Kings & Peasants: Win the Crown. Make the Rules.

Kings & Peasants turns an ordinary game night into a power struggle. Play your cards, climb over your friends and empty your hand first. Win and you are King. Lose and you are the Peasant, shuffling for the people who beat you.

Easy to learn. Impossible to stay humble.

After every game the new King issues a royal decree: one new rule that everyone must follow from the next game on. Decrees stack. Three games in, the table is living under three laws, and the King who made them can lose the crown at any moment and be stuck with every rule they invented.

1. Deal the whole deck. All 52 cards, no Jokers. Uneven hands are fine; leftovers sit out.
2. Know the order. 2 is the highest card, then Ace, King, Queen, Jack down to 3, the lowest.
3. Start the climb. In the first game, whoever holds the 3♣ leads. In every game after, the Peasant leads.
4. Beat the last play. Going clockwise, each player plays higher or passes. Pass and you are out until the next round.
5. Last one standing. When everyone else has passed, the last player may keep playing cards until they pass or run out, then leads the next round.
6. Quantity matters. Open with a pair and the whole round is pairs. Triples, same law.
7. Runs. Whoever plays the third card in a run (4, 5, 6) may declare consecutive cards only for the rest of the round.
8. A 2 ends the round. The winner of the round leads the next one.
9. Crown and tribute. First out is King, last out is Peasant. The Peasant hands the King their two best cards and gets any two back. Runner-up and second-last swap one. Then the King issues a decree and the Peasant shuffles.

Every card is illustrated in a medieval style, with its own court for each suit: Hearts with goblets, Diamonds with knights and swords, Spades in black with axes, Clubs in earth tones with wooden staffs. The 2s, the highest cards in the game, carry the royal wax seal. It is also a complete 54-card playing deck, so it works for any card game you already know.

The decks are already printed, boxed and in stock in Italy and the UK.

For five backers only: you, or anyone you choose, hand-drawn by a commissioned illustrator as the King and the Peasant in the style of the deck, printed as your own King and Peasant cards in six decks. After the campaign you send photos through the backer survey, approve a proof with one round of changes, then we print. You need permission from everyone pictured; we can't draw public figures and can turn down unsuitable images.

• Peasant and Noble pledges in the EU and UK: delivered before Christmas 2026, as long as you complete the backer survey by 10 December. Everywhere else: January 2027.
• Royal Court, Pub Pack and Royal Portrait: March 2027, once the Crown coins are engraved.
• EU orders ship from Italy and UK orders from our UK stock, so there are no customs charges. US orders are sent duty paid: the US import duty is included in your shipping, so nothing is due on delivery.

We created this game at Bristol University, where it ran every party and and was the go to before nights out. Climbing games like it are played all over the world under ruder names. In addition to the cool medieval theme, this version added one major thing: the person who wins gets to change the game. This made it possible to adapt the play style to all auidences ensuring everyone get the game they want to have.

We brought it home to their families. Every time we played, more people joined in, and everyone loved it. The screens went away, and hours went by like minutes around a table full of laughter. So we had to bring it to everyone.

We refined the rules, gave it its own art and turned it into a proper deck. Kings & Peasants is the first release from Goblin Den Games, a small studio in San Severino Marche, Italy, with a foot in the UK.

• Game design: Angus Ryan & Matthew Kirk
• Art: Matthew Kirk
• Publisher: Goblin Den Games, Italy
• UK importer: Lucidsky Trading Ltd, Bristol