Believe it or not, most of us were toddlers at one point in our lives…I know, crazy right!? What’s even more crazy is that some of us might even have younger kids that we’re trying to raise into respectful adults one day. There’s no reason to leave them out of family game night, especially when you have games like “Find My Monsters”, a card game that’ll be seeking funding through the Kickstarter process in April, 2015. Before we get into the why’s and the how’s, I’d like to thank Anthony Natale from Nostalgic Big Kid Games for reaching out and providing me with a prototype. It’s worth noting that prototypes are not often reflective of the final product, making everything you see in this article (rules included) subject to change.
Find My Monsters: 2 Players, Ages 3+, Average Play Time = 5-10 Minutes
My prototype copy came with a total of 36 cards: 8 boy cards (green background), 8 girl cards (orange background), 16 monster cards (8 w/ a green background and 8 w/ an orange background), and 4 rules cards. It’s worth noting that there’s actually two ways to play this game, the first being a little easier than the second.
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Game 1
This game mode is the easier of the two and is appropriate for ages 3 and up. It, for the most part, is a simple matching game. Players begin by shuffling the deck and spreading out the cards face down on the table. A starting player is chosen at random. The numbers on the cards will not be used.
On a player’s turn, they’ll flip two cards face up. If the player reveals a boy or girl and a monster of the same color (a “green” boy and “green” monster), they’ll take both cards and end their turn.
Sounds simple right? Well, there are a few rules that will make things interesting for your little one…
1) If you flip two monsters of different colors, your turn end.
2) If you flip two monsters of the same colors, you have the option to flip another card. If you do, and if the card is a matching boy or girl card, then you get to take all three cards! What’s more, if you happen to reveal a third monster of the same color, you’ll have the option to keep flipping until you come across something different.
When all the cards are taken, players count the Monster cards they’ve collected and whoever has the most, wins!
Components Sample #1
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Game 2
Game two is a bit more complicated (not overly so) and is appropriate for ages 6 and up. It too is a matching game that involves matching the “green” boys with the “green” monsters and the “orange” girls with the “orange” monsters. Players begin this game by shuffling the deck and dealing four cards to each player. The deck is placed in the center of the table and four cards are drawn in a row next to it, face up. A starting player is chosen at random. The numbers on the cards are used for this game.
On a player’s turn, they’ll match a card from their hand with one of the cards that are face up next to the deck. Again, players will want to match the “green” boys with the “green” monsters and the “orange” girls with the “orange” monsters. Players will want to match the cards with highest point values, as these values will be summed at the end of the game to determine who wins. Every time a card is taken, a new one is drawn from the deck to replace it. If at any point a player cannot make a play, they’ll draw back up to four cards. If they still cannot match a card at that point, they’ll have to pass.
This continues until the deck runs out and/or no more cards can be obtained from the face up row, the game ends and the point values in each player’s point pile are totalled. The player with the highest score, wins!
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“Find My Monsters” does something a lot of other matching games don’t, include point values on the cards themselves. I like the fact that you can switch out between either game on a whim, giving your youngster a pure “memory game” experience or something of a “matching/simple arithmetic” mix. This game is obviously aimed at parents who have younger kids, though I could see this game being used in a classroom as it flexes a number of different cognitive skills. As such, parents and teachers both would do well to check this project out.
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You can learn more about and support “Find My Monsters” by checking out its Kickstarter page, here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1074388224/find-my-monsters-2-card-games-in-1
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBMVaA–C3M