I got to play Rampage late LATE at Knavecon. It’s pure silliness mixed in with equal parts charm and big stompy monsters. Anyone here remember chaos orb from magic the gathering? No? Damn I’m old
It was an early silly card which you dropped onto another players cards and it destroyed whatever it touched. Rampage reminds me of this.
It borrows the name from the old Bally Midway game rampage. Oh and the monsters. Eh and the concept can’t imagine why they would threatened legal action against the designers.
The object of the game is to score points as a monster destroying buildings and eating locals. I’m all in!
Got to play it again last night
The game is expensive and hard to find as it’s out of print. It’s a pretty sturdy game, it has to be since a lot of the pieces will undergo kinetic testing every round. Big colorful wooden monsters and pieces along with sturdy cardboard building floors makes for a visually impressive set-up
The rules are pretty straightforward with monsters allowed to take two actions per turn which could be move, elbow drop on a building, blow at targets or flick a truck. After each of these actions any building with unoccupied visible floors can be consumed revealing tasty humans (meeples) to chow down on. Just before you end your turn you can eat as many humans in your Vicinity as you have teeth (six to start with)
The real fun starts when one monster muscles in on another’s patch and robust exchanges initiate.
Knocking another monsters teeth out banshee style not only reduces his scoring potential but scores you points too. All consumed teeth and meeples wind up in your stomach (your player screen) and full sets of six meeples with one of each colour. (Blondes, old folks, reporters, eh foreign nationals etc.) score big points so a balanced diet is key for a modern monster
Each monster starts with a couple of special abilities (long tail, wrestling champ that sort of thing) and a one shot nasty ability which can swing the game (but quite often fizzles out like a damn (giant) squid) (I know) because of your sloppy aim. WHAT where you thinking?
This is NOT by any means a serious game insofar as any game is serious. It’s purely for fun and winning is neither here nor there (I won the game on Thur night by a long chalk /fist pump).
The gaming fraternity is very split on this game. Pure Marmite
Relax…. it’s a bit of fun if you don’t like it don’t play it. Ignore the pressure, just say no. If on the other hand you do play you’ll get to try something unique. There’s skill and planning in here there’s tactics. There’s very little strategy and there’s a fair bundle of luck.
Last week we had flicking in Ascending Empires this week Rampage. Next week subetteo? We’re certainly in different territory with the games of late but that’s no bad thing
Worker placement, map conquest? Pah! The future is monster flicky games (for at least a forthright)
Huzzah!
Vic
Victor Gannon Games 
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