Monster Smash

Summary

👥 A game for 2 – 5 players
⏳ Playtime is 5 – 20 minutes
🏢 Publisher is Iconiq Studios

Introduction

Monster Smash is a fast-paced family-friendly card game. Easy to learn, quick to play, fun for hours!

Let’s get it on the table

In this fast-paced card game, players can win by collecting six cards of their own monster suit, collecting fifteen cards in total, or eliminating all other players so they are out of cards!

With a total of five different suits of monsters, all players need to choose one. This monster will be your Squad Leader. After this, all players will take six cards from the main deck. The player who looks at their monster the most will be the starting player, or they can decide this randomly. 😉

Now everybody is ready to start. Each turn, a player will draw one or three cards, depending on the number of cards in their hand. Then, players can choose to burn cards or attack another player.

Burning cards means a player takes cards from their hand, like two cards, and draws half of that amount from the main deck. After this, they can attack.

When attacking another player, you need to use at least one card from your own Squad and at least one card from another monster card that you have on hand. All monster cards have a number value from one to four. So, if you attack with two of your own squad and one additive card with another monster, the total value of these three cards is your attacking value.

The player who needs to defend can do this with only two cards from their hand, where at least one card needs to be from their own monster squad.

When all the cards are open on the table, the value of the Attack amount needs to be deducted by the total value of the defending player, and this outcome will be either a victory or a “crying like a little baby” moment for the attacker. If the value of the attacker is higher, the difference between the Attack and Defend value will be the number of cards the attacker needs to pick from the defender’s hand. This is the nice thing that keeps the pace in the game.

When a defender does not have any cards of their own monster, they lose the total amount of Attack value in cards that the attacker can pull blindly from the defender’s hand. However, if the defender can defend and they win with an equal amount or higher, no cards will be pulled, and nothing will happen. The cards used for the Attack and defense will always be discarded.

Keep in mind the trick of having enough cards from your own Squad in your hand after an Attack or Defend to avoid being the target for the next player.

During the games we played, the game is very nice and easy to learn. My oldest daughter loves it so much that it has turned into a run of nine games after she played it for the first time. The illustrations used for the monsters are nicely done and don’t scare young players, which makes it fun for everybody. When we started playing with more than two players, there were some games where the last two survivors had no luck in getting cards from their own Squad, which made the game a bit longer. This would be the only thing that we noticed; a joker would have come in handy so that the fast pace of the game stays. But nevertheless, it is a very nice small card game that can be played everywhere. It gives a lot of joy and takes up less than a wallet-sized space—well, a big grandma wallet size. 😁

We want to thank Iconiq Studios for this review copy and the opportunity to write about this game.