Monkeys on the Moon!
# 5 on my "Top 10 'Double
Date' Games" list
Occasionally there are games that I’m interested in playing, based solely on their names. This is definitely the case with the games that come from the strangely named company Eight Foot Llama. Monkeys on the Moon (Eight Foot Llama, 2002 – Jim Doherty) had such an odd, interesting name that we were anxious to see how it played.
And the verdict? Monkeys on the Moon has one of the silliest themes I have ever seen, yet it has some very good mechanics that warrant additional plays. This is a very fun game , especially with three or four players, and I think it will hit our table many, many times. Let me explain more about the game to you….
Six monkey faction cards (each denoted by a color) are shuffled, and placed in a circle face up. This circle shows basic monkey faction relations: Each monkey faction is allies with the two cards adjacent to them, and bitter enemies with the card that is opposite them in the circle. A stack of Civilization cards (after removing some from the game) is shuffled and placed in the middle of this circle, after having dealt two cards to each player. A Tribe track is laid on the table, with twenty-six spaces on it, and a wooden cube for each color tribe is placed on it at the start position. A pile of tribe favor coins (wooden discs) of each color is formed in the middle of the table, after giving each player one of every color coin. Six monkey “Scorn” cards, one for each tribe, are placed in the center, as well as two shuffled decks – the monkey deck and ship deck. Each deck has a pool of face up cards, with two cards in the ship pool, and one more than players in the game in the monkey pool. Each player receives one ship face up in front of them, and the game is ready to begin. The player with longest hair goes first, and takes a glass stone, indicating this fact.
Each turn is made up of three parts. The first part is the Civilization turn. Beginning with the start player, each player plays one Civilization card, and draws one card. Each Civilization card played moves the monkey tribe’s cube on the track the amount of spaces on the card. For example, the card “Purple tribe can use an Egg Beater” moves the purple cube forward two spaces on the track, or one of the purple tribe’s allies’ cubes two spaces. The player then receives two favor coins from the color tribe that he helped, but must then pay one favor coin to the bank of the tribe who is the rival of that tribe. If the player does not have a coin of that tribe, they then must take that tribe’s Monkey Scorn card. If the player already has the monkey scorn card, then he must pay one coin of one of their allies’ colors. This sounds a bit confusing, but works rather well in game play. If a player advances a tribe of which he holds the monkey scorn card, he loses the card (they like him again.)
After this phase, the Bidding phase occurs. Each monkey in the monkey pool is from one of the tribes, and is worth from three to five points. In turn order, each player picks a monkey from the monkey pool to bid on. Players can only bid coins from that monkey’s tribe’s color, or from its allies. Allied coins are worth 2 points, while the monkey’s tribe’s coins are worth three points. Bidding goes around the table, until all players but one pass. The winning bidder pays those coins to the bank and loads the monkey on his ship.
Each ship has room for a certain amount of monkeys (2 to 4), and is associated with a color. When a player fills their ship with that amount of monkeys, the full ship launches. Every monkey on the ship is placed to the side – they will count towards that player at the end of the game, and the ship is also placed aside – it is worth a certain amount of victory points (1 to 3). Monkeys from rival tribes refuse to ride in the same ship. If a player boards a monkey that is a rival to a monkey already on the ship, then the ship launches, unfull. The player still keeps the monkey, but must discard the ship, getting no victory points. In both cases, the player takes a new ship from the victory pool, and receives one coin of the color of the ship (that monkey tribe is awed at the shiny thing flying in the sky).
In the final phase of a turn, the start stone is passed to the player’s left, the monkey pool is refilled, and another round is started. This continues until the last Civilization card is played. At this point, the monkey tribe that is farthest on the track is placed in the first scoring position, and the second in the second position, and so on. If a monkey cube finishes the track before the game is over, it was to be automatically placed on the highest available spot. Each player then totals the amount of points they have of the monkeys of each color. Whichever player has the most points gets the first number on victory points on the scoring position, and the second most points gets the second number, and everybody else gets squat. Each player also gets bonus points for any full ships they launched, and loses points for each Monkey Scorn they have. Whichever player has the most points is the winner!
Some comments on the game:
1). Components: I was very pleased with the components in this game. The cards are of excellent quality, and have funny, childrenesque artwork on them. The wooden cubes and discs were really nice – the wooden discs look like they came from a craft store, but they are some of the most functional coins I have ever used in a game, and I hope other companies pick this idea up. The board was a bit bland, but it was easy to see the colorful cubes on it, so no complaints there. Everything fits nicely in a small box that has very nice design elements and is very sturdy. Overall, it has very good components, and is certainly worth the price of the game.
2). Rules: The rules are printed on a four-page booklet, and are very easy to read. Many of the rules are repeated throughout the booklet – something more companies should do. I hate missing an important rule because it’s casually mentioned in a small paragraph in the rules. When a rule is important, it should be emphasized, and these rules do that. The game is easy to teach, but knowing what monkey tribe to advance and how to bid does take a while to learn. The rules also include two advanced variants, both of which are excellent, and will probably be played often in my group.
3). Strategy: You only have two Civilization cards to pick from on your turn, but since each one gives you three choices, careful thought must be put into which monkey tribe is advanced. And how should you spend your coins? Should you spend all your coins, willy-nilly, not caring if you incur monkey wrath? Or should you be careful, always keeping coins on hand to pay off the rival tribes? How many monkeys should you bid on, and of what color? The choices are many, and it’s really a lot of fun deciding what to do. In my first game, I put all my energy into green and purple, and both of them did so poorly on the advancement track that I didn’t get many victory points. I lost horribly, but still enjoyed the game, realizing the mistakes I made. I think it’s definitely a play-twice-immediately game, as people really need one game to realize their optimal strategies.
4). Time: The game plays fairly quickly. If players take a long time to bid, the game might drag, but even then, it finishes at a good clip (maybe an hour). The game is easy to set up and take down, and is one that can be played when there isn’t much time. I’m not sure I would classify it as a filler game, but it’s close.
5). Fun Factor: The game is hilariously silly. The theme of the game itself (monkeys being launched from the moon) is funny, but the advancement cards add to this humor. From the brown tribe learning to yodel, to the green tribe knowing how to ride a unicycle, to the blue tribe using deodorant – a lot of laughter will occur in this game.
But of course funniness does not a good game make. There are many games that I have played (like Munchkin), that have made me laugh a great deal, but the game play itself wasn’t really that good, so repeated playings were rare. This game, silly as it is, actually has some great game mechanics, and all who played it were impressed, wanting to play it again. So I highly recommend this game. I think that you’ll get a great deal of fun and good times for your money’s worth. And on top of that, the game has a VERY unique theme, one unlikely to ever be duplicated. So try it out – a funny, interesting theme combined with excellent bidding and positioning mechanics. And don’t forget to have the black tribe learn their Yoga!
Tom Vasel
"Real men play board games"
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