Hall of the Dwarven King
A downloadable game
As a recently-crowned Dwarven King, you'd quite like a palace. Your followers would rather spend their days fighting amongst themselves and drinking. Good luck with that.
Hall of the Dwarven King is a dice game for one player. Each of your seven dice represents the whims of one of your followers, Sometimes they'll feel like mining or building, but just as often, they'd rather drink or get into fights.
Try to order them around too much and they'll just walk off. So if you want a palace (Which, of course you do) you'll need to work around the Dwarves' inclinations, build Taverns and Gaming halls so they'll be happier doing what you say, or just bribe them if you have the cash.
All you need to play Hall of the Dwarven King is this PDF, a pencil and seven standard dice. Share your high score, or a scan of your best game in the comments below.
If you like this, you should try my other, similar game: Tower of Mages!
Quick Update: (August 14 2017)
- Added double sheet version. It has two copies of the game, but no rules, in order to minimize paper use.
Update 1.2: (August 11 2017)
- Made some more clarifications
- Changed costs of buildings
- Removed Mercenaries, added Bribery
- Nerfed Throne Room
Update 1.1: (August 8 2017)
- Fixed some typos, clarified some rules
- Removed restriction on rerolling ones
- Added gems in Dig track. (Give 1-6 points when reached)
- Added Easy (Elven) and Hard (Legendary) modes.
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Hall of the Dwarven King in Buttonshy Board Game of the Month!Feb 11, 2018
- Thank you everyone!Aug 12, 2017
Comments
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Thank you so much for your kindness and generosity in providing community copies of your game. I’m a disabled pension who can’t afford much so these free gifts really help me out in playing games and keeping my mind active.
I really appreciate your hard work and kindness
Great game! Really had a blast with this and still cannot beat my record from the 1st game ever : D
I... *assume* you can only double a single die once. So I can't use two carpenters to make a single dwarf worth 4 builders, right? The fact that it says "double the effect of 1 building dwarf" rather than something more specific like "make a single building dwarf worth two" made me double-take and question that.
Very fun game! The only downside is on me. I keep forgetting to tick off the time :-S
Yeah, you gotta do that or else you just run out of room with too many points
I know I am very late to the party, but playing with this lil' Dwarven engine builder was a blast.
That said, I must be reading the rules wrong, because otherwise I just scored a 39062672 point game, 39062500 of which was a turn-10 level 4 throne room?
That does seem a tad high.
You would have had 11 crowns remaining, 11×5×4 = 220
You add 5 to the multiplier for each crown remaining, not multiply the total again.
Ah, that makes much more sense! Thanks for the pointers!
Like I said, before, this was a really splendid time. I am trying to do a little research on roll-and-write games. This was both a great time and I learned a lot! Thanks for making it and sharing it!
I don't understand the mushroom. Are you supposed to only use it while that depth is the final depth and then once you dig lower it no longer is in affect? Is that the only building that works that way?
Normally if you don't roll at least one Cooking Dwarf, you can't do anything else. If there's a farm though, you can do something at that same depth (that nine square area)
So if I don't roll a cook and I want to build and dig I can only do that on the level with mushrooms? So if my mushrooms are on the first depth and I now want to build lets say a mine but the 4th depth is my lowest point so I want to build there and also dig, but since the mushrooms are the on the 1st depth that is not possible. Am I understanding correctly?
I started playing that you have to choose which depth you want to use the buildings on after you roll and put the cook die (or one of the discarded ones) on that depth. It helped make the mushrooms make sense to me and also added a level difficultly that I enjoyed. I also color coded the unique buildings so it's clear which ones I built already, it's not clear you can only build one of those unless you print out the sheet with just the shafts on it.
You've got it!
Having to place the Cooks adds a neat wrinkle to the game, I'll need to try that.
Thank you for the feedback. Eventually I'll need to go back and do a revised edition of this, having the comment section here will be an excellent resource.
Great game, just got it. Rules are a mess
I'm glad you're giving it a try, let me know if you have any specific questions!
So Ive played it 3 times, with the help of your anwers here. Its fun an will recomend it. Thx
Just want a little clarification, for the throne do you cross off a crown for each roll after you build it?
Yes you do.
Are there rules to this game? I see the gameflow chart on the one PDF but it doesn't tell you how to play.
Oh no, those are the rules.
Hall of the Dwarven King is my Sunday crossword puzzle—just me, a cup of coffee, and the clatter of dice. Many, many thumbs up. A true delight.
Just discovered this and played two games. It's fun! A couple questions (I tried the discord link but it's expired):
- Do you need to dig to the first level before you can build anything (ie you need both a 3 and a 4 on your first roll phase)?
- The plaques that say "depth: x" and "gold: x" refer to the whole 9-block area, right? (I played my first game thinking they referred to only the level they were aligned with but I'm pretty sure now I got it wrong.)
- Assuming my second question is correct, does "unique" mean unique to the mine or unique to the depth? If the latter, can one depth hold a tavern, gaming den, and a concert hall? And do you have to buy the "cheaper" ones before you can buy the costlier ones? If the former: if I build a tavern at depth 1 and a gaming den at depth 2, do I get 2 free rerolls for the rest of the game? By the same token, if I build a blacksmith at depth 1, does that let me double the effects of one digging dwarf on every roll?
- Last question. If I've dug only to the top level of a given depth, can a build anywhere in it? Similarly, do I have to build left-to-right?
Thanks!
1: Yes you need to dig before you can build.
2: Yeah, the depth and gold numbers are for the whole 3x3 square.
3: Unique means you can only have one in the mine. You can build a tavern and gambling den in any order, and you get both rerolls. Each Carpenter and Blacksmith can be used on one die each turn.
4: You don't have to build from left to right, but you do have to dig to the row before you can build in it
I hope that helps!
I found this game and am enjoying it! I did have a few game rules questions, but I don't know author's email, or itch.io mailbox to ask the questions. If someone could help me out, that would be great!
If you're comfortable, you can ask me here, so other people can benefit from it, otherwise, my email is starflier@gmail.com
Thank you for the reply. I had asked if there was a way to ask questions, but noticed the last post was over 2 years old, so I figured it was dead. Anyway... Here some questions.
* What are the value of the statues? They are expensive for only giving one point. It would seem they should be worth more points or something.
* With the throne room...I take it the "gain points equal to the throne room's depth..." only happens when you first buy it?
* To make sure I understand correctly, the 'unique' label on the tavern, gaming den and concert hall simply means you can only have one of each?
* I know it's meant as a simple roll and write game, but it seems there should be more to do with the gold. (ex: At the end of the game, gain 2 points for each 5 gold (or something like that).
* It would be cool to have a point breakdown ranking at the end of the game. (Ex: 80 - 95 apprentice dwarf... etc.)
I really have enjoyed playing this game! I'm eager to play some of your other games on itch.io and boardgamegeek.com
Thanks again!
Sorry there's not much in the way of answers here, this game got picked up by Button Shy, so I've been answering most questions in the legends-of-dsyx channel on their Discord: https://discord.gg/GGgupT
1. Statues are worth 1 point per statue. So if you have 3 statues, they'll be worth 3 points each for 9 total.
2. I'm pretty sure this is every turn.
3. Correct
4. The point is that you have to make use of the gold you have before the end of the game, either building things or adjusting rolls.
5. This is pretty common feedback, but it's been a heck of a time gathering information to figure out averages. You'll find plenty of other players on the Button Shy server though.
I hope that helps!
Thanks for the reply. Yes, that helps!
Played 3 games! On the final game I think I finally got it right; managed to make it to depth 4 with a bunch of vaults but no throne. I don't know if the building dwarf needs a buff but I basically could only build things when I had enough gold to hire mercenaries., and I just skipped building anything but vaults anyways.
Could you clarify some rules? If I build a mine at dept three and use a mining dwarf to mine up some shiny stuff, does "For each Depth, reroll the dice" mean that I can use that dwarf to try to get gold three times, for like a max of 15 gold? Also, do mercenaries need to be hired in the order they'd be resolved? So say I didn't roll a cook, and didn't want to sacrifice a dwarf to re roll more dwarfs, do I need to hire that mercenary before I resolve dwarves 4, 5 and 6?
Thanks for making a neat game!
'bout to play the heck out of this, it's right up my alley! I found you a typo though, check out text block 11, where it says 'At the end of the game, gain points the Statues and Vaults you've built...'
Supposed to say 'gain points for the Stautes...' I imagine? At any rate this shit looks A+ and I am stoked to play.