King of Tokyo

12th September 2021


Up from the depths.
Thirty stories high.
Breathing fire!
HIS HEAD IN THE SKY!
GODZILLA!
GODZILLA!
GODZILLA!
….and Godzoo- OK, that's going too far.

Take on the role of a kaiju as they rampage against each other for the right to flatten  Tokyo!

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What's in a game?

• Board: This small square board, depicts poor, unfortunate Tokyo on fire! There's a central space called Tokyo City, which will be occupied by one of the monsters.
  Another space display Tokyo Bay and serves the same function but in 5+ player games.
• Monster board: Each of these 6 boards depicts a different monster, each board also has 2 dials to track health and victory points.
• Monster Standee: Each monster has a corresponding standee.

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• Power cards: These cards grant monsters powers. Some powers are once-only and discarded when used, some are always active and others can be triggered by certain criteria. Additionally, some power cards will target other players' monsters, normally to detrimental effect.
• Dice: These are not the usual six-siders, the numbers 4, 5 & 6 are replaced with a monster footprint, lighting and heart symbols.
  There are 6 black dice and 2 green ones. Mostly, players will use the black dice, some power cards allow them to use the extra 2 green dice though.
• Energy cubes: Translucent, green acrylic cubes.
• Tokens: Standard cardboard disc shaped tokens, used to track some of the power cards' abilities.

That's it for components, they're all solidly made; the monster standees and boards are thick and sturdy, it doesn't feel like the dials will fall off any time soon. The tokens, cards and acrylic are exactly what you'd expect them to be.
​The dice are very well constructed and feel satisfying weighty to heft, which is good because they be getting a of of use.
The boards, cards and standees are lavished with brash, colourful and cartoonish art, it's comical style perfectly fits both the game's style and over the top theme.
The game has little iconography which is easy to understand.

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How's it play?
Setup

• ​Give each player a standee and matching monster board, each player should set the health to 10 and victory points to 0.
• Set out the main board, dice, cubes and tokens.
• Shuffle the power cards into a face-down deck and deal 3 face-up.
• Determine a starting player.

On to play
​In King of Tokyo, players take turns rolling and re-rolling dice, then using those results to try and gain some benefit to work towards their objectives. During play there will always be a monster inside Tokyo, while the others are outside, in a 5+ player game, there can be 2 monsters inside Tokyo.
A turn goes like this.

• Dice: The active player rolls the 6 black dice.
  Rerolls: After the 1st roll, the active player may choose to set aside any number of dice and reroll the remaining. They may choose to set aside 0 dice or all of them (Although this would end their rolling.).
  They may then reroll those remaining dice that were not put aside; after this roll, they may put aside any number of those dice, they may even add back in dice they put aside in the previous roll.
  Finally, the active player may have a final 2nd reroll (3rd roll in total.) of the dice not set aside. Now the results on all the dice must be resolved.
• Results:
  3-of-a-kind: If the active player got 3-of-a-kind for the numerical results, then they score victory points for that base number. If they rolled 1, 1 & 1, then they score 1 point, if they roll 3, 3 & 3, they would score 3 points.
  Getting more matching numbers, increase the score per matching die. Thus getting a result of 2, 2, 2, 2, & 2 would earn the active player 4 victory points.
  Footprint: The footprint stomps enemies! Each footprint does a point of damage.
  If the active player is outside Tokyo, the damage dealt to the monster inside Tokyo, if the active player is inside Tokyo, the damage is dealt to every monster outside Tokyo!
  If a monster has it's health reduced to 0, it is eliminated from the game.
  Heart: For every heart result the active player has rolled, they are healed 1 damage, however, monsters inside Tokyo cannot heal.
  Energy: Each energy result gains the active player 1 energy cube.
• Buy power card: Once the dice have been resolved, the active player can spend their energy cubes to buy 1 or more power cards.
  Alternatively, the active player may spend 2 energy to clear away the 3 available power cards and replace them with 3 new ones.
• Next player: Play proceeds with the player to the left.

Rules for Tokyo

• If a Tokyo space is empty, the active player's monster must enter it.
• A player earns a victory point for entering Tokyo.
• A player beginning their turn in Tokyo earns 2 victory points.
• A player's monster cannot leave Tokyo, they can only yield it to a player who has just damaged them.

Endgame
Play continues until one of two conditions are met.
A player has reached 20 victory points - in which they immediately win or all monster bar one have had their health reduced to 0, in which case the last monster standing wins.

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Overall
King of Tokyo is a push-your-luck game with a difference, most other games of this type task players with essentially beating the odds and doing so more efficiently than other players, getting to whatever the victory criteria is first. But King of Tokyo has an extra wrinkle, in King of Tokyo, players can target and eliminate other players, I'm not a fan of player elimination but it gives the game an extra approach and dimension to gameplay. Not only that, players will look to prioritise different results at different times, if they're low on health; they'll want hearts. If there's a power card they like the look of; they'll want energy.

The rules for getting into Tokyo compliment this well.

Getting into Tokyo works for scoring points or attacking enemies.
There's an inherent risk to do so, because it makes that player the central target. Managing to stick it out in Tokyo however, earns the player 2 victory points per turn, which on the surface might not seem like much but is actually 10% of the required victory score. Additionally, being in Tokyo is the best way to dish out damage to all other players, hit them hard enough and they'll probably want to heal instead of attack, giving the player in Tokyo more time, because sometimes, attacking the player in Tokyo is a risk. A canny player might yield Tokyo to another player who is low on health because it then puts them on the spot!

Throw the usage of power cards into the mix and King of Tokyo becomes an enjoyable blend of strategy, risk and reward and push-your-luck mechanics. Furthermore, players will need to adapt to the unpredictability the game sends their way.

King of Tokyo is a easy to learn, light and fun game not to be taken too seriously, it's perhaps a little too long for a filler game but is definitely worth trying, especially if you're a fan of push-your-luck games.