This is a cooperative game for 1 to 5 players aged 10 and up. It features a town which the players must defend against Universal Studio monsters: <PERSON>, The Creature From The Black Lagoon, The Mummy, Frankenstein and The Bride, The Invisible Man, and The Wolfman. It can be played at varying degrees of difficulty, facing 2 to 4 monsters.
The Central Board is the town, artistically done with locations, a Church, a Cemetery, a Lab, a Precinct, a Hospital, a Museum, a Cave, a Camp and more. Each Monster has its own board, detailing how to defeat it. For example, <PERSON> has 4 coffins dispersed in the town, you must destroy all of them and place the broken coffins on <PERSON>’s board to prevail.
Twelve randomly chosen items are placed on the Central Board at the start of the game, in the location indicated on the item token. Items are blue, red or yellow and include such things as garlic, wooden spikes, a tablet… Items have a value from one to six and serve to fend off attacks and defeat the Monsters.
Players choose a character to play as, such as the Scientist, the Mayor, the Archaeologist, the Explorer, who each have a special action they can take. Each player gets an instruction card, the same one, it just helps with playing the game. They also receive a Perk card which is a special action that can be taken any time. 67
The Terror Track token is placed at the zero mark.
The game starts with the player who last ate garlic (haha!). There is a Hero phase and a Monster phase. In the Hero phase, the player takes 3 to 5 actions, depending on the number written on their character card. Actions can be moving through the lit path in the village to an adjacent spot, taking one or more villagers along, guiding a villager to an adjacent space, picking up or sharing items,advancing in the task of defeating monsters, performing the character’s specific task or destroying a monster.
In the Monster phase, a Monster card is drawn. The player must execute the actions prescribed on the card, pulling out a certain number of new items from the item bag, moving monsters or villagers around, rolling one to 3 dice as called for and suffering the consequences prescribed by the roll, defending against monster attacks by discarding items… Players must work together to defeat the monsters. Each player gets their turn in a clockwise manner.
The game is won if all the monsters are defeated and lost if the Terror Track reaches the last spot or all the Monster Cards have been used up.
Instructions are clear and simple, maybe a little repetitive, though the various monsters make the game different every time so good replayability. The artwork is beautiful, it’s a Ravensburger game, so no wonder. The theme is unique and fun, even though it’s monsters, it’s not scary for kids. A great addition for Board Game Night! 17