Author: Michele

Monsters & Maidens & Epic Dice Expansion
Clever Mojo Games, Game Salute, 2014

Do you like the game Zombie Dice, but wish it didn’t have Zombies? Well, now there is another option out there for you, Monsters & Maidens.

The basic set comes with 9 dice (3 Maiden dice, 3 Hero Dice, and 3 Monster Dice), 3 Epic Fail cards, a Maiden Card, 2 Hero Cards and a Monster Card. Each of the 3 sets of dice have Monsters, Heroes and Maidens on their faces, but each 3 dice is weighted towards their dice type (The Maiden Dice has 3 faces for Maidens and the rest are either monsters or heroes.) On your turn, you take a Hero card and the Monster card and set them in front of you. Then you roll all 9 dice. You set any maidens rolled onto your hero card, then match up the monsters and heroes. If you have more monsters than heroes, then you move maidens equal to the number of extra monsters to the monster card. If you cannot do this, your turn is over. If you have more heroes than monsters, you are good. Then you may choose to re-roll. If in future re-rolls, should you have more heroes than monsters, you may move maidens from the monster card back to the maiden card. Once you decide to stop rolling, or if you have met an end condition, then you count up your maidens and score them.  Then the next player goes. If you fail to get maidens on your first turn and can’t re-roll, you can pick up an Epic Fail card, and on your next turn, you can change the face of one dice after your first roll.

This isn’t really my type of game. It isn’t interactive. By that, I mean that it is several players, playing solo games trying to beat the score of the others. There is no way to affect dice rolls of other players. You have to trade off the monster and hero cards every turn. If one person rolls well, they can easily get a huge lead, and it’s almost impossible to recover, and there isn’t anything to do when it isn’t your turn except watch other people roll their dice.  The game has a lot of little fiddly rules, especially when you add in the expansion, and the wording on some of the expansion bits is vague. But it isn’t really, well, fun. I misght even go so far as to call it boring. Might be a good drinking/pub game. But honestly, I think Zombie Dice works better as far as gameplay. M&M has a little of the “press your luck” aspect, but it tends to come down to one or two rolls then you’re done.

So if you are looking for a lightweight game, mostly fluff, or you just like to roll dice, go ahead and pick this up. Otherwise, I’d give it a pass.

Loonacy
Looney Labs, 2014

Does everything seem kind of crazy around the holidays? I think so, which may be why I have a Looney theme going on here. Just received a copy of Loonacy from Looney Labs. (Thanks!) So we sat down to give it a whirl.

Loonacy is an insanely fast lightweight card game. The object is to get rid of your cards first by matching one of the two pictures from the cards in your hand to the cards on the top of the three discard piles. I think our first game played in 20 seconds. Some of the art may seem familiar if you have played any of the Fluxx games. Not really anything original to this type of game play, but still a quick, fun little game with some entertaining art.

So if you have stuffed yourself on a little too much turkey, and need something to keep you awake and alert, grab Loonacy and a couple of family members or friends, and gear up for a Looney fast game. This would also make a good stocking stuffer for kids you know.

Looney Bin
Numbskull Games, 2008

Looney Bin is a quirky, weird, easy and fun card/board game for 3-7 players. You are a doctor in the Looney Bin. You have a ward of 4 patients that you attempt to cure. The first person to clear their ward or cure five patients is the winner.

To start the game, you are dealt 4 patient cards. These sit face up in front of you, forming your ward. Each patient receives a face down tile that details the treatment that they need to be cured. These tiles are secret, no one knows what is on them. You are also dealt a hand of 5 action cards. The player with the highest numbered patient goes first. On your turn, you play any number of action cards, either on yourself or others, then make one attempt at finding a cure.

This is where the game is really cool. It has a great mechanic for curing. There are seven “Therapies” in the game: A padded cell, Electroshock, Frontal Lobotomy, Group Therapy (we ended up calling this “needing a hug”), A straightjacket, Medicine, and Hypnosis. You pick a therapy, and the person to your left looks at the tile. If you have guessed a correct therapy, you put the therapy chit on your card face up, and make another therapy attempt. You keep guessing, as long as you keep guessing correctly. If incorrect, you place the chit face down (the “no”) side, draw a card and your turn is over. There are only 3 therapies on each tile, so it takes a couple guesses to get the three you need to cure the patient. Event cards can help you by giving extra guesses, stopping other people from playing cards on you or other numerous effects.

We found this game quite entertaining. We enjoyed the mechanic and the event play. Overall, pretty well balanced. It runs quickly. We are pondering purchasing a larger pill holder and using it as a storage for the therapy chits. We had a lucky guesser at our table who one both games because he was able to continue guessing cures in longer runs, but we were able to slow him down. If you hate games that take some luck, this might not be the game for you. We were getting into the cards and having a really good time with it.

On the negative side. The production quality of this game isn’t the best.  The chits are a little flimsy, and the lamination on the cure tiles tends to make them stick together. The artwork is ok, but comes off as a bit amateurish overall. The good game play might be able to overcome this, but the price tag of $30 might cause some to balk because of the production quality. I could see these folks trying a kickstarter to push this game to the next level with better art and better quality pieces and packaging.

Overall fun game. Recommended if a good game is more important to you than a good looking game.

Influence
Two Monkey Studios/Game Salute 2014

If anyone was wondering if all I do are positive reviews, the answer is no. I’ve been debating on this one, but finally decided to give my two cents worth on this game. Influence is a 2-6 player short game. I tried twice to sit down with a group and the rules to puzzle out how to play this game. We gave up both times. The rules are confusing. Overall, it looks like it would be an easy game to play and learn, but as we figured out parts, we came across questions that either weren’t answered in the rules, or led to more questions that weren’t clear. After more than an hour with 3 people, 2 sets of rules, and the internet, we were still no closer to figuring out the game than when we started and finally gave up. I’m sure if someone who knows how to play were to put up a video, or were we to go to a convention or event where it was being demo’ed, we would probably enjoy the game, we just couldn’t figure out how it was supposed to play.

So here is where I go into my rant. Rules. Games are made or broken by them. Many a great game has had it’s downfall in poor rules, and many mediocre games have been made more fun and accessible by having great rules. They are such a critical part to every game. So, to game companies, put more time into your published rules than you do into your playtesting. Give your game to people and let them try to play it by learning the rules from your rulebook. As you see them get off track, don’t try to correct them, take notes and figure out how to write your rules better. Then playtest them with a new group who have never seen them. I’m serious. If people have trouble learning your game because of bad rules, you won’t get the sales, even if it is a great game. Make sure they are clear, concise, consistant and enjoyable to read. Add timing charts, or bulleted lists.

[getting off my soapbox] And so, in conclusion, this is a possibly good game, with rules bad enough that we walked away from it. Twice. You are welcome to give it a try, but until someone posts a video play, I wouldn’t recommend picking it up.