Keops

About this board game

Keops is a worker-placement and resource-management game for 1–4 players, with games lasting around 180 minutes. As a Vizier of Pharaoh Khufu, you must help create the greatest pyramid ever built while competing for the Pharaoh’s favor.

The game unfolds over three rounds, each ending when another level of the Pyramid is completed. Assign your craftsmen, scribes, and priests to gather granite and limestone, acquire barges, prepare the tomb, defend Egypt’s borders, and support the gods with offerings. You must also manage their needs and happiness while developing a city worthy of the Pharaoh’s relatives and assistants.

Buildings, temples, and crops expand the actions available to every player. Constructing a building can improve your own opportunities and prestige, while other players using it provides you with benefits and extra income. Since all players can access completed buildings, every construction choice can influence the evolving strategy of the whole table.

• Compete for Favor: Seek recognition for offerings to Ra, pyramid construction, frontier defense, and city prestige.
• Adapt your plans: The buildings and temples constructed during the game determine which actions become available.
• Play without victory points: Success depends on gaining the Pharaoh’s favor rather than collecting a conventional score.
• Change every game: Different families and Decree cards modify the rules and create new possibilities.

Defense is essential: hiring Medjay helps protect your territories from invasions that could cost resources, workers, or buildings. Meanwhile, the pyramid advances steadily, making each turn matter as you race to secure favor before the next level is finished.

For solo and smaller games, the Ra-utoma deck adds a virtual opponent with three difficulty levels for 1–3 players. With its changing action spaces, shared buildings, resource pressures, and competing paths to favor, Keops offers a richly varied journey into the construction of ancient Egypt’s legendary pyramid.