Monster Match

Monster Match

Monster Match is by North Star Games and looks like just a simple matching game, but it is soo much more.  Everyone is trying to match information on the dice with the pictures in front of them and the speed of that adds a lovely element to this game. My 4 year old plays this with me and I think younger than that would either need patience from parents or help.

The game says it age 6 or up but again there are small pieces and if you are playing with and watching your child you could probably play this younger.  Though like I said younger than 4 might struggle with the speed of this game.  This game plays 2-6 players although you could probably play it more than that but you would run out of cards very fast.


Game Play

In Monster Match you are trying to get the most donuts to win. The way you get them is by collecting monster cards. Game set up is simple, ten cards are placed face up and the Zilch button is placed where everyone can reach it. On your turn you roll two dice, one has a number and the other has a body party. Everyone (at the same time) looks for a monster with the corresponding number of body parts (for example in the one on the left is zero legs).

If you find a match you put one finger on the monster that matches.  This continues until everyone that can get a match has a match (all people have their finger on a monster) or there are no matches left.  When there are no matches left everyone collects their monster and the next player rolls the dice and the game continues.

Using the picture on the left again there are two monsters that have zero legs which means that two people will get monsters that turn.  If there was only 1 or if there was 3 then more or less people would get a monster.

If, after the dice are rolled, there are absolutely no matches (not even 1) then the first player to put their finger on the Zilch button gets the top card (blind draw) from the pile of extra cards.  This means the fastest player gets a reward for noticing first.  Anytime the Zlich button is used correctly then 10 more cards come onto the table.  There is no other way to add cards in the game except for with the Zlich button. This means that sometimes players are fighting over 4 cards, but other times there might be 20 or more to pick from.



When the Zilch button is pressed and there are no more cards to add to the game the game is over and everyone counts how many donuts they have won (lower right of each monster picture).  Most donuts overall wins the game.


Review

I love this game because not only is it fast and fun and the art is beautiful but it also works on shape/pattern recognition and counting with my little monster. One time when we played this game we added a colour by number sheet in the mix and while playing anytime he got a number that was on his sheet he then took a break to colour.  Another time we played my son practiced his number writing for each number that showed up on the dice. Obviously this is only the numbers 0-5 but really any writing practice is winning at his age!  It worked really well for us and was a fun way to extend playing the game as usually he just wants to play three or four times in a row - which is a lot really.  I love that this game not only provided us with a game but a lot of additional inspiration from my son for learning related games as well (although this won't happen with everyone for sure!)

The regular rules version of this game is fantastic and really you don't have to change anything about it.  The bag it comes in has a sturdy zip and the cards are very thick and well made so that you can shuffle them or abuse them within normal playing and they will probably turn out just fine. Because there are sometimes more than one monster per dice roll (though not always) even kids that are a little slower at this game will still get points. I have played this with a group of 4-6 year old and while the 6 year old was definitely faster and won the 4 year old loved playing, got a fair number of donuts and really enjoyed themselves as well.

I'd say you could get this at your Friendly Local Game Store but you can also find it at Coiledspring Games - which is the company that distributes this game in the UK (I am pretty sure).  I played this game at their demo table at Table Top Live and then immediately left with a copy because I knew my son would love it.  It is priced at £18.99 and worth every penny.  In the 3 months we have owned this we have played it at least 20 times (possibly more) - so for us each game so far is 95pence (£19/20 games = 0.95p).