Kingdom Rush by Ironhide Game Studio (Kingdom Rush | Home) is one of my favourite computer games ever since it released. A few years ago, I returned to find a series of new kingdom rush games, which of course I played as much as possible. After I was finished, I of course wanted which is when I found out not only is there a Kingdom Rush board game but there are two board games! Both are made by Lucky Duck Games (Lucky Duck Games).
As soon as I could I got the first of the two games ‘Kingdom Rush Rift in Time’ which unfortunately is not produced anymore. I was lucky Zatu Games here in the UK had a few left in stock. I also got the ‘Spider Goddess’ expansion at the same time as there was only a few remaining.
Kingdom Rush Rift in Time is a campaign-based tower defence based on tiles. The campaign has a set of premade levels that the players follow to setup. Each round a set of enemy tiles called ‘hoards’ are set up and then move around the board. The players must then Tetris style cover all the enemies on a tile to defeat it, using both towers and heroes.
As far as I know you don’t need to play the games in order, but I wanted both with the expansions. When I got it I had heard that it was the harder of the two. I haven’t got the second game yet but Rift in Time is certainly hard, especially with fewer players or solo.
All of the board tiles and attack tiles are made of thick cardboard that come on square punchout sheets, with which I spent a long time sorting all the attacks into bags by type and shape. The towers are cards and the heroes and boss are plastic miniatures with the soldiers being wooden meeples.
The game provides a play experience I haven’t come across before (although other games use similar mechanics, it’s the first I have seen or played). The board game does a good job simulating the computer game as best it can. It gives you the challenge and the excitement of the computer game.
The board game relies on team play to work, if everyone plays alone its near impossible. Players must work together to make the best defence they can. The game does have a solo mode which I have not played, so I am unable to comment on how it works.
The game sort of works like Tetris in that you have to fit the shapes of each attack as efficiently as possible to take out as many enemies as possible. I find the towers having limited attack directions and orientations interesting and forces you to think carefully about where and in which orientation you place a tower.
The game makes the players strike a balance between aggressiveness and keeping resources back. If your too aggressive you can end up blocking the board with towers that are not useful later or maybe you’re not aggressive enough and now there are too many enemy tiles on the board.
This is one of the few boardgames I have played that doesn’t use dice (the other being Cluedo) which made for fresh new experience. There is little luck in this game its all skill and planning ahead. The scenario sets out the board and you know how many enemies there are and when they come which is especially important for the portal cards which are your objectives. The only luck-based element is the enemy cards, you know which type of enemy comes when however, there are multiple versions of the same enemy which are chosen randomly. This also helps to make the game more re-playable.
The only element I don’t particularly like is how the portal cards work. Portal cards are the objectives you need to destroy however every time a tower attacks one it is destroyed, so the level four tower you spent most the game trying to get is gone after one attack. Most importantly heroes can’t attack the portals, usually heroes are vitally important to your defence, but portals just ignore them outright. This makes portals very hard to stop, especially with less players as then you usually have less towers. Even if they just made it so heroes can attack portals it would work better.
I haven’t yet finished the campaign so I cant talk about how the boss fights work or what the expansion is like here, but I will be sure to write about those when I get to it.
Altogether Kingdom Rush Rift in Time is an interesting game requiring almost pure skill and planning, its possibly better compared to chess than most board games with the way it works. Theres is little outside of the players control (unless something goes very bad) it’s purely up to the player how the game goes. The game even tells you what enemy comes when.
Kingdom Rush Rift in Time is a difficult game that from my experience provides a unique type of gameplay, and does a good job of simulating a tower defence video game in board game format. Each level of provides a different challenge to overcome so that not every game is the same.
Overall, I greatly enjoy this game and am looking forward to trying the expansion and the second game ‘Elemental Uprising’.
Amazon Associate Links – If you would like to buy this game please consider using the links below to support us.
Kingdom Rush Rift In Time – https://amzn.to/4psva2f
Kingdom Rush Elemental Uprising – https://amzn.to/4imQJ20