Don't Play iPad Lah! Be "King of Tokyo"...

Date:  May 7, 2015

I introduced board games to my kids.

We played various of board games before sleep.

We played every single night.

The kids now seldom ask and use the iPad.

It put less strains on their eyes. 

And as a result, the kids get better chance to have perfect eyesights.

The kids is more happy.

The kids is more socialise as they not playing their iPad individually.

The family gain more interactions.

When my kids grow up, they will become a social geek!

And I believe the board games has done a good job!

Today, let’s introduce you to one of the most interesting board games me and the kids loves.

King of Tokyo

It has won a lot a lot of awards.  So the world also think it is a cool game.

It is good for 2 to 6 people playing.

If you have 5-6 people playing this game, basically, there will be 2 cities - Tokyo city and Tokyo bay where the monsters can occupied.

It is good for 8 years old and above.

And the rough time is about 20-30 minutes per round of game.  Just nice for a before bed gaming.

How to Play

1.  Every player choose a Monster.  Reset the Live (hearts) to 10.  Reset the Star to zero.  There is no special different power for each monster.  It is just a avatar for your game play.

2.  At the center lies the City of Tokyo.

3.  Players than throw 6 dices to see how many ATTACK they have gotten.  The player who has the most ATTACK dice will go first, follow by the player to his LEFT.  Now, you will always want to get the first shot to occupy the City of Tokyo.

4.  If you are the player who start the game, and throws ATTACK dice.  You get to go into the City of Tokyo.

5.  Every time you get into Tokyo, you gain 1x STAR.  Every time you STAY inside Tokyo (not the first time occupying it), you gain 2x STARs.

6.  When you are in Tokyo, you want to throw as many ATTACK as possible, as you gets to damage ALL other monsters (all the rest of the players) who is not in Tokyo.  

7.  Because every time you turn, you will add 2x STARs, the monsters who is in Tokyo will gain STARs more quickly this way.

8.  Whoever reach 20x STARs win!

9.  And if the Monster who occupies or eventually occupies Tokyo is the only Monster left will win too!

10.  The only downside of staying in Tokyo is YOU CANNOT HEAL yourself using the hearts.  And other monster will attack only you when is their turns.

11.  So, when you are low in life (HEARTS), you better ROAR (SHOUT OUT) to whoever monster that attacked you.  Once you do that, you STEP OUT of tokyo, take the damage and then, let the monster you roar to come in to take over the City of Tokyo.  When he first entered Tokyo, don’t forget to add 1x STAR.

12.  So, when you are outside of the Tokyo, and you are low in lives, and if you do not want to risk to be called in (by the Monster in Tokyo roaring at you),  you do not ATTACK the Monster in Tokyo.  

13.  When you are outside of Tokyo and low in lives, you basically wants to HEAL as many as possible by throwing more HEART dices.

14.  So, you keep doing so, enter tokyo when you are strong, heal yourself when you are not in Tokyo.

15.  While playing each turn, you get to throw ENERGIES dices too.  If you get energies, you can buy the power card.

16.  The deck of power cards are simply awesome.  You can do a lot of stuffs with it.

17.  So, also watch out for players who has many STARs.  As once he/she reached 20, he/she gets to win the game to become the Kind of Tokyo.

The Manual

It is very easy to play.

It is a game that need to use your brain.

It is a game that need strategies, and some time, you need to have collaboration in order to win.

The fun part is all those special power cards.  You can really rely on them to do some damage or savings.

 

The Monsters

The Giga Zaur...

The King...

The Kraken...

Cyber Bunny...

Alienoid...

Meka Dragon!

 

The Dices

There are six faces, you have 1, 2, 3, power, health and attack faces.

You get no STARs if you have lesser than 3x 1s or 2s or 3s.

If you get 3x 1s then, you can add 1x STAR.

If you get 4x 1s then, you can add 2x STARs.

If you get 5x 1s then, you can add 3x STARs.

If you get 6x 1s then, you can add 4x STARs.

If you get 3x 2s then, you can add 2x STARs.

If you get 4x 2s then, you can add 3x STARs.

If you get 5x 2s then, you can add 4x STARs.

If you get 6x 2s then, you can add 5x STARs.

If you get 3x 3s then, you can add 3x STARs.

If you get 4x 3s then, you can add 4x STARs.

If you get 5x 3s then, you can add 5x STARs.

If you get 6x 3s then, you can add 6x STARs.

There are special cards that can let you roll 1 more dice in addition to the six dices.

 

Energy Cubes

If you roll the lightning symbol dice, then you can add ENERGY CUBE.  The more you roll the lightning symbols the more you can get the ENERGY CUBES.

You can use these ENERGY CUBES to buy special cards.

The strategies is you will need to balance out the LIFE, ATTACK and ENERGY CUBES and STARS.  

1) Try to stay alive.

2) Try to kill ALL other monsters to win.

3) Or try to score as many STARS as possible to win.  (i.e. 20 STARS)

But without energy cubes to get the special power cards, it will be harder and slower to try to achieve 3 objectives.

 

Counters

These are the counter tokens.

You use it along with special cards.

For example, if you buy the MIMIC card for 8 energy cubes.

You can get one of these MIMIC token.

Then, you can sort of “COPY” the power of other cards by placing your token onto other player’s special power.

For example, I placed one MIMIC token onto the Extra Head card.  So, every time I throw the dices, I get an extra die.

 

The Monster’s Board

There are two counters on each Monster’s Board.

The STAR counter reset to zero, and start counting the STARs for you.  If you get 20x STARs, you win the game.

The LIVES counter.  You start with 10x LIVES.  if your LIVES counter drop to zero which is represented by a skeleton head, then, your monster is dead, and you are out of the game.

 

The Special Power Cards

There are a whole decks of cards here.

And you will soon find out why the kids love this board game.

Because all these special power cards are so special and fun.

They make the kids feel like super hero with super power.

Although they are monsters.

Let’s give some examples...

This is a very common card.  You use 4x energy cubes to buy this card.  And when you use it, you get 2x STARs.  And after you use it, you discard it.

There are a lot of such cards here.  Either add STARs, add LIVES, or add ENERGY CUBEs or even punch or ATTACK other people.

The Shrink Ray.  You use 6 energy cubes to buy this one.  And you can keep this card forever during the game.

When you use this card to attack the monsters, you basically give one SHRINK COUNTER to the other monster when you throw ATTACK and deal damage to the monster at the same time.

When it comes to the monster who as the SHRINK counter on his/her turn, he or she will have one less die to throw.  (i..e throw only 5 dices if you have a shrink counter.  throw 4 dices if you have 2x shrink counters)

The only way to save yourself by giving back full power (i.e. throw 6 dices) is to throw hearts.  Not to heal yourself but to get rid of the shrink counter.

This is a very powerful card.  

This is also a power card.  JETS.

Means, whenever you are in Tokyo, NO ONE CAN HARM YOU.

If no one can harm you, or damage you while you are in Tokyo, means, you will be there to collect STARs and win the game.

The only way to stop him is to kick him out from Tokyo by using special cards.

He (monster in Tokyo) has no reason to roar at any monsters.  Because there is no reason to.

So, when this happen, it is the race of reaching 20x STARs.  So, each monsters will have to throw dices to get as many stars as possible.

Don’t forget, when he is in Tokyo, he will get 2x STARs extra each turn.

This is also a good card.  If you throw a 1-1-1.  That means whatever you harvest from the rest of the remaining dices you get another turn immediately with 5 dices.

That is effectively equal to 8 dices.  Very fun to have this card.

If you want monsters to lose STARs.  This is the card you must get.

This is the card where you basically attack all monster even you are not in Tokyo.  Very power card if you want to play the kill-the-monsters strategies.

This is the great healing card.  When you heal, you heal x2.

If you have this card, and when you throw 6 difference dice faces.  Then, you get 9x STARs.

This is bad card.  Totally useless.  If you have this card, all monsters take 3 damages.  Including yourself.

From time to time, you will get these not so useful cards display on the selling area.

Each time, you can only reveal 3 cards.  

So, since all these are pretty useless, you might want to get rid of these three cards and reveal the next three cards.

You do so by paying 2x energy cubes.

If you got Smoke Cloud, you get three counters.  Each counter gives you an extra roll. 

Pretty handy to have this card.

This card give you two maximum lives.  Your maximum lives is 12 instead of 10.

You can reborn yourself if you die.

Some cards give you ability to throw 1-2-3 and earn 2x STARs.

This is an attacking card.  If you got this, whoever takes tokyo will have to receive one damage or one more damage.

If you have this card, if other monster deal damage to you, instead of lose life, you get the chance to decide whether your life is lost.  Still 1 against 6 chance, but at least you get a chance.

Again, nice card to have.  Throw 1-1-1 to get 2x STARs.

Attacking card.  Extra 1 damage when attack.

Another card that uses the counter.  The poison counters.  Give counters to monster so that they take extra damages to reduce the poison counter.

This is useless.  You take damages to earn STARs.

I love this card.  You basically can change other monster die throw.  So, that they don’t get what they want.

It is a nice neat little board game.

Kids love to throw dices.

Kids loves to grow their monster to have different power each time.

My boys love it so much.

Don't Play iPad Lah! Play "Forbidden Island"

Date:  April 30, 2015

I have started to play board games, card games and dice games with the kids.

The kids love these games.

However, kids are still kids.

When they lose, sometimes they will “Beh Song” and start to cry, and tears drop.

Well, let’s look it from another angle, the cries and tears will make them stronger in future, and help them to grasp the ideal of “It’s just a game!"

Forbidden Island

Today, let’s look at another new game that we played.

It is called “Forbidden Island”.

The aim of this game is to work together to find 4 secret treasures.  And run to the helipad (a.k.a Fool’s Landing) without being eaten by the island.  Take note, the island will be flooded from time to time.  Thank goodness, you have the magic to make it un-flood (a.k.a Shore Up).

Wait a second!  What do you mean by “Work Together”?????????

A-ha!  This is a “Co-operation Games”.  That means, all the players need to work together, hand in hand to accomplish the task, finding the 4 secret treasures.  There is only the Human Players win or the Forbidden Island Wins!”.  Each of the players are NOT competing against each other.  

I think co-operation games are very cool game indeed.  It cause lesser conflicts and it actually provides lots of fun.  And all the players have a common target and enemy.

To learn more about how to play the game, please watch the following video links.  Hosted by Will Wheaton.  He will teach you everything about this game.

Here I will provide some basic of the game play.  My kids love this game!

The setup of the game

There are 24 island cards.  You shuffle the cards and first form a 4x4 squares and then place each sides additional two cards.  

This is your island.

Because you shuffle your cards, so, the island will always change for new game play.  So, it will provides different fun and elements to the game.

There are 4x treasures.  Each treasures can be found on 2 island cards.  So, all together there are 8 cards that has the treasure marker on it.

Since you can play either 2 or up to 5 players.  So, there are 5 cards for each coloured pawn.  (i.e. red, blue, green, black and yellow).

You cannot let the Fools’ Landing (Helipad) island card sink.  If Fools’ Landing sink, the game is over, and the Forbidden Island wins.

The 4 Treasures

These are the treasures you need to get.  You can place these 4 treasures on four sides of the island.

Every turn, after you have done 3 actions, you can draw 2x treasure cards.

And you start to collect the treasure cards each turn.  If your hand has 5 cards, you will need to discard additional cards.  Choose carefully what card you need to keep.

You will have to work together with each players and examine the timing and capture the treasure.  Your teammates can give you their treasure cards during their turn and both your pawn and his/her pawn happens to be on the same island tiles.

Except for Messenger (Your Job & Role), a messenger can pass the treasure card to any one from any where and it does not need to be on the same tile as the person who is going to receive the card.

Once you have collected four same treasure cards, you can try to move your pawn to the island tiles that has the same treasure symbol (only 2 for each treasure).

Take note, you must not let the island tiles that has the treasure on it sink.  You can sink 1 but do not let both sink before you retrieve the treasure.

I have 4 "The Crystal of Fire” cards and I happened to have my pawn at the Cave of Embers or the cave of Shadows which carry the treasure symbol.  So, during my turn, one of the action can be to retrieve the treasure.  And place the treasures cards at the discard pile in front of the treasure cards.

Adventurer Cards

At the beginning of the game, each player will have to pick one adventurer cards.  This is to decide what “super power" you can have.

If you are an explorer, you have special power to move and/or shore up diagonally.  Beside Explorer, NO ONE can move diagonally.

You will love the engineer.  Because he can shoe up 2 tiles for 1 single action.  This comes very handy when you have way too many cards to shore up.

This is the most wanted adventurer card.  To be a pilot, you can fly to any tile on the island for 1 action.  ONCE per turn.  (I think me and the kids played wrongly for the first few days as we can play it 2-3 times per turn.  HaHaHa… no wonder we won the first two games)

A messenger can give treasure cards to a player anywhere on the island for 1 action per card.

From time to time, the island tile will sink.  If you need to swim across a part of the island that has NO TILE, that means you will need the Diver to do the job for you by swimming across it.  There rest of the player CANNOT swim.

The navigator can move another player up to 2 adjacent tiles for 1 action.

 

Treasure Cards

To start the game, you give 2 treasure cards to each player.  If you draw a “Water Rise” card, then, you need to put it back and shuffle the cards.

The coloured pawns

Place your pawn in the corresponded island tiles.  My blue pawn happens to start from Fools’ Landing.

To Sink The Tiles

Every turn, you will need to draw the flood card that is equal to the Water level.

Every flood card, you will need to turn over the island tile, and the blue colour card will sink the island half way.  You have to sink the island tile again to REMOVE the tile.

A missing tile is no good as it might block the way or path from one side to another side.

To start the game, you draw 6 flood cards to make the island sink first.  As you can see, it just happened that all the 6 cards I have are all stick together.

Water Level

This is the water level card.  We started from the Novice level, and each time we draw a Water Rise card.  You will increase the water level here.  And then you look at the water level to decide how many flood cards you draw.

Now, every time a Water Rise card was drawn, then, you take the flood cards from the discard pile (those cards that you have sank the island in earlier rounds), shuffle them and put it on top of the flood card.

I think this is so brilliant the game play is.

That means that you have high chance to open a flood card on any tile that has already been sank for 1 time.  If it sank the 2nd time, then, the island tile is removed.  That means the part or tile is completely gone.

Water Rise! Card

There are only 3 waters rise card.  If you draw this card, the water will rise.  And all the previously flooded location risk to be flooded again and become missing tile.

Helicopter Lift Card

This card is important.  Because after you and your team mates collected all 4 treasures.  All the players’ pawns must go back to the Fools Landing.  And then make use of this card to fly away from this forbidden island.

Sand Bags Card

This card is cool.  At any time (not even your turn), you can shore up a tile with this card.

The rest of the game play

It is easy.

Every turn, a player will need to

1) Take up to 3 actions.

     a) Move (not diagonally except for explorer)

     b) Shore Up (adjacent tile or on the island tile you are on)

     c) Give a treasure card (when you are on the same island tile with your other player)

     d) Capture a Treasure (use 4 treasure cards of the same treasure to capture)

2) Draw 2 treasure deck cards

3) Draw Flood cards equal to the water level.

Conclusions

This is a very simple game to play.

It is all about co-operative.

All players must work together.

So it is fun game and there are a lot of interactions between players.

It is amazing that the game play is so good.

Don’t play iPad lah!  Play Forbidden Island!  Play together with your kids.