Play as trolls rebuilding your abandoned kingdom under the mountain in In the Hall of the Mountain King. With muscle and magic, you'll unearth riches, dig out collapsed tunnels, and carve out great halls as you raise the toppled statues of your ancestors to their places of honor at the heart of the mountain. Gameplay is driven by the innovative cascading production system. Timing and tactics are key as you work to restore your home to its former glory and win the crown! Working on the same game board with the other players (but beginning at your own entrance), you'll dig a competing network of tunnels by spending increasingly valuable materials to lay polyomino tiles onto the map. You want to extend your tunnels to connect with buried gold and materials, with workshop locations that can transform resources, and especially with toppled statues. Statues are key to scoring, and you'll spend carts to move them through the tunnels to prime scoring locations near the heart of the mountain. A major aspect of the game is the cascading production. You begin with a line of four trolls, and every troll shows the combination of resources — gold, stone, iron, marble, carts, runes, and hammers — that it produces. When a new troll is hired, place it above two other trolls, forming a "pyramid". The new troll activates, gaining its resources, and any trolls beneath it ALSO activate, gaining any resources that they have room to carry. In this way as you hire more trolls, you gain bigger and bigger windfalls of resources as the end of the game nears. The timing of your hiring turns versus your building turns is important as you try to maximize your cascades while making sure you get the trolls you want from the shared market and also stay competitive on the map. The game ends shortly after the last player hires their sixth troll, then the player with the most honor (earned for digging tunnels of increasing quality, for excavating great halls, and for moving statues closer to the heart of the mountain, especially onto matching pedestals) is crowned the Mountain King and wins!
Play as trolls rebuilding your abandoned kingdom under the mountain in In the Hall of the Mountain King. With muscle and magic, you'll unearth riches, dig out collapsed tunnels, and carve out great halls as you raise the toppled statues of your ancestors to their places of honor at the heart of the mountain. Gameplay is driven by the innovative cascading production system. Timing and tactics are key as you work to restore your home to its former glory and win the crown! Working on the same game board with the other players (but beginning at your own entrance), you'll dig a competing network of tunnels by spending increasingly valuable materials to lay polyomino tiles onto the map. You want to extend your tunnels to connect with buried gold and materials, with workshop locations that can transform resources, and especially with toppled statues. Statues are key to scoring, and you'll spend carts to move them through the tunnels to prime scoring locations near the heart of the mountain. A major aspect of the game is the cascading production. You begin with a line of four trolls, and every troll shows the combination of resources — gold, stone, iron, marble, carts, runes, and hammers — that it produces. When a new troll is hired, place it above two other trolls, forming a "pyramid". The new troll activates, gaining its resources, and any trolls beneath it ALSO activate, gaining any resources that they have room to carry. In this way as you hire more trolls, you gain bigger and bigger windfalls of resources as the end of the game nears. The timing of your hiring turns versus your building turns is important as you try to maximize your cascades while making sure you get the trolls you want from the shared market and also stay competitive on the map. The game ends shortly after the last player hires their sixth troll, then the player with the most honor (earned for digging tunnels of increasing quality, for excavating great halls, and for moving statues closer to the heart of the mountain, especially onto matching pedestals) is crowned the Mountain King and wins!
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Born-of-AshesBGG user
10.0/10
Wow! Everything about this game is a joy to experience. I really like the artists and molded resources. Cards, boards, and GameTrayz (with lids!) are solid production. The gameplay uses polyominoes in a clever route building mechanism that is a refreshing move away from just filling the given space. The resource production is an innovative draft where you want to balance getting the right cards quickly against using all your resources befoRe making more. The game is actually a race to place statues and complete your production pyramid so the tension stays high throughout. I’ve played over 1000 games and this is in my top 10!
BroopandaBGG user
10.0/10
In the Hall of the Mountain King is a stunningly visual and tactile strategy game. I don't typically like games driven by a collection of victory points at the end, but this game has enough distractions to keep myself and my opponents players distracted by the gameplay until the very end! What sometimes seems to be a runaway win at the end can very quickly turn into last place after several play-throughs. This game is great for 3-4 players?
Grimm77BGG user
10.0/10
I backed this game on kickstarter due to how it was explained and showed. I was even more impressed with everything when I received the game. Tracking was smooth, arrival no issues, and the game trays were WAY better than anticipated. The rules are very well explained, and are easy to follow. I will always have a good time when playing this game.
thereckBGG user
10.0/10
Kickstarter euro of the year for me.highly interactive polyomino laying, great cascading resource mechanic that has you balance making sure you use all your resources and recruiting things to add to your pyramid. It just has a brilliant sense of space and how it plays with it while still feeling like a euro engine builder. The full deluxe edition is almost a must with the expansions, solo, and game trays.
Wendyjo73BGG user
10.0/10
When my husband backed this on Kickstarter, I wasn’t super interested. Then the box came and I was blown away by the deluxe components! These metal coins are superb! Amazing game trayz insert that is the most functional and well thought out design I’ve seen. Gameplay did not disappoint. I love the cascade. I love how trolls are chosen from the horde. I honestly can’t think of any cons at the moment. Can’t wait to play again!
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