Kingdom Builder is a construction game in which each player creates a kingdom by placing settlers' houses in various locations. The winner of the game is the player with the most gold. However, the gold is only awarded at the end of the game, according to three sets of rules that were randomly revealed at the beginning.

The rules are simple but each game is likely to play out differently due to the random selection of board sections (choosing four from eight) and scoring rules (choosing three from ten), the luck of the draw, and competition for resources.

The game received the 2012 Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year), German game prize (Deutscher Spiele Preis) for 2012 listed it at number 7 out of 10 best games for that year.