Preview: Kaiju City

This past weekend I was at G-Fest XIX in Rosemont, IL.  It was a fantastic con and I got the opportunity to break out some wonderful kaiju (giant monster) themed games including King of Tokyo by IELLO, Monsterpocalypse by Privateer Press and a new game currently funding on Kickstarter called Kaiju City by Bonsai Entertainment. I had backed Kaiju City a few weeks before G-Fest and was excited to learn that I would have to opportunity to not only play the game, but meet it's artist, Frank Parr.  Here are a few of my thoughts on the preview copy they had available.

A mock-up of the proposed box art and some of the components

Components:  Since this was only a prototype, I can't go into great detail about the components, but the artwork they have planned for the game is phenomenally good.  The monsters are all unique and suitably fearsome-looking while the city tiles are varied and the military tiles pay fitting tribute to the armed forces that consistently get crushed in damn near every kaiju film ever made.

Gameplay: Kaiju City has players choose whether to play as the monsters or the city itself.  I know what you're thinking - who would ever want to play as the city and why can't the monsters fight each other?  Well, simmer down because even though I had the same thought going in, I was pleasantly surprised with the stalwart human defenders.  The city player will draw tiles, build up resources and bring military might to bear in a desperate effort to kill 4 of the rampaging monsters.  However, the monsters only need to carve a path of destruction through the city in such a way that no new tiles can be placed in order to achieve victory.  There ends up being a solid amount of depth in placing city tiles as the defender and moving your monsters around to destroy them as the attacker.

Rules: The rules for Kaiju City are nice and simple.  The city player draws tiles each turn to add to the city which starts as a 4x4 grid of unique tiles.  Resources generated by these tiles are used to build new areas of the city each turn.  Meanwhile the monster player will have control of 4 monsters, each with unique abilities that they must leverage in order to destroy the city and prevent the defenders from building new areas.  The iconography on both the tiles and monster record sheets conveniently displays all the necessary information without cluttering up the amazing artwork, so players will always know at a glance what their options are and which monsters are the most threatening or which city tiles look tastiest.

I couldn't resist including the art for Lukar - my favorite monster!

Overall: Unfortunately, I didn't get nearly enough opportunities to play the demo of Kaiju City while I was at G-Fest, but based on watching a handful of games in addition to my own I have to say that this is a refreshing, beautiful and just plain fun game.  The human player will have some tense moments where they'll have to decide which city tiles will be most advantageous to play that turn and the monster player will have to carefully coordinate where they move their kaiju in order to inflict the most mayhem.  Hopefully Bonsai Entertainment will be able to deliver on some amazing components if and when they get funded because everything else in this game is as solid as Gamera's shell.

From the Wishlist: Dominant Species

This is a new kind of post that I've been kicking around for a while.  I've got a massive list of games on my wishlist and every now and then I have to go back and refresh myself on what I'm waiting to buy and why.  With that in mind, I thought a series of entries about some games on my wishlist might be enough to entice other people to take an interest as well as foreshadow some of my upcoming reviews.

For the first installment of "From the Wishlist", I'd like to discuss Dominant Species by GMT Games.  GMT is, of course, the company behind Twilight Struggle - a game which sits atop the charts over on Board Game Geek.  I have limited experience with their games, but they generally cater more towards complex themes using simple components.  Dominant Species is no exception.

The box art pretty much says it all.

The game chronicles an encroaching ice age and the struggles of various types of animals as they try and adapt and compete over resources that are becoming more and more finite.  Now, I'm a huge fan of biology and evolution so the theme for this game has got me hook line and sinker.  The mechanics focus on worker placement, tile placement and area control, but I haven't been able to see it in action yet.  The rulebook is posted online, but I generally get a better idea for a game when I have the components on hand to reference.  Speaking of the components, I've found a few images/videos of them online and...well...they're definitely the weakest selling point of the game for me.

Photo credit - Penteado, BoardGameGeek.com

I don't want to go too nuts posting other people's pictures of the game, but I feel that this one best encompasses the overall package that is Dominant Species.  For me, what you see here does not match what you see on the box.  The colors are muted and the components are all abstract representations.  If this were a Fantasy Flight game, you can bet that there would be about 250 little plastic insects, reptiles and mammals.  With that being said, I'm a sucker for wooden components and these little blocks and cones remind me a lot of Pandemic which is a game where the abstraction of the theme works perfectly.  Obviously, all I can do without playing the game is judge the pieces aesthetically.  While they might not be as grandiose as I'd like them to be, they do look well made and functional which is really all a gamer can ask for - everything else is gravy.

Dominant Species carries a hefty $79 price tag.  Obviously, online retailers can offer it for a considerable discount, so it's up to each gamer to decide whether they want to save some cash or throw a lot of support behind their friendly local game store (expect a post about that debate soon).  For my money, I could definitely see myself paying retail for this game.  While the components might be lackluster, the theme has me salivating.  Coupled with a strong position on the BGG charts and a number of favorable reviews, I find myself helpless to resist the call of nature to change, adapt and thrive.

Since this is a new "feature" on the blog, I'm anxious for your feedback.  Let me know what you guys like and dislike about From the Wishlist and the blog in general.  As always, thanks for reading!

Super Dungeon Explore - Preview

I'm still working on how I'm going to format entries that aren't reviews (and how I'm going to format reviews that aren't just copy/pastes from boardgaming.com), but for now let me go ahead and share this link to the D6 Generation Facebook page that shows off all the components of Super Dungeon Explore by Soda Pop Miniatures.

Ok, yeah.  That was basically an excuse to cram as many links as possible in as short a post possible, but the game looks really damn good.  I'm looking forward to the possibility of a D6G review and/or some video reviews on Board Game Geek.