Copyright Fireside Games

‘Munchkin Panic’ is part of the overall Steve Jackson Munchkin series. The aim is to defend your castle against the monsters that attack from the woods. Too scary for the 7 year old I hear you gasp? Not at all, when the Munchkin monsters are things like the Big Angry Chicken and the Flying Frogs, with cartoon artwork that matches their names. What also appealed to me is that it’s a co-operative game where the players have to work together to defend the castle. Well, mostly. There are rules for stabbing your friends in the back so that you can be the ultimate winner, but the game also comes with suggestions on how to make it easier, harder, more friendly or more aggressive so you can adapt to your circumstances. I wanted us to work together (at least while we go the hang of the rules).

Played on a board, the players take it in turns to draw from a card deck and roll dice, using their archers, swordsmen, Knights and curses/potions to fight the monsters. Monsters are drawn randomly from a bag (provided). Every monster they slay (I like the use of that word in the rules rather than ‘kill’) earns the players trophies and treasure, and the treasure comes in the form of useful soldier upgrades such as the Boots of Butt-Kicking that can be used to cause more damage to the stronger monsters.

My 11 year old quickly got the hang of the game and loved it, so much so that we had to have another game the same evening with my wife (who also enjoyed it).  The 7 year old enjoyed it too, but that was mostly the sitting down together, the artwork and the monster names rather than playing the game itself.   That said, she loved the end when it got very fast paced and ran to a nail-biting finish where we just managed to fend off the last monster before it destroyed the final standing piece of the castle!   Phew!    Of course I re-read the rules later and realise we’d been playing it all wrong, but that wasn’t the point.   We had a couple of hours great fun away from the telly and instructional Loom Band videos on YouTube (if you don’t know what they are, be thankful….).

So in conclusion, a good purchase and great fun.   I will persevere with my youngest and try her with a few more games since she enjoyed it overall.  The ability to make the game easier etc is a great feature, so I can hold their interest by making it easy to start with and increase the complexity in later games.  I also bought a couple of deck boxes and protective sleeves for the cards for them to mess with, which added to the whole experience and will increase the life of the game.

The Kids Comments

(by Wreckabecca)  “I enjoyed munchkin panic. What stopped me enjoying it quite as much was having to explain each move to my sister until she relaxed, understood and enjoyed the game. It took us a while and a few games until we fully understood, because as with a lot of family games you discover more rules and ways to change the game as you play. It was quite easy to play but I think that if you re going to play you should think about the recommendation of age on the box. The one thing I didn’t like about this game was having to place a certain amount of monsters on every turn. Even when there are only three people playing, three monsters are placed after every person’s  turn. This makes the game very hard as every time more come on and the rest advance. What makes this even harder is that there are not enough troops to do what you need to do, and there is only one super munchkin in the whole pack of cards. The super munchkin is one of the only things that can attack anywhere on the board ( except the forest ) and kill the monster immediately.

The good thing about this game is that because you are supposed to work together, but be backstabbing, you can take way the backstabbing part and make it easier for younger players. I think that this is an excellent board game and do recommended that you change the rules to suit the age of players, because – especially for 8 and below – this could be rather complicated.

As I am doing SATS this year I do enjoy having a fun game to take my mind off things and help me to relax a bit more at weekends. I have 16 days left and so I am needing this more and more and I find watching TV helps, but I can not always be watching it. A board game is the perfect solution.

I do recommend that if you think that your family needs to start being more socialised and you need something to pull them away from their screens then maybe do something like my sad dad did and start buying board games. I definitely  think you   Should start with this one as it will give you an idea of games your family would like as it is a mix, skills with cards and planning, and skills in battle and defence.”

Overall Score