I got Shadowed Kingdom on sale because it’s Disney-themed, without reading anything else about it. It wasn’t until we played it for the first time today that I realized it’s another 2-player cooperative game! My family loves 2-player games because even though there are 4 of us, it’s not uncommon for 1 or more of us to be unable to play.

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To set up, the main deck of 20 cards (21 cards if you want more challenge with the Doom card) is dealt between the two players, making 2 draw decks of 10 (or one of 10 and one of 11). Each player draws the top two cards of their deck, looks at them, then places them face-down in the center. These 4 cards form a 2×2 grid and the kingdom.

Each turn, the player chooses to push one card out for the other player to discover or to dispel. Cards pushed toward the other player are discovered, read, acted upon, and added to the player’s hand. Cards pushed to the side are discarded and the top card of the player’s draw deck is read, acted on, and added to the player’s hand.

Players should each have only 1-3 cards in their hand at a time, so it’s easy for younger players to keep track of them. The hardest part for a young player is to not talk about the cards in the grid. The hardest part for me is to keep track of them as they get pushed to and fro. Shadowed Kingdom is fantastic for developing working memory yet it’s far more interesting than a simple game of Memory.

Mixed in with the cards of locations are Magic and Shadow cards. When a Magic or Shadow card is discovered or played (from the draw deck), the corresponding token is moved farther along its track. If the Magic token makes it to the other side of the tracker first, players win. If the Shadow token makes it to the other side first, players lose.