Game: MiniMonFa (MiniMonsterFantasy)

Thread: Re: FAQ (Translated from Italian)

SenorOcho — 2008-07-14T07:24:37+00:00

Yeah, I'm still not 100% sure about some things, but the abilities definitely seem to be played that way - I also ran Stratelibri's forums through babelfish which sorta confirmed it. I couldn't find anything on there about item flipping, though.

Thread: Re: FAQ (Translated from Italian)

GaryP — 2008-07-12T18:50:50+00:00

It was noticed and appreciated. =)

I believe some of these are addressed in the English expansions, but certainly not all of them. There's a few here that befuddle me a bit.

CAN I TURN MY ITEMS FACE-DOWN ONCE MY HEROES WIN A FIGHT?
Yes, the rules say nothing contrary to this and the items are only revealed when used, so it is logical to assert that when they stop using them, the items are returned to their face-down state.

HOW ARE THE ABILITIES OF HEROES USED?
The heroes can use 1 ability in response to 1 ability used by the monster. If the monsters do not use abilities then the heroes cannot use them.

CAN I ONLY USE AN ABILITY ONCE?
No, you can use an ability as many times as you have ability cards (even repeating the same one), but note: the monsters cannot use another ability if the heroes did not answer to the first one.
I guess I've been playing abilities incorrectly. I didn't realize it was a back-and-forth situation, and certainly missed that the Heroes may not use ANY abilities unless the Monster player does one first. Odd.

I also need to check what the timing is for revealing items, then. If the items can be turned back face-down, then I suppose it must be before the "Ability Phase", else a monster's Acid ability would never come into play.

I had started tinkering out some very different house rules, but I'll have to first try it again with the abilities done correctly to see if that fixes things a bit. Thanks very much!

Thread: FAQ (Translated from Italian)

SenorOcho — 2008-07-12T10:47:12+00:00

I found an Italian FAQ for this game, so I spent some time translating it from bad machine-english to english.
I had to make a judgement call and omit sections that directly contradicted the English rulebook, though
Seems a little funny to spend this much effort that will likely go unnoticed!

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GENERAL
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DOUBTS ON THE FIRST TURN OF THE GAME?
The first Turn of the game is of preparation for both players. In this Turn it is not possible to attack and event cards are not drawn. If the hand of one of the players is lacking in dungeon cards is possible to discard it and to draw a new hand (do not shuffle the discarded cards back into the deck). This operation is only at the beginning of the game. In successive turns a lack of dungeon cards will result in defeat.

WHAT IF THE DECK RUNS OUT?
Do not reshuffle - continue to play with the remaining resources until the game ends. If the event deck is exhausted, reshuffle the discarded events.

WHAT IS THE NUMBER UNDER THE SPHERE?
The number of abilities on the card. It has no direct interaction with the game.

IF A HERO DIES DOES HE LOSE EVERYTHING?
Yes. All cards on a hero are discarded when he dies.

CAN A PLAYER PLAY NONE OF THE CARDS IN HIS HAND AND SKIP DIRECTLY TO PHASE 3 OF HIS TURN?
Yes, but only if he has dungeon cards in play - otherwise his opponent will win!

CAN THE HEROES DIVIDE INTO MULTIPLE ROOMS IN THE SAME TURN?
No. The party may only enter one room per turn.

DO I HAVE TO VISIT MY OPPONENT'S EMPTY ROOMS TO ELIMINATE HIM?
Yes, you must visit every room.

IF THE MONSTER DEFEATS THE HEROES, DOES IT REMAIN FACE UP OR RETURN TO HIDING?
Both options are acceptable based on player preference and agreement.

HOW DO TRAPS INTERACT WITH COMBAT?
Traps are revealed and used just like monsters. The trap's attack and defense are added to the fight, and ability cards can be played to use the trap's abilities. The trap is discarded after the fight.

DOES THE TRAP DETECTOR ABILITY REMOVE TRAPS FROM THE ROOM?
No, they only reveal the traps - the advantage is in knowing their presence.

WHO DECIDES WHAT TAKES WOUNDS?
The player taking wounds chooses which of his heroes/monsters are to be eliminated. The exception to this rule is represented from the powers Charm, Death Touch, and Petrify.

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EVENTS
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CAN THE EFFECT OF AN EVENT BE TURNED TO THE OPPONENT?
No, events always affect the player who drew them unless otherwise specified.

CAN I HOLD EVENTS AND PLAY THEM LATER?
No, events are resolved immediately.

ARE LEVEL UP, SURPRISE, AND CURSE ASSIGNED TO A HERO OR ARE THEY DISCARDED?
The Surprise card is discarded at the end of the turn - if the party does not enter a room then the bonus is wasted. The Curse and Level Up cards are both assigned to a hero and are discarded upon the hero's death. It is possible to remove the Cursed Ring using Counter Magic.

DOES THE SURPRISE CARD APPLY TO ALL HEROES OR TO THE GROUP?
The bonus is applied to the total value of the party.

WHAT IS THE EFFECT OF THE MAPMAKER ERROR CARD?
It only skips phase 3 - you still take the rest of your turn, but your heroes cannot enter a room.

THE MASS SUICIDE CARD FORCES ME TO VISIT A ROOM?
Yes, and your heroes must visit a room with a monster if possible.

DO CLUMSY AND DON'T SHOVE, PLEASE! MAKE ME ALSO LOSE ITEMS AND POTIONS STILL IN MY HAND?
No, only such cards assigned to your heroes (even if face-down).

DOES SECRET PASSAGE EXTEND TO FUTURE CARDS PLAYED IN THE ROOM OR DOES IT ONLY APPLY TO CARDS IN THE ROOM AT THE TIME?
Both options are acceptable based on player preference and agreement.

I DREW THE CRISIS CARD. WHAT HAPPENS?
You must remove your hero from the game. It is not possible to cure or resurrect the hero in the future.

HOW DOES THE FOUNTAIN OF RESURRECTION WORK?
It only brings back a hero who has been killed. If none of your heroes have been killed then the card does nothing.

HOW DOES THE ROOM CARD WORK?
It acts as if it were a room of 1-4 dungeon cards. It cannot be added to an existing room, not can it be expanded by more dungeon cards.

HOW DOES GAME MASTER MISTAKE WORK?
This card allows a large monster to be placed into a small room - for example, a Red Dragon into a size 1 room.

THE PRISONER BELONGS TO NO CLASS, HOW DOES THAT WORK?
While he is a hero, the Prisoner does not belong to any class and therefore cannot use any item with a class requirement.

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ROOMS AND DUNGEON CARDS
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THE DUNGEON CARDS ARE USED TO CONSTRUCT THE ROOMS WHICH CONTAIN MONSTER AND TRAP CARDS?
Yes, the 16 dungeon cards in the player's deck are used to create rooms which can be filled with monster and/or trap cards. The dungeon cards become a room as soon as they are played.

IS THERE A LIMIT?
You can have up to 6 rooms in play at once. A room can never be composed of more than 6 dungeon cards.

CAN I PLAY AN EMPTY ROOM?
Yes.

HOW MANY ROOMS CAN I PLAY IN A TURN?
There is no limit, but remember that you can only have 6 rooms in play at once.

CAN I MOVE OR REPLACE MONSTERS AND TRAPS IN PLAY?
No. Once assigned to a room, monsters and traps cannot move.

CAN I MODIFY A ROOM IN PLAY?
You can expand a room with more dungeon cards and populate the room with more monsters. However, you cannot replace any monster or trap already in the room. You cannot join two rooms already in play, nor can you divide a room.

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ITEMS
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HOW DO I USE ITEMS?
Items are played on a hero face-down, and only revealed when used.

CAN I TRADE ITEMS BETWEEN HEROES?
Yes, but any cards moved are revealed.

CAN I TRADE ITEMS BETWEEN HEROES ANYTIME?
No, you cannot trade items once the heroes are in a room.

CAN I TURN MY ITEMS FACE-DOWN ONCE MY HEROES WIN A FIGHT?
Yes, the rules say nothing contrary to this and the items are only revealed when used, so it is logical to assert that when they stop using them, the items are returned to their face-down state.

CAN A HERO USE A HEALING POTION ON HIMSELF?
Aboslutely not. The dead hero is discarded along with all the items he is carrying. Only another hero with a Healing potion in the same room as the killed hero can prevent his death.

WHEN DO I USE THE HEALING POTION?
Immediately after the battle in which the hero would be killed.

HOW DOES THE HEALING POTION DIFFER FROM THE FOUNTAIN OF RESURRECTION?
Both allow a killed hero to return to the game, but the potion must be used immediately when the hero is killed while the fountain returns a dead hero from previous turns.

CAN I PLAY ITEMS ON MONSTERS?
No, only heroes.

IS THERE A LIMIT TO THE NUMBER OF ITEMS A HERO CAN CARRY?
No, but remember that when a hero is killed all of his items are discarded.

IS THERE ANY WAY TO DEAL WITH CURSED ITEMS FROM THE EVENT DECK?
Cursed items can be removed using Counter Magic or some events. It is considered an item except it is always face-up, and as an event its effect is immediate and obligatory.

WHAT DOES THE ICON ON THE UPPER LEFT CORNER MEAN?
Most item cards have a ring symbol, meaning that any hero can use that item. Some item cards in the event deck have an icon representing one of the hero classes, meaning only a hero of that class can use the item.

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ABILITIES
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HOW ARE THE ABILITIES OF HEROES USED?
The heroes can use 1 ability in response to 1 ability used by the monster. If the monsters do not use abilities then the heroes cannot use them.

CAN I ONLY USE AN ABILITY ONCE?
No, you can use an ability as many times as you have ability cards (even repeating the same one), but note: the monsters cannot use another ability if the heroes did not answer to the first one.

IS THE MAGICAL CREATURE ABILITY ALWAYS ACTIVE?
No, it must be activated using an ability card.

WHAT IS THE EFFECT OF PETRIFY AND WHEN DOES IT END?
The hero is petrified. The card will not be able to leave the room, use items, or participate in combat. He will remain in this state until the monster is killed.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PETRIFY AND PARALYZE?
Both immobilize the hero, but petrification protects the hero from attack whil paralysis leaves him unarmed to the fury of the monster. In practice, this means a petrified hero can never be killed in a fight but a paralyzed hero can.

DOES THE PALADIN's FEAR IMMUNITY AFFECT ALL HEROES OR ONLY HIMSELF?
The immunity spreads to the entire party.

WHO CHOOSES THE VICTIM OF THE ABILITIES CHARM, DEATH TOUCH, AND PETRIFY?
The player who used these powers.

WHAT IS THE EFFECT OF THE CHARM ABILITY AND WHEN DOES IT END?
Charm allows a monster to seduce a hero, forcing it to fight for the monsters. The hero is freed when the monster is killed.

DOES THE CHARMED HERO USE ITEMS AND ABILITIES AGAINST HIS COMPANIONS?
Yes, the hero will fight using all his resources. The hero is considered a monster in all other respects, so the controller of the charming monster can use ability cards to power the hero's abilities.

IF THE HEROES INFLICT A WOUND, CAN THE MONSTER'S OWNER TAKE THE CHARMED HERO AS A CASUALTY?
No, the monster dies. The hero is the last to die, so if two wounds are inflicted against a monster and a charmed hero, the hero would die as well.

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Gabbi — 2008-01-07T15:55:27+00:00

"Baby Cthulhu" promo card

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Gabbi — 2008-01-07T15:51:06+00:00

"Stormbringer" promo card

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willdesigns — 2007-12-04T16:06:49+00:00

Event Cards 10

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willdesigns — 2007-12-04T16:05:44+00:00

Event Cards 9

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willdesigns — 2007-12-04T15:57:23+00:00

Event Cards 8

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willdesigns — 2007-12-04T15:56:01+00:00

Event Cards 7

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willdesigns — 2007-12-04T15:54:01+00:00

Event Cards 6

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willdesigns — 2007-12-04T15:51:36+00:00

Event Cards 5

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willdesigns — 2007-12-04T15:03:40+00:00

Event Cards 4

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willdesigns — 2007-12-04T15:02:29+00:00

Event Cards 3

Thread: Re: Questions

willdesigns — 2007-11-12T23:02:32+00:00

Matt, thank you very much for the tips. Definitely I understand more the game now. I wanted to like this game from the beginning since I love the artwork and theme but couldn't figure things out from the rules no matter it I looked at them forward or backwards.

I really appreciate your explanations. Surely now I will be able to introduce this game to my gamegroup.

Take care,

Will

Thread: Re: Questions

Gnipp — 2007-11-12T22:09:43+00:00

willdesigns wrote:
Hi, guys, I am trying to make sense of this game and I have some questions that will let me pass the first turn.

Howdees, I'll try to answer based on what I remember.

willdesigns wrote:
1) What happens if in the first turn a player can only place 1 room with just 1 weak monster there so that when the other player attacks he kills the monster finishing the game on the first round ? Is this possible ?

The game doesn't end when there are rooms. It ends when on your turn you have no rooms and none to play.(You can also win by killing your opponent's party)

willdesigns wrote:
2) What happens when both the hero and the monster hit each other ? Do they kill each other ? Does any of them attacks first ? If they are on a room is that room discarded ?

You need to compare the attack of the hero(or party) to the monster's defense and kill a number of heroes equal to the difference. For ex 4 attack compared to 3 defense = 1 hero dead. You also do the same in comparing the monster's attack to the hero's(or party's) defense and do the same thing. This happens simultaneously(I think I spelled that right). So both the monster and hero(or heroes) may die at the same time.

willdesigns wrote:
3) I still do not get the concept of the rooms. A room is the card that has the corridor in it or a component of 6 corridors maximum makes a room ? How many rooms can a player have ?

A room is either a card from the event deck which is a specific size or you make a room by playing the room cards from your hand by combining them together. However once you add a monster to a room you cannot add more rooms to it making it's size bigger. I'll have to take a look at my rulebook later, but I believe it is 4 rooms max, and each room can be no larger than 6 in size.

willdesigns wrote:
4) What happens when you place a big monster in a corridor and later you have only 1 corridor left, does that monster flee ? Example: I place a monster that needs 3 doors in 1 corridor (sorry about my use of the words but I am trying to be graphical since I still do not know the concept of the rooms that is the previous question), later I lose 2 of my corridors and there is only the one the monster is in, but supposely that corridor cannot hold a monster that big anymore, do I discard it ?

Hopefully my above answer helps make some sense out of room sizes. One thing to note is that without specific event cards coming up you cannot place a monster into a room smaller than it's size. So a monster with a size of 4 cannot go into a room with only 2 cards(I think you are calling these corridors)

willdesigns wrote:
Thanks a lot guys, I do not know if the problem is the translation or simply huge flaws on the design. I hope somebody has figure these out.

I hope this helps. I really enjoy the game for what it is. Light in nature, artwork I enjoy, and a theme I like. The rulebook has some definite translation issues, but once you get passed those it's a fun little game my group enjoys.

Thread: Questions

willdesigns — 2007-11-12T21:49:03+00:00

Hi, guys, I am trying to make sense of this game and I have some questions that will let me pass the first turn.

1) What happens if in the first turn a player can only place 1 room with just 1 weak monster there so that when the other player attacks he kills the monster finishing the game on the first round ? Is this possible ?

2) What happens when both the hero and the monster hit each other ? Do they kill each other ? Does any of them attacks first ? If they are on a room is that room discarded ?

3) I still do not get the concept of the rooms. A room is the card that has the corridor in it or a component of 6 corridors maximum makes a room ? How many rooms can a player have ?

4) What happens when you place a big monster in a corridor and later you have only 1 corridor left, does that monster flee ? Example: I place a monster that needs 3 doors in 1 corridor (sorry about my use of the words but I am trying to be graphical since I still do not know the concept of the rooms that is the previous question), later I lose 2 of my corridors and there is only the one the monster is in, but supposely that corridor cannot hold a monster that big anymore, do I discard it ?

Thanks a lot guys, I do not know if the problem is the translation or simply huge flaws on the design. I hope somebody has figure these out.

Thread: Complete rules

DRAKONIANHEART — 2007-09-22T03:16:34+00:00

Good Nights, this is my first post.

Can any one put the complete rules in the files section?

I want the game but i always (if i can) read the rules after buy the game.

"DRAKO"

Thread: Re: Petrify

Gnipp — 2007-08-22T21:45:40+00:00

They only happen if the monster player plays an "ability" card to activate them. And if they do, it happens immediately.

Unless you use the counter magic ability or counter magic scroll on it....

Thread: Petrify

gregd — 2007-08-13T19:29:26+00:00

The petrify trap and/or monster ability- do they happen immediately or can a character defeat it by fighting it?

Thread: Re: A fun game that comes up short - Plus a suggested varian

txaal — 2007-05-04T20:53:41+00:00

Excellent, thank you.

Thread: Re: A fun game that comes up short - Plus a suggested variant

magicm — 2007-05-01T10:42:03+00:00

Hallo
I´ve ask the same questions to the publisher. Here are the answers:
Questions

As mentioned several times, the rules seem to have several holes. For example:

1. What happens when a player exhausts his deck? Do you re-shuffle? Is the game over? Do you continue playing until a victory condition is reached?

There is no reshuffle.

I suggest the last. We just continued playing until a victory condition is reached. This will typically mean the player who ran through their deck the quickest won’t be able to play a dungeon and will lose. That actually works pretty well.

2. Once you play dungeon cards in one turn to create a room can you in subsequent turns add rooms/monsters/traps to that room?
requiring bigger rooms) in the game.

Yes, you can add rooms/monsters/traps.

Markus

Thread: A fun game that comes up short - Plus a suggested variant

txaal — 2007-04-30T14:40:22+00:00

I’ll admit I’m a bit of a sucker for non-collectible card games. (NCCGs). So even after reading the poor review, I took a flyer on MiniMonfa (loosely translated to mean: Mini Monster Family?). Just like movies, when you open a game and have very low expectations for it you are rarely disappointed. So it was with fairly low expectations that I cracked open MiniMonfa (base game only no expansions) and played my first three games. My opponent was my 8 year old who plays games marked 10+ with ease. MiniMonfa is rated for players 7+ and that seems accurate. My son handled the play with ease.

Given that this is the second review of this game, I’ll go ahead and review components and describe the game play.

Fluff

The story of this game is that you and your opponent are competing archmages each trying to build a dungeon filled with monsters and traps for some unknown nefarious purpose. However, given scarcity of resources (too few monsters, whatever), you also need to hire heroes of your own and send them into your opponent’s dungeon to try and kill him.

Components

The base game comes with three “decks”. All three decks are standard size cards of good quality. Two of the Decks are pre-constructed player decks made up of 40 cards each (the Minimonfa “Classic” deck and the Minimonfa “Wild” deck). Surprisingly, each deck contains a number of unique cards to that deck. The cards could be switched between the decks and as a matter of fact, as I’ll explain later, I think that makes the game more enjoyable. The two player decks have wonderful full color cartoon art of monsters, traps, dungeon rooms, events and ability cards. The art really is fun and reminiscent of a children’s fantasy book. There is no violent or sexually explicit art, so it is safe to play from that regard with all ages. Some of the monsters’ expressions made me chuckle.

The following types of cards are in the player decks:

1. Dungeon cards – each card represents a one part of a dungeon room. Multiple dungeon cards can be laid down together to create a larger “room”. No room can be larger that 6 cards and you cannot have more than 6 rooms in play.
2. Monster cards – all the usual suspects are represented – orcs, ogres, dragons, beholders, etc. Monsters are “sized” according to the size of the room required to hold them. A size 3-room monster must be placed in a size-3 room or larger, etc. Additionally, each monster has a Strength Value and a Defense Value. Additionally, some but not all monsters have special abilities that increase their strength/defense, kill heroes instantly or, one of the cooler abilities, petrify a hero so they cannot take part in the fight and, if the monster is not defeated, remain in the room until they can be rescued by a subsequent Hero.
3. Trap cards – each dungeon room can hold 1 trap card regardless of the number of monsters also in the room. Trap cards either increase the strength/defense of the monsters in the room or petrify a Hero (same as above).
4. Item cards – these are weapons, armor, and other items that can be placed on Heroes to improve strength/defense and healing potions (to bring dead Heroes back to life).
5. Ability cards – these cards are played to activate an ability of a Hero, monster or trap.

Additionally, there are 12 Hero cards – 6 for each deck - but they can be used in either deck. These are your common dungeon raiding suspects – Warrior, Half-Orc, Thief, Paladin, Mage, Cleric, Shaman, Archer, etc. Each Hero has a Strength Value and a Defense Value. Some, but not all, have special abilities that increase their strength/defense, reveal traps, raise dead Heroes, etc. Each player selects 4 heroes at the start of the game.

The third deck is the Events deck and is a common deck used by both players during the game. More on this later but given that the art is a big plus to this game, it is surprising that the Events deck used pencil drawings only – black and white – and really looked very poor when put up against the player decks. Perhaps this was done to draw a distinction between the cards from the Events deck and the cards from the players’ deck but given that the borders are also different colors, it really was disappointing that these cards were not the same colorful art as the players’ decks.

Now the instructions – as mentioned in the other review, the instructions are a poor translation. For the most part this is just grammatical and spelling errors. But you get the distinct feeling (although I can’t point to a specific example) that you are missing something due to the translation. Maybe this isn’t the case and there really are just a couple of holes in the rules.

Game Play

Game play consists of each player choosing one of the player decks and drawing six cards. The players then alternate turns. One turn consists of the following phases:

Phase 1 - Flipping and resolving the top card of the Events deck.
Phase 2 - Drawing back to 6 cards in hand and playing those cards.
Phase 3 - Invading the opponents

Phase 1
This is a quick and easy phase. The active player flips the top card of the Event deck, reads it aloud, and resolved it. The Events deck is a cool mechanic for a NCCG. I have never played with such a mechanic so I don’t know if it shows up in other NCCGs/CCGs. The Events deck in MiniMonfa does not overly influence the game but does add some nice twists. It has some special items that players can place on their Heroes, special affects such as “leveling up” a Hero (+1 to Str and Def), making a player lose a turn (kind of “Candyland-esque but the fluff is that your mapmaker made a mistake so it actually fits), etc. Finally there are Event cards that are Dungeon rooms ranging from 1-3 rooms. They are put into play immediately and you can add monsters and traps to them (see below) but you cannot expand their room-size by playing additional cards like you can do with dungeon cards played from your hand.

Phase 2
This is the meat of the game. Fluff-wise, this is the stage of the game where you build your dungeon and equip your Heroes.

First, you draw back up to six cards in your hand. Then, the active player can play the cards from his hand. Dungeon cards can be played to place or expand dungeon rooms. Monsters can be placed face-down on dungeon rooms of an appropriate size. As mentioned above, each monster has a size rating. So a room-size 2 monster must be placed in a dungeon room having at least 2-dungeon cards. Alternatively, a 2-room dungeon can have two 1-size monsters. A 3-room dungeon can have three 1-size monsters or one 3-size monster, or one 2-size monster and one 1-size monster. Additionally, one Trap card can be placed in each room regardless of the monsters that are in the room. The biggest monsters in the base game are 4-room size.

You can also play Item cards on your Heroes at this time face-down. Ability cards are not placed at this time (at least I don’t think so - the rules are unclear but this is how we played at and it worked well). There are no restrictions to the number of cards you can play – which is a nice change from having mana or other restrictions on the number of cards you can play in a turn.

The strategy during this phase is basically: do you play the dungeon cards in your hand and put a small monster in play or do you hold onto dungeon cards waiting from more in future turns to put a larger monster in play. One necessity of the game it to keep drawing cards. If you get locked down with bad cards, you can’t draw – this never happened but at times I wanted to hold onto cards to wait for later turns to play them but had to balance that with playing the cards now and being able to draw more cards on the next turn.

Plus, you must always keep at least one room in play. If you end your turn without a room in play, then the Heroes have successfully negotiated your dungeon and have killed you. However, there is also the need to save dungeon cards till later turns when you have larger monsters in hand or until you can draw enough dungeon cards at once to put a larger monster in play. If you continually put down empty rooms or rooms with small monsters, then your opponent will most likely continually waltz through these rooms and leave you with nothing to build upon. If by chance a small monster does survive, then you can add additional dungeon cards to the room and put additional/larger monsters or traps in play.

There is a small degree of bluffing that can go on during this phase but it is probably of limited use. Since the size of the room dictates how many Heroes can enter the room, putting a small monster in a large room will most likely just mean you lose all those cards.

Phase 3
This phase is that where you send your Heroes adventuring through the dungeon of your opponent. Your opponent will always have at least one room or else the game would have ended at the end of his previous turn. If he has multiple rooms then you need to decide which of your Heroes will explore which room. The only restriction is that you cannot send more Heroes into one room than the size of the room. So no more than 2 Heroes can enter a 2-room dungeon, etc.

Since monsters are played face-down, you won’t know what monster you are attacking until you enter the room. Likewise since Items are played on Heroes face-down, your opponent won’t know what you are bringing – although this really doesn’t matter much.

If a room is empty, then as long as you send one Hero into that room, it is discarded. It helps the fluff of the game to think about this as your Heroes entering an empty room (sounds simple but actually helps with the fluff if you need that type of thing to enjoy a game).

If the room is occupied by monsters and/or traps then they are revealed along with all items face down on Heroes. Resolution is then simple. First, starting with the owner of the room, chooses whether to play abilities of their monsters are traps. The player does this by playing Ability cards from their hand. We played that each ability can only activated once her battle, but the rules don’t say whether abilities could be activated multiple times per battle. Note here that the rules say Heroes can only use abilities in response to abilities played by the dungeon owner but this just didn’t make sense during game play so we ignored it. Maybe future plays will show this to be a good rule but so far it made for some really bad outcomes.

After abilities are resolved, the Heroes add up all of their Strength Values and compare them to the total Defense Values of the monsters/traps in the room. For every point by which the Heroes’ Strength exceeds the Defense Value of the monsters/traps, one monster dies. Simultaneously, that is before removing any monsters, the total Strength Values of the monsters/traps are compared to the Defense Values of the Heroes. Similarly, for every point by which the monsters’/traps’ Strength exceeds the Defense Value of the Heroes, one Hero dies.

If all of the monsters are killed, then all of the dungeon and trap cards in that room are discarded. The room has been cleared of monsters and the Heroes can proceed on into the dungeon. If all monsters are not killed (or the Heroes are otherwise thrown out of the room, e.g., by the Rolling Rock trap), then the surviving Heroes have been thrown out of the room and must try again later or go a different direction (fluff, fluff).

The strategy here is very straightforward – which Hero(es) for which room(s). There are very limited decisions – e.g., if there is one empty room and one 4-card room full of monsters, do you clear the empty room or enter the 4-card room this turn. Also, early in the game, before equipping your Heroes, you might think twice before sending an unarmed Hero alone into even a 1-card room. Some of the small monsters have decent Strength Value and could kill a lone Hero. You may decide to wait to draw some items before attacking that room but that will allow your opponent the opportunity to increase the size of the room and add more/bigger monsters and traps. Plus, your opponent could be bluffing as described above but it seems this ways very small on your decisions except maybe in the very early turns.

Questions

As mentioned several times, the rules seem to have several holes. For example:

1. What happens when a player exhausts his deck? Do you re-shuffle? Is the game over? Do you continue playing until a victory condition is reached?

I suggest the last. We just continued playing until a victory condition is reached. This will typically mean the player who ran through their deck the quickest won’t be able to play a dungeon and will lose. That actually works pretty well.

2. Once you play dungeon cards in one turn to create a room can you in subsequent turns add rooms/monsters/traps to that room?

I couldn’t find this in the rules anywhere although it is certainly implied in a couple of places. I suggest that you do allow this. It makes the game play much better and frankly if you don’t play this way you will rarely if ever be able to get the bigger monsters (i.e., those requiring bigger rooms) in the game.

Bottom Line

To my surprise, the game did hold some entertainment value for me and my 8-year old. This is not a great game. However, with the rule tweaks I have discussed, it is a decent game especially for young players.

Additionally, I believe this game may get better if each player constructs their own deck. I am hopeful that the expansions also add to playability with additional Heroes, monsters, traps and items.

So can I recommend this game to a broad BGG audience at full retail price? No. It is too shallow, too full of holes and requires too few decisions. However, if you buy online like I did for a discount, then it may be worth it to you if you go in expecting no more than this game really is – a fun NCCG with cartoon art and limited strategy.

I will play it again and probably buy the expansions to try out. Maybe this designer or another one will pick up on this theme and add the depth that seems to be just out of reach at the moment.

Overall Rating: 5.

Variant

The most fun we had was holding a card draft before the game. To do this, we mixed the two player decks together and grouped the cards by type. First we divided up the Dungeon and Ability Cards evenly. (Note: Maybe in future games we will even draft these. These cards act like a poor man’s mana card and just with other CCGs, if you want to use lesser monsters, you could play with less Dungeon cards and vice versa.). Then we placed all of the Heroes (12 of them) on the table face up and took turns drafting one at a time until we each had 4. Then we shuffled together the monsters, traps and items. We flipped up 2 cards at a time and alternated who could choose first.

This process let you customize your deck somewhat without having to put a whole lot of thought into deck construction. This was the most fun game we played and how we will do it in the future.

Thread: Re: A costly Gamble

txaal — 2007-04-25T18:29:57+00:00

Has anyone tried the expansions? Do they liven the game up any? I have this coming in the mail today and really expected it to be a game my kids would enjoy but was hoping, that maybe, just maybe, it would play as well as its theme.

Does anyone remember the old PC game Dungeonmaster (or something like that)? Where you built your own dungeon in a RTS mode and then the computer would start sending in heroes to try and defeat your dungeon? It was very cool. I actually still have it an may have to see if it will still run on my computer.

But I digress. I was hoping this game would remind me of the old PC game.

Thread: Re: A costly Gamble

spelk — 2007-02-16T21:46:49+00:00

The rules come across as ambiguous, especially in clarifying the turn sequence, we weren't sure whether both players grab an event card at the same time, and both act accordingly. Often event cards would pop up that would affect a room or a monster, and the opponent wouldn't have a room set down or had a blank room. There does seem to be a game balance issue on getting a reasonable number of dungeons out on the table, no sooner had we one dungeon out, than it was taken and the table was empty again. You could split your rooms and make more dungeons, but then you'd have empty ones, and you wouldn't be able to populate a larger dungeon with a tougher monster. A lot of the time, you're stuck with 3 or 4 room monsters in hand, and not enough dungeon rooms coming into your deck to populate them. With hardly any way of discarding these hefty monsters lodged in your play hand. The idea of building a party with different hero classes is a good one, but with the starter decks on offer, there was little difference in the way the game played, regardless of class. Abilities didn't seem to feature heavily in the strategy, there was no reason not to storm in as many heroes as you could fit in a room really. Traps were underpowered and underplayed (only two per deck). There was no sense of progression, through defeating monsters.. the dungeons popped up, the monsters were slain, the dungeons vanished. No movement as such, no level difficulty, saving dungeon room cards was tricky since you have to play at least one every turn, and you usually ended up playing the lowest number of room cards you could, to get the highest level of monster clogging up your deck out onto the table..

Overall, the game looks nice, has one or two nice abilities that vary the quite dull combat routine. But items fall into your hand from draw deck, before you enter dungeons, so theres no looting or satisfaction from the actual kill.

Thread: Re: new expansions

Henry Rhombus — 2007-01-26T20:07:31+00:00

Boardgame News' Italian correspondent, Andrea Ligabue, noted that two new expansions are available from Stratelibri, but Mayfair has made no announcement about releasing these in English. Link to the BGN news item: http://www.boardgamenews.com/index.php/boardgamenews/comment...

Thread: Re: new expansions

Jimmer — 2007-01-26T19:35:09+00:00

It looks like they're being released by Mayfair, based on the news that was posted on ICv2.

http://icv2.com/articles/home/9976.html

Thread: new expansions

dimitkan — 2007-01-18T16:58:15+00:00

I think that there will be two new expansions in italian. Are there any plans for an english release?

Thread: Re: Components problem

magicm — 2006-05-28T18:47:34+00:00

Hallo
You must have W1/46 to W46/46.
I think there is an packing error in youre game.
Markus

Thread: Components problem

rogersmith — 2006-05-17T22:29:42+00:00

The rules list the components as being:
- one Minimonfa Classic 46 card deck
- one Minimonfa Wild 46 card deck.

My copy has:
- one deck of cards C1/46 to C46/46
- one deck of cards C1/46 to C45/46 and W45/46 (single card).

All the C cards in both decks are identical, so I can only assume I have been given a dodgy second deck. I assume the wild deck should be W1/46 to W46/46.

Any thoughts?

Thread: Re: A costly Gamble

RDewsbery — 2006-04-20T21:03:22+00:00

Nope, that pretty much sums up my experience with the game too. It looks nice, and feels like it should play better than the totally flat Dungeonvlle (or whatever it was - the Zman game that came out last year), but whether through rules problems or bad design, MiniMonFa just wasn't interesting OR fun to play. Not the worst game of last year (that award goes to Xig), but pretty bad all the same.

Thread: A costly Gamble

superdupergeek — 2006-04-19T12:49:12+00:00

My first review. I hope you find it useful and give me some GG!!!

OK - I just spent £20 of my hard earned money on a card game. Why....?

Because I wanted a dungeon crawl themed, very simple, easy to explain and play (with gamers and non gamers alike). I own and enjoy Dungeoneer but my wife doesnt like the complexity so I was hoping that this game would fill the gap. I took the plunge and ordered it. Was my gamble worth while? Read on....

Box:
The box serves it's purpose and is nicely constructed and robust. It is somewhat oversized to hold the game components and is mainly filled by a cardboard insert that is designed to hold the cards in three separate sections. If, as I suspect, this has contributed significantly to the game costs I would rather have had a smaller box. A standard type playing card box would have done the trick nicely.

Components:
The only components in this game are the cards. The cards are standard playing card size and of good quality card with nice glossy print. There are a total of 132 cards split into 3 decks. 1 event deck and 2 player decks. The artwork on the cards is excellent and very thematic. It is however very 'cartoony' and may not be to everyone's taste.
However, I really like the artwork and it gave me the impression that this is a 'fun' game that should be quite light and easy and not take itself too seriously whilst still giving a very dungeon crawl 'feel' to the game. The artwork was a big factor in my choosing this game.

Rules:
The rules are effectively spread over both sides of 2 A4 sheets of paper (combined into a foldout leaflet). They are nicely presented with the game stages laid out in a logical order. However.... this was not originally an english language game and the translation is not perfect. Grammer, syntax and punctuation do not read as they should in places throughout the rules. Now, I dont mean to be picky about this (and I'm not a school teacher) but I am concerned that this means that the clarity and meaning of what the rules are trying to convey is less than perfect and therefore open to a high degree of interpretation. In many instances the rules fail to cover concisely what should happen in certain circumstances as you will see

Game Play:
Each player chooses 4 heroes from a selection of 6 and places these face up in front of him.

Randomly decide who goes first. The gameplay is....

Each player takes a turn consisting of:
1) Flip an event card. Follow it's instructions. This could be beneficial or harmful to you or your opponent (like "Your opponent's monster dies - discard one of his monster cards")
2) Draw back to a 6 card hand. Then play cards to build up your dungeon (by playing room cards from your hand). The more room cards to place down together the bigger the room. Populate your rooms with monsters (by playing monster cards from your hand). This is subject to a rule that the number of monsters you can place in any one room is governed by the size of the room. (ie you can place 1 dragon that has a value of 4 into a room consisting of at least 4 room cards. Alternatively you could place an orc(value 3) and a goblin (value 1) into a 4 card room). Assign Items (such as swords and magic artifacts to your hero's (by playing item cards from your hand onto your hero cards.
3) Send your hero's into your opponents dungeon. You select one of his rooms and he reveals what monsters etc are in the room. A battle then ensues. The players add up the total attack/defense values of their heros/monsters and the winner kills monsters/heroes of his opponent. If there are no monsters left in the room then the room is defeated and the cards go into the discard pile. If the heroes are killed then the heroes go into the discard pile.

This continues until
1) One player has had all of his heroes killed - in which case he loses
2) One player has no rooms in play - in which case he loses.

My feelings:
For me, although the above sounds straight forward, the game just didnt flow. There are too many instaces of "what happens in this situation" that are not convered in the rules. Often we would lay down room cards but could not populate them because the monsters we were holding in our hand were 'too big' for the room. The opposing player would simply walk into the room on his turn and the room would be defeated and sent to the discard pile. Other times when there was something to fight/do the encounter had no tension as the outcome was obvious straight away. In fact the only choices to be made were which room to enter from those available. Despite it's excellent artwork I just cant find a cohesive 'game' here. I really am wondering whether this is due to something serious being lost in the rules translation. Maybe if I had been taught this game by another experienced player I might be playing it differently? It's a real shame but I'm afraid this game doest work from my interpretation of the rules.

Was it worth my gamble of £20? Sadly - Definitely not.

What would I be prepared to pay if I could choose my own price for this game? Actually, I wouldnt by this game again regardless of cost. It just doesnt work - unless someone can put me right on this.

I hope that I have misread / misunderstood some key elements of the rules and would gladly be put right if anyone feels that this is the case. If that happens I will revise my rating and this review. Until then I will rate this game amoungst the lowest of all my ratings.