Rampage
2-4
8+
20+
In the game of Rampage players each control one of the four monsters and their objective is to cause the most damage to the city while eating the Meeple citizens.
Each turn consists of choosing two actions to complete. These actions include: Movement, Attack a Building, Hurl a truck, or Monster Breath. Eating Meeples does not take an action, however, players are limited each turn by the number of teeth their monster has remaining.
The game ends when the buildings are destroyed. Buildings, Meeples eaten, and the Other Monster’s Teeth are worth points. To be victorious, players will need to use a combination of dexterity, planning, and luck.
User Reviews (9)
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I’ve become somewhat of an Antoine Bauza completionist, so it was inevitable that Rampage would become my first attempt at a dexterity game. I’ve never had an outright dexterity aversion; it’s just that I like board games that make me think, and I’m always worried that flicking negates thinking. While this is a far cry from anything resembling strategic, I was pleased to find that there are bunches of decisions in Rampage… the flicking just makes you adjust your plan much more often than normal. I’d call it dexterity for the thinking gamer.
Observed Set-Up and Play Time
Good grief does this take forever to set up. You have to “build” the city by using 90 meeples as support for the 7 buildings on the board. It probably takes longer than it sounds like it would. And getting the game ready for the first play can take an eternity if you want to use the stickers for the meeples (there are 6 color meeples, each representing a different kind of townsfolk – the stickers actually make the pieces look like “the elderly”, “superheroes”, etc.). Even if you leave your meeples unstuck, you’ve got stickers to apply to the monster game bits (body piece and foot piece) and automobiles. Oh… and the board has several pieces that need to be permanently affixed as well. I had to have the meeple stickers, so my first game took around 3 hours to set up. At least the rulebook is a breeze: as has become a staple of Bauza’s games, it’s perfectly laid out and informative. You’ll only need 15 minutes to understand gameplay. My games have definitely taken longer than the advertised time. They usually run around 45 minutes.
My Learning Curve and Teach Time
There really isn’t a learning curve to Rampage. Anybody will immediately understand that they need to move to buildings, try to destroy them, then feasting on the inhabitants. It does take about 10 minutes to run through the rules, as the 3 “attack” options are only available depending on your proximity to buildings or cars. There are also variable powers, and it’s important the new player understands theirs before beginning.
Group Sizes and Dynamics
Rampage is limited to 4 players, and as is probably the case with most dexterity games, sits squarely in the “casual” category. Everybody I play with has an appreciation for casual games, so it’s been a hit with all of them. But it will not suffice for a hardcore power or strategy gamer. And unfortunately the 4-player limit can make it less accessible for some groups than the similarly-themed King of Tokyo.
Objectionable Material
This is silly cartoony fun. It is about monsters eating people, though, so some parents may take umbrage. I am not one of those parents. As long as there’s no weapons, blood or realism I’ll force it on my child as early as possible. I would think a 5-year-old would have a blast with this, but you’d probably want to play without the variable power cards.
Comparable Titles
Rampage is really just a dexterity version of King of Tokyo – I enjoy both, but probably have a slight preference for the later. There’s also Smash Monster Rampage, a neat-looking but overly-pricey game funded on Kickstarter about 8 months ago that’s currently 4 months past due. Other than its tardiness, I don’t know much about the game. And the flicking-discs portion of Rampage makes it akin to Catacombs – a flicking-only dexterity game that looks so insanely awesome I went all-in on its recent Kickstarter campaign even though it’s of a genre I’m not crazy for.
I always keep a mental ranking of my preferences for Bauza’s games – I’m just anal-retentive like that. Rampage is a good game, but “good” puts you near the bottom of that list. It’s certainly no Ghost Stories, Takenoko or Hanabi, and probably on-par with Tokaido (believe it or not, I’ve yet to play 7 Wonders – the only one you can buy at mass retailers!). While I absolutely hate setting it up, Rampage is a bunch of fun to tear down.
General: More dexterity than strategy, but some strategy will be necessary to accumulate more points than your fellow monsters.
Game board and pieces: A nice thick board; two halves that fold for storage within the game box. The same type of material makes up the floors of the buildings. 90 or so meeples in six colors. Four each of monsters, monster paws, and vehicles. Our set came with stickers for the monsters, monster paws, vehicles, and the meeples. I think the meeple stickers may be limited as they were given to us by the staffer at our FLGS and not included within the box packaging. Three small (in number, close to playing card sized) decks of Character, Power and Secret Superpower cards.
Set-up: Build the city using the meeples as supports for the building floors and place one on the top floor of each building. The top floor of the stadium gets four meeples. Deal each player a Character, Power, and Secret Superpower card. Each player looks at their cards and discloses their Character and Power (both useable throughout the game). The Secret Superpower is not disclosed and can only be used once during the game and then discarded.
Playing Mechanism: On your turn you get to take two of four types of moves: move, breathe, destroy, or toss a vehicle (if the neighborhood you are in has one).
Move: Flick your monster paw disc; don’t end up off the board or you will lose a tooth and won’t be able to eat as many meeple as you used to!
Breathe: Place your chin on your monster (yes, really!) and unleash your meeple laden breath upon the neighborhood of your choosing.
Destroy: Your monster paws must be touching the sidewalk of a building to attempt to destroy it. Pick up your monster, bring your arm to shoulder height then unleash the mighty power of a falling monster!
Toss a vehicle: If you and a vehicle happen to be in the same neighborhood, you can put it on your monster head and flick it towards an unsuspecting building (or if you have a special card, you can flick it at an opponent).
Once you have completed your two actions, it is time to chow down on the town! You are allowed to eat as many residents in the neighborhood as you have teeth (some cards allow you to eat more).
Playing Time: 30-45 minutes
Expansion: Not as of this writing
Pros: Easy to set-up, easy to learn and teach, easy to play.
Cons: This game is very light and does not require much in the way of strategy. Current rules and set-up only allow for 2-4 players, no version for solo or team play as of yet (pondering a house rule for team play).
Overall thoughts: My primary gaming circle consists of myself and two other players. This game is playable with 2-4 players and works just as well at any number, but 3-4 is probably best. The meeples in this game are red, blue, yellow, green, black, and grey; no problem for my colorblind gamer. Is it worth the price? For me, it is but I would recommend a couple of plays before committing if you aren’t sure.
I was looking for a fun family game that would entertain my wife, a 15 year old girl, 7 year old boy, and a 4 year old boy. This does the trick!
Components: I would say this is a mixed bag. The “godzilla” creatures are of nice quality along with the included vehicles. Meeples are of standard fare, but still well made. Included cards, screens, and teeth are of good quality. The playing surface is of thick cardboard, but the issue is warping. My playboard is constantly warping. This makes it difficult as you try to traverse different neighborhoods.
Gameplay: The game is very easy to learn. Basic movement around the board by flicking a small disk that represents your monster’s feet is challenging at times depending on location, but easy enough for the little ones to do. If those feet end up on a sidewalk, you can drop your monster on the building and let the pieces fly. And, this is where the fun is. You can also flick buses off your head at buildings and other monsters. Pieces fly all over the kitchen and this is the most satisfying part of the game.
Scoring: At the end of the game you are mostly rewarded for creating sets of six (6) meeples, one of each color, 10pts. Some cards (powers) will give you extra points if you eat the most army men, soldiers, etc. You also get points for each floor you “eat” and anything else that ends up in your “stomach”.
Replay Value: Because of the randomness of flying pieces, this game has great replay value as no two games will play out the same.
Overall: This is a fun game for all ages. My youngest (below recommended age from manufacturer) needs assistance on some of the required tasks, but really enjoys dropping his monster’s body on the buildings. My 7 year old can play with no assistance and really enjoys the game. There is some strategy involved as you decide who to eat and where to move, my 15 yr old daughter really enjoys that aspect. Overall each of us have won one game, and although not the BEST game in the closet, it ranks near the top.
Rampage is a pretty remarkable game on many levels. It has outstanding visual appeal, plenty of tactile presence, and an overall charm that tugs at the inner-city-destroying-monster in all of us. Though I loathe dexterity games, the spectacular gameplay and satisfying mechanics of Rampage do not repel me.
At it’s heart, Rampage is a child’s game, with visual theatrics akin to Mousetrap. This is not a bad thing, as the game, like Mousetrap, can be very enjoyable with an age-appropriate crowd. And finally my eight-year-old nephew can happily knock components of the gameboard or even onto the floor without reprimand. But it lacks any strategic or tactical depth with which to commend its play among more mature gamers. However, even among the maturity-challenged the game seems to have a limited lifespan.
Over the course of a few plays my nephew’s interest in the scoring methodologies gradually dwindled until “winning” was no longer a consideration of his at all. His focus remained on the destructive nature of the game… wanting to be the first to “death-from-above” the various buildings. I find this similar to the typical child-like reaction to Mousetrap, whereby triggering the trap and watching the resulting chain reaction is far more entertaining than playing the actual game.
On a more objective note, the gameplay mechanics, themselves, prove to be both pros and cons of the game. While dropping the monster figures from above and flicking discs and vehicles is all fine and dandy, they have limited appeal and quickly become repetitive and even frustrating. The vehicles add an additional complication, as trying to balance and aim the wooden tokens atop the monsters’ heads is a chore in and of itself.
The blowing mechanic, however, is the worst.While arguably the most unique and interesting mechanic of the entire game, it ultimately fails to deliver on several levels. First and foremost, there is the sanitary consideration. Even my nephew, who still eats his boogers, was put off by the possible cooties that would inevitably infect the monsters and gameboard. Secondly, the action is awkward. For smaller bodies, the action is only really viable from the edges of the board (and even then requiring it to be rotated for optimal accessibility)… and for larger bodies… well, let’s just say my back hates me after I blow a house down. Adding insult to injury, on one embarrassing attempt, the awkward nature of the activity led to me inadvertently blowing it out both ends, much to my chagrin and my nephew’s delight.
While there is a lot for which to commend Rampage – and I have no regrets over its purchase – it ultimately fails to deliver an ongoing enjoyment in the likes of King of Tokyo or even Munchkin (my nephew’s favorite game).
The artistic style and visual aspects of Rampage are excellent. The components are clever and well-suited to the cartoonish and tongue-in-cheek nature of the game. And the gameplay is hilarious and enjoyable, in the short-term.
The amazing mind of Antoine Bauza has brought us yet another winner! The genius that gave us the fabulous Hanabi, 7 Wonders, Takenoko and Ghost Stories returns with Rampage. This dexterity based game of destroying building and eating meeples is quickly moving through the ranks to becoming one of our favourite games.
This game has super simple mechanics. Each player takes on the persona of a monster smashing and crashing through the city. Flick your monster feet onto the sidewalk of a building and start the demolition (hold your monster above the board and drop to cause major destruction)! The object is easy: eat more meeple sets (1 of each colour), consume more buildings and by all means don’t break any of your teeth! Every player also has a secret power to unleash when they see fit, as well as character and power cards that help them to score extra points or take out other monsters.
What’s in the box?
The Rampage box is chalk full of cool components to build your city. Tons of meeples and thick cardboard pieces to construct the buildings and chunky wooden vehicles to throw at your follow city eating monsters. The monsters are also really solid wooden pieces that hold up really nice as you drop them all over town.
How’s it play?
On your turn you can do two of four actions; move your monster (flick the wooden disc representing your feet), destroy a building (only if you are on the sidewalk), blow things over (literally blow things around by placing your chin on top of your monster and taking a deep breathe) and toss a vehicle (flick a vehicle off the top of your monsters head). Then eat all the MEEPLES in your neighbourhood (well up to the number of teeth you have left)! You lose teeth by either getting hit by another monster, getting hit by a vehicle and depending on how full the runaway board gets. The runaway board fills up when meeples are tossed off the board.
Overall Impression
This game is really catchy and I was surprised at how much I enjoy playing it. After a long day of work this game is a prefect way to distress. Just build a city and start throwing things around. It plays really well with two people and I think it will be excellent for little gamers. Definitely pick it up if you just want a fun, easy game to play in-between the more serious, strategy heavy games.
This game was different from most I have played; it required dexterity rather than strategy or much of any other mental exercise. I enjoyed the change of pace, although I found moving very frustrating, especially when I ended up off of the board.
Player Pieces
Each player is a two-part dragon with a disc of “paws” and a rather hefty dragon body. The board has several different “neighborhoods” and buildings that consist of floors supported by several meeples (complete with decorative stickers).
Player Powers
Each player gets a character, power, and secret super power (you can use only the secret super power once). You also start with a total of six teeth (and never less than two). The teeth let you eat more meeples (more about that later).
Turns, Points, and Runaway Meeples
On your turn you can take two actions: move, breathe, destroy, or toss a vehicle (truck).
– Move: flick your paws disc while seated. If you end up off the board, you lose a tooth AND the next player gets to place you on a corner of the board s/he chooses.
– Breathe: place your chin on your dragon while seated and blowing.
– Destroy: if your paws disc is on the sidewalk of a building, drop your dragon onto the building from no higher than seated shoulder height of the tallest player. If you miss, something bad that I forget happens (I don’t think any of us missed.) You keep any floors cleared of meeples, and they are each worth 1 pt. at the end of the game.
– Toss a vehicle: if a vehicle is in your current “neighborhood,” you can place it on top of your dragon’s head (for best results, smooth side, not the wheel edge) and flick it off.
In addition to attacking buildings, you can use vehicle tossing to attack other dragons. If you knock an opponent over, you eat one of its teeth.
There is a separate “runaway meeple” board. After every 3, 4, or 5 meeples that end up off of the board, a negative consequence happens to whoever caused the placement of the last meeple of that row/level. Usually the consequence is losing a tooth (see below) and something else (e.g. another player moves your dragon to a corner of his/her choice).
At the end of your turn, you can eat as many meeples as are in your “neighborhood,” up to a maximum of the number of teeth you have. At the end of the game, a set of six different colored meeples is worth 10 pts. Your power may also give you extra points for, e.g., having the most of a certain color of meeple.
You also get 2 pts. for each tooth you have at the end of the game.
I enjoyed this light game, but I don’t plan to plunk down $60 for it. Given the many different power and character options and physical variety in the game, I believe it has good replay value, but it’s more expensive than any of my other games (not counting expansions). It’s also on the big side, which makes it less portable.
Video Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boVRLCG7phI
We’re humans. It’s in our nature to make a mess of things, whether those things are our bedrooms, our lives or even the entire economic infrastructure we all depend upon. Many of the board games I’ve played allow the players to relish in organisation, on structuring tactics that will provide a wealth of points. It’s refreshing to see that, amongst such structure building titles, Rampage appears to tear all of them down.
Rampage lets you and up to three others take up the role of tyrannical monsters spawned onto this earth after Godzilla and Puff the Magic Dragon had a rampant night out in Soho. These beasts enter a city based arena and must do battle to fill their stomachs not to the greatest capacity, but with the greatest variety of alternate tasting humans/meeples. How do we go about gaining such a wide palette? By demolishing everything.
With its alluring dimension piercing set-up, if you dump this fully formed in the centre of the table at any games evening, it is sure to seduce even the most timid of board game players. It’s not just the odd meeple balanced components or the cutesy wutesy pop culture references on the floor of each building that will entice even those cretins who say ‘You play board games? Don’t you mean I’m bored games?’ Stating you’ll be massacring this made up city is sure to entice anyone to take up the paws of one of these critters, and excitement will soon escalate when you start describing what you can do.
On their turn, players can take two actions of four possible ones. They can move about the city by flicking a monster’s feet across the table. If there’s a vehicle in their area they are in, they can pick it up and throw it around, and by this I mean put it on the monster’s head and flick it. They can breathe, and whilst that doesn’t sound like circulation is that strong of a power, it actually means you put your chin on your monster, breath in and blow buildings down. Finally, you can demolish. This means if you’re on the sidewalk of a building, you can lift your monster up and drop them, causing untold havoc…if you judge it right. With such a dynamic formula, it means you’re never really sitting in just one place, frantically darting around the board on your turn to get a good angle on what to do next like a snooker player being chased by a raptor. The game rules even allow you to sit on another player’s lap (with their permission), making this the best game in my collection for foreplay for four players.
Once you’re done having a hissy fit, you automatically get to eat anyone unlucky enough to fall from the safety of a building. The board is divided into several neighbourhoods, and if you’re in the same one as any meeples, you get to chomp them up, as well as empty floors. The floors are worth one measly point, but a set of all 6 different coloured meeples in your stomach can net you 10 points at the end of the game. This is what forces players to dart around the board, looking for alternating colours to complete sets, and the city swifly becomes a maze of risk/reward. The thing is, players have a set amount of teeth, and they can only eat as many meeples at a time as they have teeth. They lose these teeth if they’re flicked off the board by movement because the world is, in fact, flat. They can lose them if some atrocious judgement is made during demolishing and they miss an entire building, or if they manage to topple over another monster.
Players can also lose teeth if they let anyone get away from their clutches. If meeples leave the board in any way, even if it means being fired across the table from a 3 storey building, they’re considered to have ‘escaped’ and are placed on a tracker. Should this tracker fill at any point, it means a variety of negative effects can strike the player who filled it, and adds a slight tactical edge to proceedings.
When the game starts off, there’s plenty of ways to make yourself look like an absolute knob. They swiftly appeared in the first couple of games we played of this. On my first ever game, I plucked a school bus up, plonked it on my head expecting to cause wanton destruction, flicked it, and somehow managed to get the bus lodged precariously between a set of floors, leaving it dangling a la Italian Job. Another time, my fiancé attempted to demolish a building by dropping her monster on it as standard, and hit a businessman so hard on the head he flew out of the city and landed on the moon comatose, or in laymen’s terms, under the sofa. All the while, the force of such an impact meant her monster bounced off his head and completely missed the building. The best dexterity games relish in failure. Rampage creates quite frankly bizarre plots here there and everywhere and it can be bloody hilarious.
Now if I strain my ears hard enough, I can hear the throwing of coins at screens. Please don’t do that, I don’t want to be blamed for monitor damage. I can also hear the grumbles of strategists. Those who want a deeper layer of tactical destruction, and whom want to manipulate the minds of those who live in Rampageville. To address this, a variety of special cards stick themselves onto each monster to add a sense of purpose to each.
Before the game begins, each player is given a variety of cards that define their monster. The first is a character card, a goal each beast is determined to complete to bag extra points at the end of the game. Many of these involve eating the most of a certain kind of people, outing them as a misogynist, ageist or racist in the process, but others can vary away from this. You may be Gluttonous, meaning if you’ve eaten the most meeples altogether, you grab a bonus or a s**** merchant, meaning if you’re particularly skilful at pot-shotting vehicles, you’ll grab a bonus at the end for each one left on the remnants of a building. This means if you’re **** at gathering Meeple sets, you may still be alright at the end.
Another deck focuses on Secret Super Powers, those that stay hidden and can only be used once in a game, but can completely screw anyone over in hilarious ways like allowing monsters to pick up others and chuck them across the city like a vehicle or even stealing meeples from another player’s stomach which…thankfully has no graphic representation here. A variety of powers also accompany each monster that all others can see, and these powers are given to players at the start as means to personalise their monster further with in-game abilities that can be used multiple times. Thing is…this is where a few balancing issues start to occur.
A majority of Rampage’s charm comes from what can go wrong, and some cards embrace this gambling aspect. The Climber lets you plonk a monster ON a building and lets them fly across the city through move actions…but that carries with it the opportunity for monster’s to slip of the Earth altogether. The Heavyweight can make you ruin someone’s day by dropping yourself on another monster instead of a building, taking their teeth in the process…but of course, if you miss, that means you lose a tooth yourself. There are powers that can create disastrous yet hilarious anecdotes. Some however, feel like they revoke such a charm. Take the Stretchy Paws that allow you to reposition your monster ANYWHERE in the neighbourhood you’re in before movement. There have been times where a player has been lodged in the middle of two fallen monsters and a building AND STILL managed to flick their way out. But if they had this power, chances are they would’ve plucked their piece and gone about a safer route. Worse still are powers like Vacuum. Whilst the buildings are formidable foes against gusts of air, meeples fly off the board ridiculously quickly should you blow them off and this can be just another embarrassing factor players have to grasp. However, with this power, you can *******eples off the board and put them in the neighbourhood you’re in. This means that, when the game is pretty much two dislodged floors and a city of dishevelled humanoids, you can blow these lowly points off the board, plonk them exactly where you need them instead of being punished and then proceed to complete sets easily. Such actions that involve no gambles whatsoever feel cheap even to the silliest player that gets their paws on this game, and it’s enough to make the more tactical of players to take their anger out on the city far better than their monsters ever could.
Even if you’re listening to that and shaking your head at its occasionally biased perks, however, you can’t help but feel a little bit harsh criticising a game like this. At the end of the day, it waltzes onto your table, opening its wares and guarantees a fun time and it most certainly delivers with the occasionally absurd scenarios your sausage like fingers will have to put up with. It may be one floor short of a skyscraper, but if you get the right blend of goofy, zany and occasionally tipsy guests and it’s guaranteed to attack your funnybone more than the large amount of orphans left behind in Rampage’s wake.
Okay, so while no one wants to be the bad guy, and get their reviews boo’d, I feel that this game needs to hear from the voice of the opposition.
I think it’s fair to say that the reviews above have covered the mechanics of the game, so hopefully you’ll forgive me for not repeating everything already said, let me just get down to it.
This game is beautiful.
I had so much fun setting it up, I even sat there and put two stickers on each and every meeple so that they looked great.
When my wife and kids walked it there were all the right “oohs” and “aahs”, I even did an impromptu photo shoot.
Then we played.
It started off well enough, monsters were dropped, buildings were blown, and cars were thrown. We all had a great laugh. For about 10 minutes.
Then the repetition set in.
All of a sudden the novelty of it all just wore thin – and my kids are 6 and 11! Everything just became less fun, and once that novelty wore off, you’re left what we all found to be a pretty uninteresting and tedious game.
I promise, I really wanted to love this game. I just didn’t. Perhaps it needs to be broken out at a dinner party once my guests have a had a few bottles of wine, however personally I have no interest in playing again.
Nous interrompons notre programmation pour vous informer que…
QUATRE MONSTRES ONT ENVAHI MEEPLECITY!!!!
Déchaînés, ces créatures gigantesques arrachent tout sur leur passage, se lancent des véhicules et détruisent des immeubles à grands coups de pattes! Nos caméramans sur les lieux nous rapportent déjà les premières images de citoyens se faisant dévorer, c’est atroce! Journalistes, hommes d’affaire, militaires, blondes, vieillards, même les super héros… personne n’y échappe! Comme si ce n’était pas assez, les monstres semblent tous être différents, avec des pouvoirs et des habilités secrètes uniques! Impossible de trouver leurs points faibles! Le monstre ayant causé le plus de grabuge lors de son passage à MeepleCity sera déclaré grand vainqueur de cette lutte de titans!
Rampage / Terror in MeepleCity est un jeu d’action familial de type “dextérité” par Antoine Bauza et de Ludovic Maublanc publié en 2013 grâce à Repos Production! Je vous présente donc les vidéos qui vous donneront davantage d’informations!
Règles complètes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFrpvNqFjv8
Critique personnelle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVYfO0TmyLQ
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