King of Tokyo Board Game How to Play & Review

King of Tokyo a dice-rolling game.

Title: King of Tokyo

Year Published: 2011

Designer: Richard Garfield

Publisher: IELLO

Players: 2-6

Game Time: ~30 Mins

Set-up Time: >1 Mins

Ages: 8+

Theme: Werewolf

Mechanic: Dice Rolling, Push Your Luck

How to win: Gain 20 points or be the last monster standing.

Game Description

In King of Tokyo, you play mutant monsters, gigantic robots, and strange aliens – all of whom are destroying Tokyo and whacking each other in order to become the one and only King of Tokyo.

Set-Up

Each player takes a monster and puts it in its stand. They also take the matching player board setting the life points to 10 and victory points to 0.

Shuffle the cards to form a deck and lay 3 out face up and put the energy cubes in a pile.

Each player rolls the 6 dice, and the person who got the most Attack symbols goes first. Give them the dice, the game is ready to go.

King of Tokyo Game Play

If you start your turn in Tokyo you gain 2 points.

On your turn you roll the dice and have two re-rolls, choosing to keep any of the dice rolled each time.

Then you resolve the dice you get…

1/2/3

You get the number of points printed on the dice if you roll a triple plus an additional 1 point for each further matching number you roll.

Energy

You gain 1 energy for each Energy symbol you roll. Take that many energy cubes.

Attack

For each attack symbol, you deal 1 damage to each Monster who is not in the same area as you. If you are outside of Tokyo, you attack the player(s) in Tokyo. If you are in Tokyo, you attack all the players out of Tokyo.

At the start of the game, the first player to roll an attack goes into Tokyo. You gain a Victory point whenever you go into Tokyo.

If you are in Tokyo and you get attacked, after taking the damage you can ‘Yield’ control and the player that attacked you MUST then go into Tokyo.

Health

Gain 1 health for each Health roll keep. You can not gain health while in Tokyo.

You can then spend your Energy buying cards at their cost. If you don’t like them you can spend 2 Energy to discard the 3 cards available and draw 3 new ones. Energy cubes carry over onto future turns if you don’t spend them.

Play continues to the left.

Game End

At the end of a player’s turn, if they have 0 health they are eliminated. If this leaves one Monster left, they win.

Also, if at the end of a player’s turn they have 20 Victory points, they will win.

King of Tokyo Round-Up

Easy to teach, quick and fun… Yeah, it’s random, the dice do that but you can make choices, the right choices. You can play the odds on rolling for points, buy the right Power Cards, leave Tokyo at the right time etc

King of Tokyo Rating

I will play this any time, as long as I’m Cyber Bunny!

I give it 7/10

King of Tokyo Initial Review August 2013

Rolling dice and taking aim…

What does it take to be the King of Tokyo?

Well, don’t ask me! I have no idea.

Summary

The game so far is great and the Power cards give an extra element. Special powers that you buy with your energy as the game progresses and players pick up these powers there are a few extra things you need to keep in mind.

Some deal damage if you force them out of Tokyo, and some deal damage to everyone. Others give you bonuses to future rolls or even allow you to change dice.

It’s a fun game, light and easy but at the same time tense and tactical. I have played it again since my first play and enjoyed that game even more. Probably ’cause I lasted more than 3 turns!

Jesta ThaRogue