Created by Castles of Mad King Ludwig designer Ted Alspach, The Palace of Mad King Ludwig has players working together to build a magnificent palace for the King.  Their goal is to be the one designer who has the greatest influence on the final palace.  Players must use their swan tokens, which serve a number of purposes from game currency to victory points, to guide the construction, adding rooms to the palace.  During play, a moat is built around the outside of the palace, which acts as a game end timer:  once the moat is complete, the game ends.

While Palace shares some common features with Castles, it is a completely separate game with new mechanics.  Notably absent from the new design are the auction mechanics of the original.

The Palace of Mad King Ludwig includes 127 room tiles, 150 swan tokens, 34 favor tiles, 120 ownership tokens, 1 garden board, and a scorepad.  The game is intended for 2 to 4 players, ages 13 and up, and takes about 75 minutes to play.  MSRP is $59.95.

In June, Bezier will release another Alspach design, Werewords (see “‘Werewolf’ Meets Word-Game in ‘Werewords’”).

Castles of Mad King Ludwig was a big hit for Bezier in 2015, earning accolades from Mensa (see “‘Castles of Mad King Ludwig’ Wins Mensa Award”) and Games Magazine (see “2015 ‘Games Magazine’ Awards”).  The game would peak at the #9 slot on ICv2’s list of the best-selling board games in spring of 2015 (see “Top 10 Board Games—Spring 2015”).