Key to the Kingdom is a restoration of the 1990 classic game. The new version features the classic hole-in-the-board mechanism to hop through portals and explore the Demon King’s domain. I think it’s a great closer for a group of gamers, a lovely family game for kids who want to play a fantasy game but aren’t old enough to dig into some of the epic quest games out there… and I’m glad it has a place on my gaming shelf. I’m looking forward to introducing it to my great-nieces and nephews as they get older – and I’ll be happy to play it with whoever asks. I like the Adventure Atlas, as well! It gives players a bit of surprise as they try a new adventure and a fun bit of flavor, as well. There’s some light text and flavor to it. It was extremely fun to play the first game without ever reading anything that didn’t apply to our current attempted adventure. Made things a bit hectic, but it worked out. Set out the board in the center of the play area, folded, and place all the characters on the Start space. Next, place the Demon King board nearby:

I'm not a regular around these parts but I thought I would start here with my investigation and see if you guys have any ideas. The humor is really well-pitched… it’s very dad-jokey and heavy on the alliteration and the puns – but not in a way that is irritating or off-putting. (If you’ve played the Restoration Games version of Fireball Island, you’ll understand the nice balance they can achieve with a humorous tone.) Once you get to the Demon King’s Adventure space, you can choose any face-up or face-down tile in the first available area. You roll, you modify, you try to beat that number (or meet it). Keep going until you’ve either failed or made it through all three challenges. Once you do, you fight the Demon King! You need to roll a 20, which is hard, on an 8-sided die. To help you out, you can modify the roll with all of your remaining available items. If you defeat the Demon King, you win! Player Count Differences Since I can’t compare the two (except to say I like the new cover better), what follows is actually a review of what’s in the box now – and the fun we’ve had with it. I generally recommend having all of your items before attempting a Key Adventure, but at least have the item that lets you skip part of the adventure! That’s bad planning, otherwise. Every Key Adventure has at least one basic starting item that will let you skip one of its challenges. Make sure that item is ready before you attempt it. It’s literally a freebie. On purpose.Fast forward 32 years (yes, my wife & I are about to celebrate our thirty-second anniversary!) and the release of Restoration Games’ new edition of Key to the Kingdom, lovingly restored by Matthew O’Malley and Ben Rossett.

In a rare move, here, I’m actually a bigger fan of Key to the Kingdom with more players than fewer, for many reasons, but a solid one is one quirk in the Demon Die rule. Once taken, someone has to have it; it can’t just be returned out of play. This means in a two-player game, it’s either you or the other person, and it can be annoying to roll a bunch of 0s when you’re trying to move. It’s interesting, sometimes helpful, but often irritating. That said, plenty of other irritating things can happen at higher player counts. There’s more downtime, for instance, between turns, and you run the risk of any player just whirlpooling half the board into or out of oblivion at any given time, which will undoubtedly happen more with more players going in or out of whirlpools. But having a bit more chaos seems to fit the scene of this game pretty well, and I preferred the feeling of the game with three to two, so I’m inclined to recommend it along those lines. I’m suspicious of the game at five players, but, frankly, I’m suspicious of almost every game at five players. I’ve been playing 7 Wonders Architects on BGA for almost a month. It’s never going to end. This is all to say that I’d probably most heartily recommend Key to the Kingdom at three to four players. Strategy Despite its novel idea of a fold-out realm, the original was nonetheless beset by the usual limitations of the roll and move genre – a mechanic that feels especially dated today. But rather than do away with the mechanic altogether, the publishers have chosen to live up to their name and simply restore and revitalise it. Players will still be rolling a die on their turn, albeit with the option of modifying the result with one of their eight starting hero’s items. These range from +1/-1 lengths of rope to mighty +4/-4 swords, with other possibilities available through any magic items found. Once used, items become exhausted although the game offers plenty of opportunities for replenishing them, most notably through a ‘hero’s nap’. You can really mess up another player’s plans by going into the Whirlpool and flipping the board right before they go on a Key Adventure. This is a real jerk move, but if you know what you’re doing, running to a Whirlpool and flipping the board can really mess another player up, if they were already planning and organizing cards and Companions for a Key Adventure. It basically resets that entire side of the board, so now they’re either in a void or a whirlpool and they might be nowhere near where they wanted to be, so that wastes at least a turn or two of theirs. I wouldn’t recommend doing this (again, mean), but I can’t deny that it works. So my game group and I recently got our hands on the unfolding game Key to the Kingdom. For anyone who hasn't seen it before, i recommend watching the advert, ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXtJTLN2bTA).The variable amount of required table space can be a bit of a pain. I like the folding and the unfolding, but it does take up a lot of table. For my long dining room table? Fine. For my shorter photography table? Less so. So I did the photos in my dining room. You know how it goes. Charming, funny, and well written, this is easily one of the best roll and move family games we’ve encountered.

It’s also very goofy, and the light comedy of the game is very cute. The game is silly, fundamentally. The images are goofy (not scary), and I think that will be engaging for folks. You can even read the fun flavor text on the cards, if that’s your thing. There’s probably a way to overlay some light roleplaying elements on top of this game, but that’s beyond my scope. Generally, giving the Demon Die to the player who seems to be in the lead makes sense. They’ll occasionally get super-high rolls (there’s an 11, on there), but that’s a one in eight chance. There are two 0s, so hopefully it just junks up that player’s ability to move usefully around the board and slows them down for a bit so other players can catch up. Following on from the successful rejigs of Fireball Island and Dark Tower, Restoration Games set their sights on overhauling the 1990 fantasy classic The Key to the Kingdom. This family-friendly adventure game will thrust players into a whimsical world of childlike wonder, as they take on the roles of unlikely heroes competing to put an end to the fearsome Demon King. By travelling the lands in search of adventure, players will gradually assemble the titular key needed to storm the Demon King’s domain, ascend his imposing castle, and finally brave battle in the throne room.

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This new version gives players greater control over the whims of the dice. You’ll use your collection of items to tweak your rolls. But make sure you have the right item ready when you go on an adventure to give you an easier path through. You’ll get magic items and companions along the way as well. It also adds a new endgame in which you need to face a series of mini-challenges to win the game. The artwork is adorable without being too cutesy – meaning it isn’t off-putting to family members as a “boy game” or a “girl game”. It doesn’t make the game last longer than the director’s cut of The Return of the King. (With 2-3 players, we finished in about 30 minutes. We ran just over an hour with five players.) But we’re not here to talk about The Mushroom Eaters… instead, when one of our intrepid Key to the Kingdom heroes leaps into a whirlpool, a portion of the board either opens (if it’s closed) or closes (if it’s open), revealing or hiding portions of the kingdom. Anyone else on the moving portion of board is relegated to the Void spot (the hole) when it opens or the whirlpool when it closes. You should be ready to start! Every player rolls their dice and the highest roller takes the first turn: Gameplay