve a portion - Move a cube from a serving dish to a guest’s plate.
- Perform a royal ceremony - Move a cube from a royal host’s serving trolley to the adjacent waiter that does not have a cube and then perform the associated royal action listed on the trolley.
Game end
The game ends with a win if every guest has one cube of each color on their plate.
The game ends with a loss if any of the following occur:
- You are unable to perform any of the allowed actions on a turn
- You are unable to perform the required royal action when you perform a royal ceremony
- A guest has more than one cube in a given color on their plate
Credits & Thanks
Game design and art by J. Kendler
Special thanks to Peer Sylvester and Osprey Games (for producing “The King is Dead”, which was one of the original inspirations for this game), Efka and Elaine from No Pun Included (for introducing me to “The King is Dead”), Rutu Modan (whose children’s book “Maya Makes a Mess” was also one of the inspirations for this game), and the various playtesters who provided feedback and suggestions for improving the game.
Download
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Thank you for the game! This looks very interesting.
I've run into some difficulties, though, with the rules for the "Level 1" difficulty.
Level 1 states: "No guest may receive their first portion until all serving dishes are filled with the required cubes." But if all serving dishes need to be filled before any guest is served, then you may be forced to lose the game before it gets properly started.
Some of the royal actions listed on the royal host cards require you to move cubes onto or from a guest plate (e.g. "Move a cube from a serving dish to any guest plate", "Move a cube from any guest's plate to another guest's plate", or "Move a cube from a guest's plate to any waiter's tray").
But since you cannot move a cube onto a guest's plate until all serving trays are filled, you cannot perform these actions, and as the rules state "if you cannot perform the royal action, the game ends immediately".
So, it seems like you automatically lose the game if you draw any of those three royal host cards.
Or did I misunderstand the level 1 rule?
Hi Darkyeoman. Thanks for your question and my apologies for the delayed reply.
You have understood the level 1 rule correctly. However, the loss condition you mention is only triggered if you cannot perform the royal action after performing the royal ceremony (i.e., moving a cube from the royal host to the adjacent waiter). Therefore, you can avoid losing the game by taking a different action and waiting to perform the royal action until after you have filled all the serving dishes.
Hopefully that makes more sense now :-)
Thanks for the reply.
I’m not sure this solves the problem I ran into, or perhaps I misunderstood.
Level 1 states I need to fill all serving dishes before I can put something on a plate. So how many cubes do I have to move to a serving dish, before I can move them to a plate?
Two of the table cards have 1 space on serving dishes.
Three cards have 2.
Three cards have 3.
One card has 4.
All but two of the royal sides have 1 space. Two royal cards (the two which have but one space on the other side) have none.
That means that I could end up with a table that has 16 or 17 or 18 spaces on serving dishes.
There are 18 cubes. If I have any of the royal cards I mentioned in my previous post, that means I should not move at least 3 of those cubes unless all serving dishes are filled, otherwise I’d lose the game (because I can’t perform the associated royal action).
So, if I have a table with 16 or 17 or 18 serving dishes spaces, I would automatically lose, because I would be forced to move one, two, or three of those 3 cubes associated with a royal action that would force me to lose (i.e. any royal action that involves cubes on plates).
In other words, in those situations, there would be no other action I could take, because the only actions I can take in the game is move a cube (1) from trolley > dish (and perform the associated royal action), (2) from tray > dish, (3) from dish > plate.
I don’t want to do (1), because I can’t perform the royal action associated with it and so I would lose the game.
I can’t do (3), because level 1 forbids me to do so.
I can do (2) until all cubes from the trays have moved to the dishes, but once that is done I can’t do (2) because there is nothing else to move.
So I would either be stalled or lose the game.
This happened in two games I set up to play.
Your explanation makes sense and you are correct - you have identified an issue with the original game design. I'll need to do some additional work to resolve this.
Thanks for pointing it out :-)
Congrats on a beautifull game ! Good luck in the contest :)
Thank you very much! Same to you :-) (I'm looking forward to trying out your game as well)