| Monkeys on the Moon
Game type: Boardgame
Publisher: Eight Foot Llama
Price: $19.95
Reviewer: Peter Mancini Spank the Monkey: or why Llamas aren't just sheep with
neck issues
Recently I was handed the game "Monkey's on the Moon" for review. It is by a small company called Eight Foot Llama out of a Northern corner of Massachusetts I actually have family living in. I was immediately suspicious!
What is the game about, you may be asking right now. Well, to put it succinctly it is about the aspirations of monkey tribes to throw off the shackles of their lives on the moon and return to Earth. The Monkey's have mastered some basic technologies such as hairdryers and ping pong and with this sturdy scientific founding have garnered rocket flight. Invasion is set but there is a problem. The monkeys are tribal have distinct likes and dislikes for the other tribes. You must manage your rockets' manifests to keep the squabbling to a minimum!
At first I thought the game would be very simplistic. In fact the game is quite the opposite. It contains an intense bidding game that pits players against each other in a very serious and intense game. You bid on tribes with tribal markers. There is a scarcity of markers for each tribe. This is where the game gets interesting, you can be very powerful bidding for some tribes but the same resource pool you have would be useless in bidding for other tribes. In any given bid a tribe will have to friendly tribes and one
opposing tribe. You want to bid on friendly tribes so that you can fill your ships with monkeys who will not fight each other the whole way back to Earth! Otherwise you will find yourself losing points.
Overall I found the game quite enjoyable. It works with 3 or 4 players. There is a two player version but it isn't really all that great. The intensity of the game comes from bidding and playing off the other players. You just don't get that with two players. It makes a good family game and the cards are pretty funny to read. The artwork is ok and the components are nice. A very good effort from EFL.
Re-playability is there but you won't do marathon sessions of this game. It takes about 30-45 minutes to play. It makes a good family game. Games Magazine put it in The Games 100 for 2003.
NRA President Heston as Taylor asks Cornelius if he has any guns. Cornelius says yes but that they won't need any. Taylor insists, "I'm glad to hear it. I want one anyway." (And no 5 day waiting period I assume.)
Playability: 
Replay Value:
Presentation:
Ratings range from one to five.
--Peter Mancini, 1/3/03 | |
