38. Royal Visit

In this episode, we battle for the honor of hosting the king in our chateaus in Royal Visit!

Royal Visit is a 2021 game designed by Reiner Knizia with art by Karl James Mountford and published by Iello Games. It’s a two-player game, with players occupying opposite ends of a valley hoping to attract the visiting king to their magnificent chateaus. The art and production in this game really is magnificent, with chunky wooden figures, a cloth game board that rolls up in the box, and lively colorful character illustrations. This isn’t just a pretty game, however. The designer, Dr. Reiner Knizia, is an incredibly prolific designer, with more than 700 board and card games to his name, and he knows how to put together a game. This is one of the best two-player games I’ve played.

The long narrow game board has 17 spaces on it, with the two spaces on either end representing the chateau of each player. The five wooden figures represent the king’s court—there’s the king, two guards, a wizard, and a jester. They start off on the five spaces in the middle of the board, and players take turns drawing and playing cards to move these figures in different ways. The goal is to get the king to your chateau, and it’s not as easy as that sounds. I gave the game to the 9-year-old for Christmas last year, and she can’t get enough of it. It’s our favorite game to play together.