The Dwarf King, that’s the one with the longest beard, has challenged humans and goblins to a tournament. Your goal: outscore your rivals across seven deals and claim the crown, even if your beard isn’t quite long enough yet.
You will find all the classic aspects of a trick-taking game, with a twist: every single deal plays by different rules.
What keeps things spicy is the deck itself. Alongside the 39 standard Court cards, one of 14 Special cards is shuffled in each deal. You never quite know which wildcard is lurking until the deal is under way.
Each deal, a special scoring rule called a Quest gets revealed and it completely reshapes what you're trying to do. The result is a game that rewards both planning and adaptability. You might be dealt a hand full of low-value cards and think you're done for, then realize the active Quest scores for exactly those values. Or you'll be sitting on a powerhouse hand only for the Quest to penalize every trick you win. The cards you're trying to collect — or avoid — shift every single round.
The Dwarf King brings you just enough tension and just enough swing to make every deal feel like a proper contest. The crown is up for grabs and we can help with thanks to the tutorial but… who's going to earn it?
https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=thedwarfking
Our thanks to Bruno Faidutti, the game designer, and the good folks at Iello, the publisher, for letting us use their game on BGA. And to MathCT for doing us a good turn with this adaptation.
This was your Friday release.
No beard was shaved during the making of this article. Take care and play fair…
