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House of Fado

House of Fado

Eagle-Gryphon Games · 2025
1–430–60 min14+ yrs2.8/5 complexity7.5 BGG#2.296 BGG2,7 KStrategy
short answer

How do you play House of Fado?

The objective of House of Fado is to become the most prestigious restaurant owner in Lisbon. Players achieve this by strategically filling their restaurant tables with customers, hiring the best fado singers and guitarists, entertaining critics, composing new fados, and expanding their restaurant. Each successful action earns prestige points, and the player with the most prestige points after the third star has been claimed wins the game.

To find the best price for House of Fado, howtoplay.ro compares deals from Romanian shops every day.

FromRON 269
House of Fado box art
official art · Eagle-Gryphon Games
the rules in 60 seconds▶ auto · 1/6
🧩
01

Setup

Place the game board, set up musician cards with dice, arrange critics and customers, prepare fado tiles and notation tiles, place billboard markers and stars, and give each player a restaurant board, workers, money, and a notation tile.

The rules, step by step

Setup
Place the game board in the middle of the table. Set up musician cards in the top section, placing a die marked '1' on each to indicate level one. Remove specific musician cards for 2 or 3 player games. Place critics on the street, one fewer than the number of players. Prepare customers by putting 2 grey, 3 black, and 4 brown customers per player in the bag, then draw customers to fill all street spaces, reserving pink spaces for critics. Prepare the rehearsal room by shuffling fado tiles face down, filling four spaces face up, and making a draw pile. Divide notation tiles into piles on their corresponding spaces. Shuffle billboard markers and place one on each space. Place the five stars on their appropriate places. Decide on the first player and give them the Portuguese guitar. Each player chooses a restaurant board, covers the rightmost table with a decoration tile, takes three workers, five money, and one treble clef notation tile, and places their disc on the scoring track.
Objective
The objective of House of Fado is to become the most prestigious restaurant owner in Lisbon. Players achieve this by strategically filling their restaurant tables with customers, hiring the best fado singers and guitarists, entertaining critics, composing new fados, and expanding their restaurant. Each successful action earns prestige points, and the player with the most prestige points after the third star has been claimed wins the game.
On your turn
On your turn, you take one of your workers and place it on an available action space on the board to perform the associated action. Workers remain on the board until you decide to take them off. If you place your worker on a space already occupied by another player's worker, you 'bump' that worker. The owner of the bumped worker decides which of the three available spaces it moves to and immediately collects the rewards from that new space. A golden rule is that you cannot place a worker on an action field where you already have a worker, nor can you take a worker from an action space and return it to the same space.
Scoring
At the end of the game, a final scoring takes place. Each musician tile in your restaurant scores points equal to their fame. Each player scores points for the stars they have accumulated. For the billboards, the player with the most cubes next to a billboard gets the highest number of points indicated, the second player gets the next highest, and so on. You need to have at least one cube at a billboard to score it. In case of a tie for billboard scoring, add up the prestige points for the tied places, divide them by the number of tied players, and round down. You also get points depending on the number of music pieces you wrote. Finally, you get one point for every five money you have left over.
Game end
The game ends immediately when three of the five stars have been claimed. After the third star is claimed, players finish the current round, and then a final scoring takes place. The player with the most prestige points after this final scoring wins the game.
Tips
House of Fado is a very unforgiving game, so strategic decisions are crucial from the start. Your Achilles' heel lies with the critics. If you miss out on a critic on your first turn (which one player will, as there's one fewer critic than players), you must make sure to get one on your second turn. Furthermore, if you miss out on a critic in the first turn, you must buy two musicians in one go on the market action to properly utilize the money you didn't spend on a critic and save an action in a later turn. It is also very easy to overlook the notation tile you receive when you hire a musician, so pay close attention to this detail.
game anatomy
Complexity2.8 / 5
BGG rating7.5 / 10
Vibe
Strategy
Language dependence
No in-game text needed
🌐 plays without English
Play time
30–60 min
Players
1–4
Recommended age
14+ yrs
BGG rank
#2.296
from Trișache · verified

Frequently asked questions

Q1What is the goal of the game?
The objective of House of Fado is to become the most prestigious restaurant owner in Lisbon. Players achieve this by strategically filling their restaurant tables with customers, hiring the best fado singers and guitarists, entertaining critics, composing new fados, and expanding their restaurant. Each successful action earns prestige points, and the player with the most prestige points after the third star has been claimed wins the game.
Q2How do you set up the game?
Place the game board in the middle of the table. Set up musician cards in the top section, placing a die marked '1' on each to indicate level one. Remove specific musician cards for 2 or 3 player games. Place critics on the street, one fewer than the number of players. Prepare customers by putting 2 grey, 3 black, and 4 brown customers per player in the bag, then draw customers to fill all street spaces, reserving pink spaces for critics. Prepare the rehearsal room by shuffling fado tiles face down, filling four spaces face up, and making a draw pile. Divide notation tiles into piles on their corresponding spaces. Shuffle billboard markers and place one on each space. Place the five stars on their appropriate places. Decide on the first player and give them the Portuguese guitar. Each player chooses a restaurant board, covers the rightmost table with a decoration tile, takes three workers, five money, and one treble clef notation tile, and places their disc on the scoring track.
Q3How does a turn work?
On your turn, you take one of your workers and place it on an available action space on the board to perform the associated action. Workers remain on the board until you decide to take them off. If you place your worker on a space already occupied by another player's worker, you 'bump' that worker. The owner of the bumped worker decides which of the three available spaces it moves to and immediately collects the rewards from that new space. A golden rule is that you cannot place a worker on an action field where you already have a worker, nor can you take a worker from an action space and return it to the same space.
Q4How is scoring calculated?
At the end of the game, a final scoring takes place. Each musician tile in your restaurant scores points equal to their fame. Each player scores points for the stars they have accumulated. For the billboards, the player with the most cubes next to a billboard gets the highest number of points indicated, the second player gets the next highest, and so on. You need to have at least one cube at a billboard to score it. In case of a tie for billboard scoring, add up the prestige points for the tied places, divide them by the number of tied players, and round down. You also get points depending on the number of music pieces you wrote. Finally, you get one point for every five money you have left over.
Q5When and how does the game end?
The game ends immediately when three of the five stars have been claimed. After the third star is claimed, players finish the current round, and then a final scoring takes place. The player with the most prestige points after this final scoring wins the game.
Q6What tips are there for beginners?
House of Fado is a very unforgiving game, so strategic decisions are crucial from the start. Your Achilles' heel lies with the critics. If you miss out on a critic on your first turn (which one player will, as there's one fewer critic than players), you must make sure to get one on your second turn. Furthermore, if you miss out on a critic in the first turn, you must buy two musicians in one go on the market action to properly utilize the money you didn't spend on a critic and save an action in a later turn. It is also very easy to overlook the notation tile you receive when you hire a musician, so pay close attention to this detail.
Q7How much does House of Fado cost?
House of Fado costs around 269 RON in Romania.
Q8Where can I buy House of Fado cheapest?
The lowest price for House of Fado right now is 269 RON at Pionul.ro. The Prices tab lists every store currently tracking it.
Q9How do you play House of Fado?
House of Fado is a economic game, for 1–4 players, taking ~30–60 minutes, featuring commodity speculation. Check the Rules tab for setup, gameplay, and scoring, or ask Trișache anything about House of Fado — our AI assistant built by howtoplay.ro and trained specifically on board game rulebooks.
Q10How many players does House of Fado support?
House of Fado is played by 1–4 players.
2 shops

All prices

2 shops · sorted by priceupdated today
Pionul.roCHEAPESTeasybox
House of Fado
free over RON 250
RON 269
Regatul JocurilorKickstarter (EN)easyboxCultural voucher
House of Fado (Kickstarter English Edition)
RON 379
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Second-hand · from €57 · 1 listing
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Price history

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Price trend over the last 90 days: minimum 269 lei, maximum 379 lei, now 300 lei.

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