Kingdom Death: Monster’s massive new expansion is just too much damn work
Kingdom Death: Monsterbelow the highest-grossing crowdfunded board games of all timeis a rare beast in part because of its price point, which currently stands at $420. It’s also due to production issues, meaning the game has been out of print for a long time since its first edition in 2015. But if you get a chance to actually play it, like I did, you’ll find that the mechanics are literally to die for to die. The base game features complex monsters and extensive turn-based combat, a powerful crafting system and a fascinating take on colony simulation. Beloved characters will die terribly and often, which may end your campaign after dozens of hours. Add dozens to that the most beautiful multi-part plastic miniatures in the industry and you’ll understand why I once called it ‘the Everest of board games’.
Now comes the game’s first big-box expansion, a second $400 cardboard-and-plastic crate called Expansion of the gambler’s chest that was originally promised to lenders in December 2020. More than three years later – almost seven years after it was originally funded, mind you – it’s finally available for purchase. Unfortunately, it’s a bit of a mess that further complicates an already over-the-top complex game. Unless you’re just here for the miniatures, I just can’t recommend it.
What makes it original Kingdom Death: Monster the presentation is that convincing. It’s a gigantic black box full of secrets, but those secrets are neatly organized thanks to an ingenious plastic packaging. Lift the lid and you have at your fingertips, indexed and elegantly sorted, everything needed to play the game: hundreds of different playing cards, tokens, tiles and dice, all lined up and ready to roll. The manual reads like a storybook, with clearly marked sections for each step of the deadly journey ahead. All you have to do is go to page one and get started.
The experience with Expansion of the gambler’s chest is almost the opposite.
Billed as a collection of optional expansions, Gambler’s Chest Expansion is built around a new campaign called People of the Dream Keeper who uses them almost all at the same time. The campaign also remixes the monsters and bosses from the original game with an assortment of new ones, rearranging the game’s previously steep difficulty curve in a largely positive way. But thanks to the poorly organized manual, integrating the necessary components of these expansions with those of the original game took me four hours of trial and error.
That was just the beginning of my problems.
The big gimmick here is a new type of player character called an “arc survivor.” Arc survivors can level up and change in new ways thanks to “knowledge” and “philosophies.” Both can grant buffs or debuffs to characters over time, but the way they are implemented slows down the pace of play considerably.
Knowledge is stored together in a huge deck of more than 170 tarot-sized cards. While the art on these cards is stunning and thematic, the cards do not share a sequential numbering system. Searching for that one card you need in a pinch requires sifting through that entire deck and coming into contact with images that are alternately disturbing and deeply fascinating. But in practice, it’s time-consuming and tedious, and only serves to keep the secrets deep within the game hidden.
Philosophies are even trickier in their implementation. Each requires players to work from a small book the size of a tarot card that behaves like one Choose your own adventureStyle mini-game that takes place over multiple gaming sessions. This effectively divides the attention of the players at the table, who are now all tasked with silently explaining the details of their philosophy. What makes matters worse is that players who share the same philosophy also have to share the same booklet, which further slows down the pace of play.
All of this could be forgiven if the rules for philosophies and knowledge were made crystal clear in the first place, but unfortunately that is not the case. My group and I spent a lot of time over the course of our first four sessions trying to explain the basics. That eventually led us to Reddit threads full of a handful of confused customers, but very few answers to our questions. At one point we even wondered how a lot of player characters could be officially involved in the best parts of the game, the random hunts and visceral turn-based combat.
Expansion of the gambler’s chest is thwarted by these types of inconsistencies, but also by problems that should have been addressed during editing or quality control. For example, several of the cards that came with Polygon’s set were misprinted, with one completely missing the values for the required dice rolls. Only a few of the philosophy booklets include the correct cover page that provides the necessary instructions to actually use them, an oversight that lost my group about half an hour of playing time—and even more time undoing what we later learned. had done it wrong.
The general consensus among the community seems to be that if you don’t understand how a rule or system should work in the expansion, just make your best guess. And while that feels like a viable option in a standard tabletop role-playing system like Dungeons & Dragons, in a board game with so much character death it’s far from ideal. All these little failures start to throw you off the whole experience – especially when all-out group murders are so common that they are included as their own special section on the group character sheet.
Then there are the miniatures themselves. While the plastic molds, called sprues, that hold the parts of each model are labeled, the individual parts themselves are not. This also applies to the installation instructions, which are only available online. As a result, I held small pieces of plastic up to my computer screen and slowly rotated them in space to see if I had found the right one. If you’re working with a model that has, say, dozens of nearly identical human fingers running along its back and that needs to be properly glued into place before painting, it’s very frustrating.
Some models don’t even have any instructions. For the ones I just had to wing.
The highlights for me though are the monsters. The new People of the Dream Keeper The campaign kicks off with an exciting first level critter, the Crimson Crocodile, which in my opinion offers a much more varied experience than the fairly predictable White Lion from the base game. This is especially useful since, like the White Lion, you’ll be fighting the Croc quite a few times before you really get the hang of your characters. The Smog Singers, the King and the Godhand are all exciting additions to the game’s lore, with mysterious and creative moves hidden in their AI decks. Taking turns against some of the original base game beasts – including the Phoenix, an end-game boss not encountered until near the finale of the original base game campaign – it feels like discovering a new hidden level in a favorite video game like Dark souls or Nioh. Even Atnas, the Child Eater, brings something interesting to the table, despite being a thinly veiled and gruesome parody of Santa Claus.
Unfortunately, Expansion of the gambler’s chest as a whole it feels more like overreach than a victory lap Kingdom Death: Monster. While the miniatures continue to impress, if not inspire, legions of dedicated hobby painters and artists, the product as a whole feels shoddy. My recommendation is that if you already have the base game, you are better off with the smaller one-off expansions available from the online store. There are a few gems, like Gorm Expansion 1.6that can greatly improve the base game.
With any luck, the best bits will come of it Gambler’s Chest Expansion The dents will be ironed out in a revised second edition, or else they will be broken out to be sold piecemeal. Arc survivors and lore are advanced and compelling, but they don’t meet the high standard set by the documentation and components found in other releases. As for me, now I will have to find a way to separate the different components Gambler’s Chest Expansion from Polygon’s copy of the base game – just another part of the manual that should have been included in the first place.
Expansion of the gambler’s chest is currently available directly from Adam Poots Games. The game was reviewed using a copy from Adam Poots Games. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships, but not with Adam Poots Games. These do not influence editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions on products purchased through affiliate links. You can find Additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy can be found here.