Kings of Israel - A Judeo-Christian Boardgame Thingy

[tgb]

I have been keeping an eye on this ever since it popped up on Steam Greenlight, being the sucker for digital board games that I am.  Also, Israel.

The analog version has been around since last year and gotten pretty good reviews.

Kings of Israel is a board game taking place in Israel (the Northern Kingdom) during the reign of its kings up until Israel's destruction by Assyria. Players are on a team and each person represents a line of prophets that are trying to remove evil and idols from Israel, while building altars to help guide Israel in the upcoming difficult years. If the players are able to build enough altars before the game ends, they win. If the group runs out of sin cubes or idols, or if the timeline token reaches Assyria destroying Israel, the prophets lose.

The game board is a map of Israel with many important locations and nations shown. Between these locations are roads and in addition the cities on the sea are connected by sailing routes. These roads and sailing routes are how the prophets travel around Israel.

A typical turn has four phases:

1. King's Godliness Phase – During this phase, if a bad king is reigning over Israel the players must draw a Sin and Punishment card, which means bad things happen in Israel because of evil or in response to evil. If a good king is reigning over Israel, the starting player instead gets a blessing in the form of a Blessing card.

2. Sin Increases Phase – Location cards are drawn and sin increases at each location drawn. This can possibly cause idols to appear or sin to spread further if sin increases at a location already containing an idol.

3. Prophets Work Phase – In this phase each player gets to use four actions to accomplish their goals. They may use their actions to move, remove sin or idols, draw Resource cards, build an altar, make a sacrifice on an altar, or to give resources to another player. Each player may also play Blessing cards at this time if they have them.

4. End of Round Phase – The starting player changes to the next player clockwise, and the timeline token moves down to the next king chronologically. In the Easy game, any one who has made a sacrifice that turn would draw a Blessing card.

Anyway, I found out yesterday that it's out and available directly from the developer for $10, but better yet, is part of a current Groupees bundle, which can be had for a little as $1.50.

For a buck and a half I had to get it.

The game is quite challenging (it took several tries for me to beat the introductory game), and the religious aspects can be turned off completely.  In fact, you can create almost any kind of SF or modern backstory and game play would stay the same.

One further note - it will kick your butt on even the easiest levels.

[JasonPratt]

I hear good things about FIVE: Guardians of David, too. (Not as a boardgame, of course, but more like an ARPG.)

[amandachen]

I hear good things about FIVE: Guardians of David, too.

I'd forgotten to check this out. I'm not interested in Bible crap or Jewish bollocks (do they have any?), but this looks like a great little Diablo clone (getting a Throne of Darkness vibe from the screenshots). And I found a nice price on one of those dodgy key sites.   >:D

[Nefaro]

I hear good things about FIVE: Guardians of David, too.

I'd forgotten to check this out. I'm not interested in Bible crap or Jewish bollocks (do they have any?), but this looks like a great little Diablo clone (getting a Throne of Darkness vibe from the screenshots). And I found a nice price on one of those dodgy key sites.   >:D

I've also been eyeing it for the Diablo style gameplay. 

But I read that the campaign is only around 16 hours of play time.  That is a bit less than the time it took me to finish a Diablo 3 core game campaign with one character, and I thought that was much too short.  So I've held off for a future sale or add'l content to expand it.

I'm an atheist so there's no extra special fuzziness from the themes of these, other than general interests regarding mythology of any sort, and a fantastical bronze age setting.

[Tpek]

I hear good things about FIVE: Guardians of David, too.

I'd forgotten to check this out. I'm not interested in Bible crap or Jewish bollocks (do they have any?), but this looks like a great little Diablo clone (getting a Throne of Darkness vibe from the screenshots). And I found a nice price on one of those dodgy key sites.   >:D

I've also been eyeing it for the Diablo style gameplay. 

But I read that the campaign is only around 16 hours of play time.  That is a bit less than the time it took me to finish a Diablo 3 core game campaign with one character, and I thought that was much too short.  So I've held off for a future sale or add'l content to expand it.

I'm an atheist so there's no extra special fuzziness from the themes of these, other than general interests regarding mythology of any sort, and a fantastical bronze age setting.

I've played it a bit.
And so far from what I've seen there are no real "supernatural" elements about it.
No mythological creatures, angels, no god(s) or anything like that at all.

[Nefaro]

I've played it a bit.
And so far from what I've seen there are no real "supernatural" elements about it.
No mythological creatures, angels, no god(s) or anything like that at all.

That's actually a bit of a letdown. 

Because:








Needs me some Sorcery, or at least some explody wizardry-fu.

S'ok.  Grim Dawn is supposed to be finished very soon.  Also Underrail end of this week for some Psi-Sorcery and guns. 

[Tpek]

Underrail is more of a true C-RPG like Fallout 1&2, and less than of a hack&slash Action-RPG like Grim Dawn.
Though I am really excited about its impending release.
I played the beta versions a bit, and couldn't wait for the finished product.

[FarAway Sooner]

Game play in the OP looks very similar to Pandemic.  That's a great title and it's spawned a whole genre, but it's also been out for about 5 or 6 years!

[tgb]

It is very similar to Pandemic, but it throws in some interesting twists.