Collect and create your own beasties in memory board game 13 Monsters

Fulfil your dreams of building your very own beastly zoo in this battling memory game called 13 Monsters.

13 Monsters has you collecting sets of cards in which to make your own little creatures, whom you will eventually pit against other players in order to become the ultimate master of all things monstrous. Each part you find will gradually evolve your chosen beastie into a stronger opponent, giving them new powers and abilities to mess with your fellow creature creators.

Inspired by classic monster tales such as ‘Where the Wild Things Are’, 13 Monsters is a game for two to eight players in which everyone takes turns to flip over two cards from a shared pool. If any player is lucky enough to find a pair from the same set of monster for example, a top and a bottom part, then they get to go again. Regardless of what players find they’ll be able to start forming their monsters once they have any set of top, middle, and bottom cards.

Creating monsters involves combining the three main body cards of any of the four available monster types, which include the likes of cute goat demons and octopus abominations. Using cards from the same set will give you a more powerful beast with which to battle your enemies’ monsters, boosting their health points and giving you access to special powers.

These special powers can be used during combat to augment your monster’s existing attack roll which will always be five dice, with the power of your monster determining how many times you get to roll those dice. The player with the highest dice total will win any beastly battle, with the spoils of war being one of their opponents’ monster sets. Of course, this rule applies to either player participating in the battle, meaning that you’ll have to be careful not to potentially lose your best monster.

Aside from being used during combat, special powers can also be applied at any point in the game (depending on the effect), with some directly preventing other players from being able to build new monsters. For example, the permafrost ability enables a player to freeze a particular card, which prevents anyone else from picking it up. An especially useful ability if you happen to remember the contents of a card flipped earlier and decide it’ll come in handy now.

Once all the cards have been taken players then complete one final round of battling and acquiring winning sets, before whomever has the most health points remaining is declared the winner. Alternatively, players can win by completing monsters from every set in the game and becoming the elemental master.

13 Monsters is currently up on Kickstarter until December 20th with a pledge of around £17 (not including shipping fees) getting you a base copy of the game, which is estimated to arrive as early as January 2020. There is no mention of a retail release for the game, as of yet.