Everyone once in a while, you find a game that is so
enjoyable, complex enough to give a challenge yet simple enough for anyone to
learn, that it captures your excitement; and King of Tokyo is that wondrous
find. From Iello games and designed by
someone rather important in gaming history, let’s take a closer look at this
hidden gem of a game.
Unfortunately, we had an excellent video that we completely
lost for this one due to technical errors, so I apologize in advance as this is
a beautiful game and once that really pops with color!
At its heart, King of Tokyo is Yahtzee with cards. Yes, it really is that simple. But, consider it competitive Yahtzee with
cards where the goal is to destroy each other, while terrorizing the city of
Tokyo.
I was on the fence for a bit about buying this game. It was designed by Richard Garfield, who some
of you may have heard of. That alone
makes some people buy his games, but for me, I have not found anything he’s
created or worked on that comes close to the success of Magic The
Gathering. Most recently I played his
Kard Kombat game on the iPhone/iPad and thought it was a resounding bomb, so
the thought of dropping $40 on something like this wasn’t appealing… but
speaking of appealing, there was the artwork, which kept capturing my eyes.
KOT is a beautiful game.
The cards have a very unique art style (by Benjamin Raynal) and are very colorful.
While the main characters are all the same stat wise, their artwork and
character tokens are all very unique and colorful as well. Besides, what’s not to like about a gigantic pink
cyborg bunny and Robot Gorillas?
As far as gameplay, it is very simple. Each turn, you will
roll 6 black dice and get victory points, energy, attack symbols or healing
symbols. The goal? To gain 20 Victory Points before anyone else,
or, be the last monster standing, with all the others having taken enough damage
to destroy them.
Like Yahtzee, you roll the dice, then can keep any you like,
and reroll any you don’t like. If you
get 3 of any number, you score that many victory points. So a roll of three 2’s gets you 2
points. Each additional number of the
same gets you an additional point as well.
So four 2’s will net you 3 total points while five 2’s will get you 4
total points.
Each Energy (Lightning) symbol provides you one energy
automatically, which will be used to buy one of the 3 cards in play. When a card is bought, a new one immediately
replaces it. While that sounds “Deckbuildish”
(if that’s a word), it’s not really a deck building game. Some cards have a “keep” effect where they
stay in front of you and you gain the rewards while some have a “discard”
effect, where you will purchase them, play them immediately, and reap or wreak
any effects.
The first player to roll and keep an attack symbol can enter
Tokyo. Why do you want to be in Tokyo?
Simple. While in Tokyo, each damage you
roll deals one damage to ALL the monsters outside of Tokyo. Think of it like you are chomping on
skyscrapers and spitting out metal at them, so to speak. However, while in Tokyo, all the monsters
outside of Tokyo that roll a damage, will damage you. Now you can, whenever you take damage and are
in Tokyo, choose to get out and let the monster who damaged you take your
place, and as such, this is the primary decision you’ll be making through the
ebb and flow of the game.
Overall, this is a very fun game, and one that can be played
by almost any age. Keep in mind though
that it is not highly strategic game, just one with slight strategies sprinkled
in, so if you are thinking this is Ascension with Dice, no my friends, it’s not. However, if you like light deckbuilding
games, enjoy Yahtzee like mechanics, or just plain like gigatronic size
monsters crushing things, this game is an enjoyable find and even more fun to
play.
Final Score from 1 to 10 Crits with 10 being the highest?:
References:
Board Game Geek's Page: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/70323/king-of-tokyo
Iello's Web Site (Will need a translator as it's in French): http://www.iello.fr/indec.php/iello
