King & Peasant

King & Peasant is an asymmetric 18-card two-player pocket-sized microgame from nPips where one player is the king, and the other is the peasantry bent on assassinating the king. Most of the cards have a king action on the top half and a peasant action on the bottom. The peasant player wins if their assassin card kills the king; the king wins if he identifies the assassin card while it is face down or if he is still alive when the cards are exhausted.

The game is designed by Poon Jon and the card play and Stratego-style bluffing is somewhat reminiscent of that in Hera & Zeus, which was published by Kosmos in 2000. King & Peasant, however, is a simpler game that plays in less than 10 minutes. The king loses if he draws the assassin card so it's possible for the game to end on the first couple of turns if the peasant takes an action to place the assassin card on top of the draw pile and the king opts to draw a card. Likewise, there is a king action that lets him peek at a card, and if that happens to be the assassin he will be able to identify it for the win on his next turn. From the very start of the game therefore there's a dance of bluff and double-bluff over the actions that players take among the several open to them.

The rules suggest switching roles after each play and playing till a player notches up a second win. That's definitely the best way of playing, otherwise you must expect the asymmetry to leave the losing player sulking that theirs was the more difficult role.

Tho' the cards are sturdy, we recommend sleeving this game because the backs of the cards are printed in black ink that bleeds to the edge, so there's a risk that they might pick up slight nicks after much shuffling and that would make cards idenfiable and so ruin the game. Happily, the box comfortably accommodates sleeved cards.

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