by Gastel
I have before noted that my wife and kids are amazing, and today they proved it yet again. I was surprised today by an art craft that they had made for me (I had been banned from the front room for the last 2 weeks, so I knew something was up, but beyond that I was stumped.)The made me the world's only version of...
KING OF TOKYO: MONSTER EDITION
Wow. Was I impressed.
This version's first major component is a set of masks, which the players wear. They are supposed to be Cyber Bunny, the King, Alienoid and Pandakai. However, some of these choices were made after the masks were made, so I suspect they could just be new monsterous mutants and the evolution cards will just have to stay in their tuckbox.
Pandakai's in particular seems more like a Dreadlocked-Mutant-Statue-Monster; and I for one find that even a bit scarier. The King's mask was placed on me with my eyes closed, so I didn't even know what monster I was until I was able to go and find a mirror - what a frightening surprise. I got quite a few pictures of my family in their masks, but once we started playing, I just wanted to play with them and didn't get any action shots. Later I took a picture of myself, trying to behave as I think the King would approve.
These masks are so unique they really need to be seen to get the most out of them, and I cannot stress how fun it was when the Cyber Bunny actually pretended to claw me during the game.
And that brings me to the second of the main components for the game: a set of EXTREMELY CHUNKY DICE. Before you ask, no they are not the embossed versions, but I wouldn't have them any other way. These dice are BIG. So big in fact that if you look closely you will see a regular game die on the table... you must look closely as it is very tiny in comparison.
They are however, nice and light and had only a little wear after our first game. We tossed them nice and high and let them roll around on the ground. The only problem we really faced was that two people got Extra Heads and we needed even more. We settled on 'tiny' dice to supplement and continued our game.
The game itself was a race for fame, with some scary almost-deaths for the King (myself) and Alienoid (my wife). Cyber Bunny and Alienoid collected alot of early energy and both grew Extra Heads and used their extra dice to maximum advantage. Pandakai was spitting acid, but this never really bothered anybody to drastically. The King sort of flailed around and didn't get too much going but did manage to end with 16 stars, but that was 4 stars of being useful. However, even with 5 rerolls, my daughter (Cyber Bunny) could not stop my wife from getting to 20 stars (with only 2 life left) - even with Alienoid not being on Tokyo.
I will include a picture of myself rolling the dice (so you can get an idea of the scale. For some reason the picture is on its side. Not how it is on my computer - but really this is a 1st world problem and can be ignored for now. You can see me standing on the Tokyo space as well, which was another addition to the game. You can see the new energy crystals which we use (I think this will be a regular addition to the regular version as well).
Finally, as this edition is so kinesthetic in nature, new player boxes were added to keep all of our components and cards together.
I am so happy to have a family which shares my love of games and brings their considerable imagination, talent and enthusiasm to this hobby. Not only did I get a killer game of killers, but I also got to play this with people I love and had a great day with them.
(It didn't hurt that I also got Descent and Tokaido - but that's another story all together.)