Richard Garfield's King of Tokyo -
published by Iello Games
We went looking for a new game and these are the criteria we gave the staff at our FLGS, Kapow Games in Lethbridge, AB.
1) Fast - under one hour.
2) Fun - decent chances for any skill level to win.
3) Enjoyable by kids as young as seven through adults.
4) Expandable, in case we have friends over.
After discussing how some of the other games that they have suggested went over, they pointed us right at King of Tokyo. “You get to play a movie monster smashing Tokyo!” was about all it took to get us interested, and sure enough it went over like a ton of bricks.
King of Tokyo is a intended for 2-6 players/monsters, ages 8 and up. They claim 30+ minutes on the box and we found that about right for 2-3 player games, with 4+ player games going about 45min without too much rule searching.
On the topic of rules, if you took out the excellent artwork, the entire rules would fit on a single letter sized sheet of paper and we had them learned with some pre-reading and a single game. Well written, and easy to pick up...which is to be expected from someone with as much game design experience as Richard Garfield of Magic and Vampire fame. Several gameplay examples are included at the appropriate places, and there are additional card clarifications on the back of the rules.
The game moves smoothly, with each monster attempting to either be the last monster standing, or to have caused enough destruction to earn 20 Victory Points. Each turn you roll dice to cause damage to other monsters, heal yourself, accumulate energy to purchase cards, or straight up score Victory Points. The cards give you various advantages (or penalties to your opponents), with more powerful cards costing more energy. Each card has advantages and disadvantages depending on your master plan for the destruction of Tokyo.
The monsters are dual sided heavy card with plastic stands, and the artwork is fabulous. Cartoony enough for Saturday morning without being a 'kids game'. Each monster comes with a card and a matching score/health tracker, so no need to use dice/etc to keep track of those. The cards are playing card quality with more of the same excellent artwork, and I found them especially easy to shuffle. The fit and finish of all the components is similarly top notch.
If I had to come up with one low point, and this is fairly minor, I would say that the game board could have been a little larger. Just big enough to have an area for the cards to sit would have made this a 10/10 instead of the 9.5 I'm giving it.
Now I'm looking forward to the two expansions - Power Up and Halloween
We went looking for a new game and these are the criteria we gave the staff at our FLGS, Kapow Games in Lethbridge, AB.
1) Fast - under one hour.
2) Fun - decent chances for any skill level to win.
3) Enjoyable by kids as young as seven through adults.
4) Expandable, in case we have friends over.
After discussing how some of the other games that they have suggested went over, they pointed us right at King of Tokyo. “You get to play a movie monster smashing Tokyo!” was about all it took to get us interested, and sure enough it went over like a ton of bricks.
King of Tokyo is a intended for 2-6 players/monsters, ages 8 and up. They claim 30+ minutes on the box and we found that about right for 2-3 player games, with 4+ player games going about 45min without too much rule searching.
On the topic of rules, if you took out the excellent artwork, the entire rules would fit on a single letter sized sheet of paper and we had them learned with some pre-reading and a single game. Well written, and easy to pick up...which is to be expected from someone with as much game design experience as Richard Garfield of Magic and Vampire fame. Several gameplay examples are included at the appropriate places, and there are additional card clarifications on the back of the rules.
The game moves smoothly, with each monster attempting to either be the last monster standing, or to have caused enough destruction to earn 20 Victory Points. Each turn you roll dice to cause damage to other monsters, heal yourself, accumulate energy to purchase cards, or straight up score Victory Points. The cards give you various advantages (or penalties to your opponents), with more powerful cards costing more energy. Each card has advantages and disadvantages depending on your master plan for the destruction of Tokyo.
The monsters are dual sided heavy card with plastic stands, and the artwork is fabulous. Cartoony enough for Saturday morning without being a 'kids game'. Each monster comes with a card and a matching score/health tracker, so no need to use dice/etc to keep track of those. The cards are playing card quality with more of the same excellent artwork, and I found them especially easy to shuffle. The fit and finish of all the components is similarly top notch.
If I had to come up with one low point, and this is fairly minor, I would say that the game board could have been a little larger. Just big enough to have an area for the cards to sit would have made this a 10/10 instead of the 9.5 I'm giving it.
Now I'm looking forward to the two expansions - Power Up and Halloween
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