by happyjosiah
King of Tokyo is a light, beer-and-pretzels style game with a quick playing time and a healthy dose of luck. It also scales wonderfully from 2-6 players, though I think it's just plain more fun with more monsters - ah, I mean, players.The premise of the game is basically the same as Monsters Menace America. That is to say, it's not JUST Godzilla or King Kong, it's ALL THE MONSTERS and they are going to kill each other, not just the planet. The cardboard stand-ups of the monsters are high-quality and have great cartoony illustrations. It has a bunch of custom dice and some special power cards which are really what make the game shine.
Just as in Yahtzee or Roll Through the Ages, you take a fistful of dice and get three rolls, keeping whatever you want from the previous roll and re-rolling the rest. The goal is to either kill all the other monsters or get 20 points. The dice have various combinations that get you points, healing, attacks on other monsters or energy. Energy is the currency of the game and is used to buy special cards.
As you would expect from Richard Garfield, these cards all break the game in various ways, changing the rules just for your monster so he has a leg up on the other critters. There are tons of these cards; it will probably take 4-5 games (depending on the number of players) to see them all, even if you set aside the ones you already used.
If I had to describe this game in one word it would be "addicting". I can't think of another game that creates more of a feeling of "just one more game" than this one.