Image Courtesy of <PERSON>
I don't tend to cover a lot of Kickstarter games these days and this will only be the 4th where I have done so.
But I do like to shine the spotlight on interesting designs and smaller players when possible. Monstrous comes from an Aussie designer no less, with our design scene being sporadic to say the least. For that reason when I was approached I was more than happy to help out.
If you like what you read, please help me in getting interesting designs noticed by thumbing the top of this review so that it may hit the front page.
Summary
Game Type - Dexterity-based Card Game
Play Time: 20-40 Minutes
Number of Players: 2-5 (8 with team play)
Mechanics - Hand Management, Card Throwing
Difficulty - Pick-up & Play (Can be learned in under 10 minutes)
Components - TBA
Release - 2015 (via Kickstarter)
Designers <PERSON>
Overview
In the world or mere mortals in the heyday of Greece it was the Gods that dominated the thoughts and minds of men. As a Greek God you are not happy...namely because <PERSON> is not happy! It appears that the worthless blighters down below have not been worshipping hard enough and they must be brought into line! So take a fistful of monsters and throw them down on the lands of Greece to teach them a lesson. Get the peasants flooding back to the Pantheons to pay their rightful tribute and proclaim yourself as the most Monstrous God in the heavens.
This is the debut design by <PERSON> he has gone for an interesting style of play. Central to the play of the game is the need to throw, flick and fling cards onto the playing surface in order to dominate proceedings and earn Faith Tokens.
I have no connections with <PERSON> other than the fact that we are both Australian. When I was approached regarding the design I was interested enough to take a closer look.
Grab that Pegasus...let's take a fly-by...
The Components
I tend to avoid delving too deep into the components of future Kickstarters as the components I receive are usually prototype in nature.
What I can say though is that the game is largely made up of cards. The God Cards (which act as a reference outlining the powers of cities on one side and monsters on the other) are the largest in the game.
Then there are 12 double sized location cards, each painted in a god’s eye view, with special powers and Faith symbols in corners.
The in game playing cards are of standard card size and in all there are 60 Monster Cards, 5 sets of 12.
The artwork is all very enticing and the design of all cards helps to make the game intuitive and easy to learn.
The final component type are the Faith Tokens, which look like little flames and they vary in size based on the value they depict.
Image Courtesy of <PERSON> Set-Up
There are two elements to setting up the game. First the locations must be established. 470
A total of 5 cities must be added from one of the game’s 12 scenarios, or randomly selected and these are then placed on the table, roughly in the formation of the pips on the 5 side of a dice. This should result in one city being located in the centre of the other four. In relation to spacing it is recommended that each city be roughly the length of one monster card away from the central city in diagonal fashion.
Much like the image on the right.
Then the players must get their decks in order. They take a God Card (which is really a reference Card) and a set of 12 Monster Cards. They shuffle this deck and then remove a number of cards based on how many people are playing. The removed cards are placed to the right side of their God Card to form their Underworld, whilst the remainder of the deck is placed face down to the left of their God Card to form their Monster (draw) deck.
All players draw 3 cards to form their starting hand and the youngest player gets play underway unless the group prefer a more random method.
The Play
Monstrous uses a sequential set of steps to control the flow of a player's turn. It is very easy to go through the steps and apply aspects of the game mechanics as required. Some steps are skipped over if certain things do not take place and all in all a player's turn usually only takes 30-60 seconds.
Throw a Monster - This is the meat of the game. The active player can choose any one monster from their hand and attempt to throw it onto the playing area. They can choose to hold the card in any way they like and attempt any technique they wish in order to throw their monster.
Depending on the powers of the monster they throw, their goal may vary. 67