User Blog:
What We Should Play - Monsters Vs Monsters

 I’ve had the opportunity to play a rather enjoyable little game called Monsters Vs Monsters, provided to me by the designers. Monsters Vs Monsters is a card game designed for children between the ages of 5-18.

The story for the game, per their website, is:

"In the middle of the 21st century, a world-wide television company decided to use its newly purchased genetic engineering division to design a new breed of combatants for an Arena based Reality TV show. The scientists chose 10 creatures of legend from around the world, and created these monsters for the show. A Bigfoot, the Wolfman, the Yeti, the Chupacabra, Loch Ness, the Mummy, a Skeleton, a Zombie, Frankenstein, and a Vampire were genetically designed in a lab. Once these monsters were born, they were trained in the habitat from the tales to become the perfect fighting machine. Monsters VS. Monsters is televised live and streamed through the internet in over 130 countries. Even though the show is loved the world over, it still ranks as the 2nd most watched show on the planet."

It’s a very simple game, the rules fitting on a single card in the deck, and it uses a single six-sided die per player (five are included in the set.) The basics of the game are just a standard roll to see who gets higher on the dice, and a scoring system based on the random cards as they’re drawn. There’s an added layer that comes from a number on the card that acts as a sort of ‘sweet spot,’ where if you roll that number, you automatically win that round. After a number of rounds, you tabulate points from the cards.

Sounds really juvenile, right? Well, that’s the point. While I don’t see the game grabbing someone on the higher end of their age range (anyone over about 13, for that matter,) there’s a lot of value in these little cards. They each have a cartoon monster with a kitschy special attack the kids can grab on to. The rules are simple enough to streamline play and just let the kids have fun without resorting back to the rules.

If you look at it for what it is supposed to be, it’s a really strong product. Very simple, very good for the age range, non-offensive and a fun little distraction. It requires the players to interact, and it pulls them away from their 700$ video games for a little bit. It’s definitely a great gateway for a gamer’s kid, I know I’ll be having my daughter play it when she’s with friends once she’s a little older.