Burnt Island Games is one of my favorite publishers. The team behind games like Endeavor: Age of Sail, In Too Deep, and, of course, In the Hall of the Mountain King have a strong track record for engaging mechanics and enriched thematic experiences.

So… I am super excited whenever they announce anything!

The world of In the Hall of the Mountain King is getting bigger! Or deeper? The troll tunnels will stretch back in time for an upcoming prequel game called Fall of the Mountain King from designer Adam Daulton.

I’m going to be real with you. The first time I read through the lore of ItHotMK, I was bemused by the invasive and destructive qualities of the Gnomish race. The diminutive underdwellers must have had some mighty strong magic (or overwhelming numbers) to defeat the trolls.

Alas, no matter how it happened, it did indeed happen. The Great Gnome Invasion marked a dark time for the trolls of the mountain.

That tragedy, though, will be our celebration, as it creates the setting for the new game:

Fall of the Mountain King is a standalone prequel to In the Hall of The Mountain King, set during the catastrophic war that drove the trolls from their mountain kingdom generations ago. Build your ancestry to drive your actions in the caverns, win the loyalty of the clan Champions, and strive to be trolldom's greatest defender against the gnomish onslaught.

The troll ancestry is certainly something that has my attention because it promises a deviation from the original polyomino strategy game with a new mechanic that forces players to make decisions with lasting consequences. And while spatial awareness and puzzle-solving existed in the first game, the prequel will apparently feature area majority, which further complicates (in the complex manner of watch mechanisms rather than the negative connotation of… something else) the game’s strategic possibilities. And then third big design revelation is the arrival of Champions, who will grant variable player powers.

Also, juggling influence between troll clans will be a thing, but I’m less certain of what that will entail.

All of this thrills me. If you missed my article a while back, In the Hall of the Mountain King resides in my top 50 games of all time right now. Any chance to jump back into that world is a chance to get my smoot on. My troll fingers are tingling. I will have happy dreams of cascading resources. Of underground building nirvana. Of… beautiful game inserts.

Burnt Island Games promises more information over the next few weeks because the game is coming to Kickstarter on June 1. This means I’ll likely be manically checking my news feed for the next month.

For anybody wondering how accessible the upcoming title is, it’s supposed to be for 2-5 players, with ages 13 and up in mind for the tabletop audience. And, as with most Burnt Island Games, a 90-minute playtime is going to be likely.

Have you played In the Hall of the Mountain King? What did you think? Are there other mid-weight strategy games featuring polyominos in your collection?