I’m not sure how many of you owned a Nintendo Entertainment System, but I have fond memories of playing “Godzilla”, “Rampage”, and its successors. I’m sure at least SOME of you feel the same way…if not about NES games, but of Kaiju (roughly translated to “strange beast” in Japanese) in general. “Monster Mania”, a game that is exactly what it sounds like, launches on Kickstarter December 1st, 2018. As many as six players can join in on the fun, though there is a solo mode available should you happen to scare the rest of your friends away with your monster-like prowess. Special thanks to Josh McMurray, owner of Meet Me At The Table Games, for providing me with a prototype for preview purposes. It’s important to stress that prototypes are not often reflective of the final product, making everything you see here (including the rules) subject to change. I’m also required by FTC regulations to inform you that I was paid to cover this game, though my opinions are my own.
The game includes a total of 210 cards, 45 attack point tokens, 46 damage tokens, 26 turn usage tokens, and 25 prize tokens. There are a number of different variants possible with “Monster Mania”, but I’ll be focusing mainly on the core rules.
To set up the game, players take all 18 monsters out of the deck, shuffle them up, and deal one to each player face-up so that they can place them on their individual player mats (specifically, any space in their combat zone). The rest of the monsters are shuffled back into the main deck. The person who most recently watched a monster movie goes first. Each player, starting with the first and going clockwise, draws five cards from the deck to form their hand. Damage cannot be dealt until the first player takes their second turn.
On a player’s turn, they’ll draw from the deck until they have five cards, perform any number of possible actions, and discard (optional) in that order. Drawing and discarding are self-explanatory, though the number of actions one can take is quite plentiful. They include things like playing monsters into your combat zone, playing environmental cards, playing counter cards, playing support cards, activating support cards, and attacking. You cannot play a monster into your combat zone if you have three already there.
How does one win? As you guessed, you’ll be beating the tar out of your opponents’ monsters (or trying to). When a monster’s health reaches zero it goes into a rubble pile and the player who defeated it gets one prize point. If a player kills their own monster, then every other player gets a point. The first to five prize points wins, though players are free to adjust this value how they see fit. How does one beat up an opponent’s monster? By attacking of course, which in turn require attack points. How do you earn attack points? Environmental cards, while in addition to possibly doing direct damage to an opponent’s monster, can also grant attack points to your own.
Counter and support cards do what you’d expect…the former stops certain things from happening when it’s not your turn and the latter lets you support your monsters in various ways. When playing a support card, you’ll play it either face-up or face-down onto one of your three open support card slots on your player board. Playing it face-up forces the card’s effects to be observed immediately, while playing it face-down lets you reserve it for a more appropriate time. Some support cards last for a set number of turns (hence the inclusion of turn tokens) while others have a one-time use.
Solo rules vary slightly in the sense that you’ll be attempting to defeat a specific set of monsters depending on the scenario chosen. PEST CONTROL, for example, has you squaring off against Tyrantula, Behe-Moth, Gi-Ant, and any one monster of your choosing. These scenarios even have achievements like “Win PEST CONTROL with Humangous” and so on, giving you something to shoot for. When it’s the AI’s turn, a card will be drawn from the deck and the type of card drawn will determine what happens to you. A support card, for example, always does five damage to your monster. 2vs2 and 3vs3 team games are also a thing, as well as being able to play a number variants to make your game a bit more interesting. Want two monsters in the beginning instead of one? The MONSTRO-CITY variant might be for you.
Editor’s Note: The above doesn’t cover all of the rules found in the manual, but should give you a good idea as to how the game is played.
Yes, I enjoyed my time with “Monster Mania”. While the premise is barbaric at its core (to which I’m not complaining), the number of different cards available almost ensures that two games will never be the same. Everything from the names of the monsters and their stats/attack moves to the various support cards and their unique effects proves that a lot of TLC went into the making of this title. The team and solo variants were a nice touch and frankly, pushes the fun factor and replayability over the top.
Yes, there are plenty of card brawlers out on the market. This one, mostly in part to the color scheme and theme, really drew me in. It’ll be interesting to see what the final production copies look like, assuming the associated Kickstarter campaign is a success. Whether you spent many an hour playing “Rampage” in the arcade or just enjoy the thought of large monsters beating each other up, you’d be remiss to not have at least checked this game out.
Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1909606448/monster-mania?ref=580263&token=f7b07cbc
All backers of 50$ and higher will receive a digital download of a 40+ track Monster Mania soundtrack to make their battles even more epic!
Here are some song samples: https://m.soundcloud.com/user-778118187