Kingdom Crossing Game Review

KINGDOM CROSSING BOARD GAME REVIEW

 Kingdom Crossing is a new adventure from the team at Sorry We Are French, who are still my favorite for "best board game publisher" and who also have a great understanding of really good games. Their recent releases have been solid hits: the updated reissue of IKI, the Galileo Project, Zhanguo: The First Empire, the In the Footsteps of… series, and the 2024 release of Shackleton Base: A Journey to the Moon.

 During my meeting with the Sorry We Are French team at SPIEL Essen 2025, I picked up a copy of Kingdom Crossing and was surprised by the cover art, which made the game look cute and cozy. The game is cute, but it’s not “cozy.” I noticed the names of the designers on the box — Marco Canetta and Stefania Niccolini — the same designers who created both the original Zhanguo and the new SWAF edition.

 Zhanguo: The First Empire is a very heavy strategy game, so I assumed that Kingdom Crossing would also be a game with long pauses between turns and the need to think a lot about each move.

 No!

SEVEN BRIDGES WILL BE TOO LITTLE

 Kingdom Crossing is a set-building game with action tiles and the usual set of Eurogame elements — tracks, shared objectives, individual scoring tokens, etc. — for 1–4 players. My games lasted about 20 minutes per player, so a solo game easily fits into less than half an hour, and even games for four, as stated on the box and confirmed by my experience, take about 80–90 minutes.

 Over four rounds, players take four moves per round, moving their worker token along a map with four islands and seven bridges. Each time a move is completed, the player must choose a card from two or three face-up cards in their current location. These can be resources to strengthen the economy, cards with conditions for the final scoring, or income buildings known as Structures, which are activated both when received and at the start of each new round. Each card, except for Structures, belongs to one of the game's five suits; collecting pairs of the same suit gives additional bonuses during the income phase of the new round.

 Movement is determined by each player's hand of six action tiles. In each round, four of these six tiles will be played, either to move the map or to "rest," which earns coins from that tile and allows for more resources for future turns. Small paw tokens are left on each bridge a player crosses, and points are awarded to those who manage to cross at least six, and preferably all seven, bridges in a round.

 So the moves are very fast: play a tile, move a worker, get a card and activate its instant bonus. Since it is important to collect cards of all five suits, finding the right cards makes every turn interesting... and with 10 different decks of face-up cards, every game turns into an exciting adventure in search of exactly what you need.

 The subtle differences between card bonuses—a nice balance between free cards that bring in money, resources to advance along one of the four tracks on the player's board, and income that helps avoid "rest" actions—create exactly the type of tactical gameplay I really enjoyed, despite the card market changing literally after every turn.

 Kingdom Crossing combines dynamic turn-based gameplay with a mix of mid-game and end-game scoring, all of which are very easy to calculate. Much like my love of the Galileo Project, Kingdom Crossing makes the most of its time on the table and has an overall high-quality design. The illustrations by SWAF’s excellent staff artist David Sitbon bring the game’s animal characters to life in a very fun way. The worker, building, paw, and medallion tokens all serve their purpose, and the graphic design makes everything clear after just a few turns.

ALMOST A WINNER

 The only physical flaw with Kingdom Crossing was the player boards that came with it. Halfway through my first three-player game, they were so bent that I couldn't even lift the board to insert cards from either side. Combined with the tiny resource tokens, this made me—a spoiled gamer who's grown accustomed to the triple-layered boards that have become standard in quality Eurogames from publishers like Mindclash Games and Eagle-Gryphon Games—long for the components that make this feel like a truly premium product.

 The game also includes cardboard coin tokens, which almost immediately made me reach for the poker chips. I don't blame Sorry We Are French for this decision, but it's worth noting: the "Megacredit" poker chips that SWAF has included in games like Galileo Project are not included in the Kingdom Crossing box.

 Kingdom Crossing is the kind of game that showcases a wide range of creative talent from designers looking to diversify their portfolio. Zhanguo: The First Empire had many strengths, but proved too difficult a game to get on the table on a regular basis. Marco Canetta and Stefania Niccolini's work here will be a great fit for both hardcore gamers and my kids (ages 9 and 11), as well as casual gamers looking for an easy-to-explain, non-conflict race for victory points.

 The only other minor negative for me is the replayability. I really enjoyed Kingdom Crossing… but after the review games I don’t feel much desire to play it again. The game never quite captured me like other SWAF games did — like Galileo Project and Shackleton Base: A Journey to the Moon. Those two games will definitely never leave my collection. A few of my friends have IKI and its expansion IKI: Akebono, and most of us think IKI is a fantastic game.

 Kingdom Crossing is a fun game, but at least for me and my gaming company's tastes, its shelf life is a bit limited. However, if you're into those mechanics, go ahead and grab yourself a copy of Kingdom Crossing now!