A First Game of King of Tokyo, Turn by Turn

The rules on the teach sheet are short, but rules read on paper are not the same as rules in motion. This lesson plays out the first two rounds of an example four-player game, die by die. It is a made-up game, built so that the most common situations all happen early. Set up a table and follow along with real dice if you can.

Four Monsters sit down: Gigazaur, CyberKitty, The King, and Space Penguin, in clockwise order. Everyone starts at 10 Life and 0 points. With four players, only Tokyo City is in play. Three Power cards sit face up beside the board.

Everyone rolls the six black dice. Gigazaur shows the most Smash results, so Gigazaur goes first.

Round one

Gigazaur. The first roll shows 3, 3, 1, Energy, Smash, Heal. Two 3s are a start, so Gigazaur sets them aside and rerolls the other four. The second roll gives 3, Energy, Energy, 2. Now there are three 3s and two Energy. Gigazaur rerolls only the 2 and gets a Smash.

Final dice: 3, 3, 3, Energy, Energy, Smash.

• Three 3s score 3 points.
• Two Energy results are two cubes from the pool.
• The Smash hits nobody. Gigazaur is outside Tokyo, so its Smash results only wound Monsters in Tokyo, and Tokyo is empty.

Then the enter Tokyo step. Tokyo is empty, so Gigazaur must move in, and entering scores 1 point. Gigazaur now has 4 points, 10 Life, and 2 Energy. Nothing in the row costs 2 or less, so Gigazaur saves the cubes and passes the dice left.

CyberKitty. CyberKitty wants to test the Monster in Tokyo and keeps every Smash result. Final dice: Smash, Smash, Energy, Heal, 1, 2.

• Two Smash results: Gigazaur, in Tokyo, loses 2 Life and drops to 8.
• Gigazaur may now Yield, because another Monster’s Smash results wounded it. With 8 Life left, it stays.
• The Heal does nothing, because CyberKitty is already at 10 and Life cannot go above 10.
• One Energy cube. The 1 and the 2 are single numbers and score nothing.

Tokyo is occupied, so CyberKitty stays outside.

The King. The King looks at the card row first and sees a card worth saving for, so this turn is about Energy. Final dice: Energy, Energy, Energy, Energy, 1, Heal. Four cubes. The King spends 3 of them on Opportunist, a Keep card that lets its owner buy any newly revealed Power card the moment it is revealed. A new card is dealt to fill the gap right away.

Space Penguin. Space Penguin goes all in on Smash and ends with three of them. Gigazaur drops from 8 to 5 Life.

This time Gigazaur Yields. The 3 Life is still lost; leaving does not undo the hit. Tokyo is now empty, so in Space Penguin’s enter Tokyo step it must move in and score 1 point.

Round two

Gigazaur. Back outside with 5 Life, Gigazaur can heal again. It keeps Heal results and ends with three, climbing back to 8 Life. Notice the rhythm: hold Tokyo for points, take the hits, step out, heal.

CyberKitty and The King each take a turn of numbers and Energy. Neither keeps Smash results, so Space Penguin stays comfortable for now.

Space Penguin. It starts its turn in Tokyo, so it gains 2 points before rolling, for 3 in all. Its final dice include two Smash results and two Heal results.

• From inside Tokyo, the two Smash results wound every Monster outside. Gigazaur, CyberKitty, and The King each lose 2 Life.
• The two Heal results do nothing. Heal results never work in Tokyo.

Nobody outside can Yield anything, since only Monsters in Tokyo Yield.

What to notice

Two rounds in, you have seen nearly the whole game:

1. Sets need three. Gigazaur’s pair became points only once a third 3 landed.
2. Smash depends on where you stand. Outside, it hits Tokyo. Inside, it hits everyone else. With Tokyo empty, it hits nobody.
3. Entering is forced. Gigazaur did not choose Tokyo, and Space Penguin did not choose it either. Hitting the Monster in Tokyo is how you volunteer.
4. Yielding costs the Life anyway. The choice is about the future, not the hit you just took.
5. Tokyo pays and hurts. 1 point to enter, 2 for each turn you start there, no healing while you stay.
6. Energy is patient. Cubes carry over, and the card row changes every time someone buys.

From here, the game speeds up. Points climb, Life drops, the row fills with cards people want, and every Smash result at Tokyo becomes a real question. If your table is ready for its own first game, the five-minute teach is the script, and this walkthrough is what it looks like when the dice start moving.