Pharaoh play

Valley of the Kings, Tom Cleaver’s trilogy of card games about preparing for death and afterlife in ancient Egypt, is making a return in a new premium edition.

The original Valley of the Kings was released in 2014, and challenged players’ Egyptian nobles to fill their eternal resting place with all manner of treasure and objects – food, canopic jars and so on. Y’know, the basics.

The items were acquired from a central pyramid of cards, which would collapse from the top down to fill lower spaces as cards were purchased. Players then needed to transfer acquired cards from their deck to their tomb in order to score points, or risk not taking the items with them into the afterlife when they were buried at the end of the game.

Valley of the Kings was followed by two follow-ups, 2015’s Afterlife and 2016’s Last Rites, which were built on the same central gameplay and could be played as standalone titles or combined with the original game to add new mechanics and increase the maximum player count.

This year, the three 100-card sets are being bundled together for the upcoming Valley of the Kings: Premium Edition.

As well as including all 300-plus of the cards from Valley of the Kings, Afterlife and Last Rites, the Premium Edition comes with enough components to play with up to six people, as well as rules for a single-player mode and new pharaoh cards that give each player individual starting abilities. Other additions include unique artefact cards and randomiser cards.

The cards themselves have been upgraded to tarot-sized linen-finished cards similar to publisher AEG’s Love Letter Premium, Lovecraft Letter and Mystic Vale, and can be kept neat in the box using included card dividers.

Valley of the Kings: Premium Edition will go live on Kickstarter on April 2nd, where the box will cost you $50 (£38). A retail version will follow in the future priced at $65 (£50).