A complete guide: the line of dominoes and the turn-order rule, rotating and placing tiles in a 5×5 grid, matching lands, scoring by crowns, the controls on muta.pro and tactics for beginners.
Kingdomino is a tile-laying game for 2–4 players. On muta.pro you play against three bots — Gwen, Olaf and Ingrid. Each participant has their own private kingdom — a 5×5 grid with a castle in the center. Dominoes are drafted from a shared deck, and each half of a domino is a patch of terrain with or without crowns. The task is to lay tiles in your grid so as to build large single-type regions with crowns and score more points than your rivals.
In front of each player is an empty 5×5 grid with a castle in the center: that is where the kingdom starts to grow. The game uses a deck of 28 dominoes. Each domino consists of two halves, and each half shows one of six terrain types: Field, Forest, Water, Grassland, Mountain, Swamp. Some halves carry crowns — from 0 to 3: it is they that turn land into points. The more crowns a tile has, the more valuable it is — and the more you will “pay” for it in turn order.
At the start of a round a line of available dominoes is laid out. They are sorted by number of crowns: the fewer crowns, the higher the tile sits in the line; the more crowns, the lower and more valuable it is.
Players take turns picking one domino from the line. Choose with an eye on the terrain you need, on the crowns, and on your position in the next round.
Whoever took the more valuable domino (it sat lower in the line) plays later in the next round. It is a balance of greed and tempo: an expensive tile today means a late pick tomorrow.
The domino you took must go into your kingdom. The “⟳ Rotate” button turns the tile through four orientations; valid cells are highlighted in gold — click a highlighted one and the tile will occupy two adjacent cells.
At least one half of the domino must border a land of the same type or the castle. If the tile cannot be connected to your kingdom, you may discard it.
By joining matching terrains into large regions and filling them with crowns, you raise your kingdom's score. The score shows in the header of your grid and in the table on the left, and updates live.
Points in Kingdomino come from connected regions of a single terrain. A region's points are figured by the formula: the number of its cells × the number of crowns in that region. If a region has no crowns at all, it brings 0 points no matter how large the patch is — so a big land with no crowns is useless, while a small one with three crowns is already valuable. Your kingdom's score is the sum of points across all regions; on muta.pro it is shown in the kingdom header and in the table on the left, and is recalculated after every move. At the end of the game the player with the most points wins. During play you can chat with the bots.
Land with no crowns gives zero points. Whenever you can, take dominoes with crowns — they are what turn patches into points.
Join cells of the same terrain into a big region: its size is multiplied by its crowns, so a large patch with crowns is especially valuable.
A less valuable tile from the top of the line gives an early turn in the next round. Sometimes tempo matters more than one extra crown.
The grid is only 5×5. Plan ahead so that large tiles have somewhere to go later and you don't have to discard them.
Region area is easy to grow, but crowns are a limited resource: there is a finite number of them in the whole deck, and every one that goes to a neighbor is lost to you forever. That is why an experienced player judges a tile not by how pretty the terrain is, but by the question “how many points will this crown give in my kingdom?”
A region's points are cells × crowns. One crown in a region of five cells is worth 5 points; the same crown in a one-cell region is worth just 1. Pull crowns to where a large land has already been cleared for them.
A half with two or three crowns is rare and multiplies your score several times over at once. Such tiles are almost always worth taking first, even at the cost of a late turn in the next round.
A giant field of eight cells with not a single crown brings exactly 0 points. There is no sense in growing that terrain type any further — better to give the room to a region a crown will actually reach.
One forest region of 8 cells with 2 crowns is 8 × 2 = 16 points.
The kingdom must fit inside a 5×5 square: if a tile sticks out past that frame by even one cell, it cannot be placed. Half the game you are fighting not the bots but your own geometry — which is why you must plan your shape from the very first moves.
Start growing out from the central castle a little in every direction, rather than stretching into a single line. A compact kingdom leaves more legal cells for future tiles.
Keep a few cells of each terrain you need open along the edges of a region — that is where you will attach the next tile of the same type. Wall a land in on all sides and you shut off its growth.
An empty cell surrounded by foreign lands will most likely stay unfilled: it needs a tile of exactly the right type and orientation. Avoid creating “pockets”.
Castle in the center, growth in every direction; the highlighted hole will be hard to fill.
The key mechanic of Kingdomino is that a tile's price is your turn order in the next round. Take an expensive domino at the bottom of the line and you play last, picking over the leftovers. Take a cheap one at the top and you choose first from a fresh line. The mastery here is balancing immediate gain against control of the queue.
The first pick from a new line often gives access to the strongest tile of the game. Sometimes it is worth taking a modest domino now in order to grab the tasty piece in the next round.
If a neighbor desperately needs water and you don't care — take the contested water tile first. In a two-player game such a spoiling move is worth more than points right now.
On the final tile turn order no longer matters: there is no next round to order. Take the most crowns without a glance at position.
The line is sorted top to bottom: the more valuable the tile, the later your next turn will be.
Kingdomino forgives little: one bottled-up region or a couple of discarded tiles can easily cost you the game. Here are the slips that most often separate a beginner from a winner.
Before pressing “🗑 Discard”, make sure not a single highlight lights up in any of the four orientations. A lost tile means missed crowns.
When choosing a tile, already reckon where it will lie and what turn it will give you in the next round. Reactive play — “took it, will fit it somewhere” — loses to planned play.