Attack on Monster is a game of of knowing when to fight, knowing when to run, and knowing when to tell your friends you’ll stay with them to the bitter end and then immediately deserting them so they get killed and you don’t.

The game board consists of a changing row of location cards.  The players start on a location and there is a large monster bearing down on them.  Players simultaneously show if they are going to run (away from the monster to the next location), or stay where they are.  After players move or stay, the monster moves up to 2 locations and fights the first group of players it meets.  If the number of players (plus any bonuses/penalties for equipment and the location’s effects) is greater than the monster’s strength, the monster is killed which earns those players an equipment card and some Victory Points (VPs); otherwise, all players are killed by the monster.  The good news is each player has 3 figures (meeple) so when one gets eaten, the next enters play.

An interesting game mechanic is that when players die, their meeple are placed on the first available space of the graveyard board.  At the end of the game, these graves are worth VPs, and the graves get increasingly more valuable, so staying alive longer is worth more VPs.  If more than 1 player is killed at the same time, they all go on the same graveyard space, but multiple meeple sharing a grave means the next grave to be used is further along, i.e. 2 people in grave 5 means they both score 5 VPs and the next grave to be used is grave 7.

The game ends either when all the monsters are killed, or when one player has lost all of their 3 lives (and all remaining players score the next grave slot).  So, there’s no problem with player elimination.

Attack on Monster is a simple game that sounds like a lot of fun (even if it is annoyingly similar to a game idea I have been working on, but there’s always at least one of these at every Spiel).  I like games where you need to second-guess what your opponents will do, like Om Nom Nom and Sneaks and Snitches, so Attack on Monster sounds highly entertaining.

I can see there being a lot of banter during this game, as well as plenty of humourous screwage too.  The game plays with 5 to 10 players, so is one of the few that plays with 7+ players.  I hope there may be a way to play it with fewer than 5 players too.

You can see the designer’s YouTube video explaining how the game plays using this shortlink: bga.me/AoM

For more Spiel 2014 previews, check out my Spiel 2014 Previews page which lists the games on my radar with links to their previews too.

James.