Game: Gremlins: The Game

Thread: Re: I'll throw some light on the game but not on your Mogwai, promise.

Andrew Parks — 2008-09-24T13:29:08+00:00

Thanks for taking the time to compose this thoughtful review, Joseph! I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the game, especially since you're a fan of the movie. I think you will also enjoy the game with 3 or 4 players, as the game dynamic changes when players are competing heavily for both Weapons and Gremlins.

Regarding the plastic insert, I agree with your assessment. I think the printer was trying to keep the cards from sliding all over the place (an issue with past NECA games), but the downside is that it can be a burden to push the cards back into the slots.

I hope you get a chance to try some of our other licensed games coming out for NECA, especially "Hogwarts", a much deeper game than Gremlins, and one that we're very excited about. We are also working on "Twilight" and "Watchmen" too.

Thanks!

Andrew

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Andrew Parks
Quixotic Games LLC

Thread: I'll throw some light on the game but not on your Mogwai, promise.

jphien — 2008-09-24T05:39:40+00:00

Back in the 80's I had an Atari 5200 game of Gremlins which I loved. It was a simple game, you were armed with a sword for killing Gremlins. You had to collect Mogwais and put them in a cage to keep them away from food and water. There was a refrigerator and a popcorn popper that were constantly spitting out food and I believe there was a sink for a source of water.
I can't remember everything about the game other than there was no end you would just try to beat your high score but I had a lot of fun with it.

Imagine my suprise when I walked into my local game store and there on the shelf was a new, just released in 2008, board game of Gremlins. Instant memories of 5200 bliss ran through my mind. I plunked down my $26.95 and headed home with high hopes.
The box is quite sturdy and has a nice colorful picture of a Gremlin on the front and a picture of Gizmo on the side of the box. The board is also thick and sturdy without the warping that seems so prevalent in many of the new boards these days. It is graced with a picture of the Gremlins logo at the top and 3 large pictures of different Gremlins around the playing area.
The playing area is made up of squares representing the buildings and streets of the town. There are 7 buildings, Peltzer's home, Police Dept., Dorry's Tavern, The Movie Theater, Union Savings and Trust, The Department Store, and the Gym with the Town Square in the middle of the board. Each building is comprised of squares labled either event, weapon, or a Gremlin overlaying a picture from the movie.

There are a number of very thick, well made square tokens representing the same, event, weapon, or a Gremlin. The back and front of the weapon and event tokens look the same. The front of the Gremlin token is a generic picture with the word Gremlin on it, the backside has a picture from the movie of a Gremlin . Each token has a different picture of a Gremlin which I thought was a nice touch, they could just as easily have used one picture to represent all the Gremlins.
Also on each Gremlin picture is either 1, 2, or 3 symbols, a square, a circle or a triangle and any combination thereof. The one exception being Spike who has 6 symbols on his token.
At the start of the game you place a token on each space with a corresponding picture. An event on an event space, a weapon on a weapon space and a Gremlin on a Gremlin space. Also each player takes a player token which is a plastic colored pawn and places it on the same colored starting space.
Shuffle the weapon and event cards into thier respective decks. The cards are rather thin but are a decent size which makes them easy to shuffle. The back of the cards depict a Gremlin from the cover of the box. The front of the card has text depicting an event or a weapon, each with a different picture from the movie. Again I feel that was a nice touch.

The game play is simple, move your pawn up to 6 spaces stopping whenever you land on a token. If it's a weapon token, remove the token and draw a weapon card. Ditto if it's an event token. If it's a Gremlin, flip the token and try to defeat the Gremlin with a weapon card or a combination of weapon cards that match the symbols on the Gremlin token.
If you defeat the Gremlin keep it face up in front of you and score the points on it's face at the end of the game. If you cannot defeat it, it runs to the movie theater remaining face up and you are pushed back to your starting space.
You are not allowed to move diagonally and must go through doors to enter buildings which almost always triggers an event.

Token spaces are replenished throughout the game either with event cards or by going to the town square.
At the start of the game Spike is not on the board as he is not put into the pool of Gremlin tokens until after the initial setup. Thereafter whenever Gremlin tokens are replenished Spike may be in the mix.
If a player encounters Spike and defeats him the game ends and the player with the most Gremlin points win so the player who kills Spike is not guaranteed to win.
If he fails to defeat Spike then Spike ends up face up in the movie theater. As long as he is there, a new gremlin is placed on an empty space in the movie theater after each players turn. If there are no Gremlins left in the pool the game ends.
At that point depending on the variant being played either Spike wins and all the players lose {My favorite way to play} or the person with the most points win.

It's simple game but I gotta say I enjoyed it. It didn't quite live up to the Atari 5200 but I wouldn't mind playing again especially with more players,{I have only played a 2 player game}. It's definitely geared for the younger crowd and I think this would really appeal to the 8 to 14 year old crowd. If your like me, 50 and a fan of the movie, there are worse ways you can spend $27 bucks and a half hour of your time. Besides there is no downside to blowing up a theater full of Gremlins.

One complaint I have is the card holders in the molded plastic insert were a bit tight and I would have to really press the cards into place to make them fit. I'm afraid after a few times of this the cards would start to wear or even tear, so I keep my cards under the insert.

Thread: Re: Why Gremlins?

jphien — 2008-09-21T01:00:00+00:00

Andrew Parks wrote:

And, of course, it's always fun to annihilate Gremlins with Ornamental Wall Swords and Microwave Ovens.

I use to own the Atari 5200 Gremlins and it was a blast to play. When I saw this it reminded me of that game and it looks similar in concept. Just a quick fun romp killing gremlins with whatever you can get your hands on. Still havn't got to play it yet, hope to soon.
Thanks for the quick response.

Thread: Re: Why Gremlins?

Andrew Parks — 2008-09-19T17:25:13+00:00

Hi, Joseph.

Thanks for picking up the Gremlins game. NECA holds the merchandizing rights to an impressive number of licenses, both past and present, including Gremlins. The Gremlins franchise still has a large number of fans, and so NECA asked us to design a Gremlins board game for them. We enjoy working on all the games that NECA asks us to. We find this work to be challenging and rewarding, and sometimes we get to work on licenses that we really love (300, Hogwarts, Nightmare Before Christmas, etc.)

The Gremlins game is much simpler than 300, and is geared toward families. That said, we really enjoy playing it because it's short and fun. Although the random elements are important to the game, we were careful to exclude "annoying randomness" (like dice rolls for movement), which often plague other licensed games. We just have fun hunting for Gremlins and trying to match up weapons. There is a fair amount of strategy to the game as you decide whether it is worth it to "overkill" a Gremlin and use up a weapon you might need to defeat a better Gremlin.

Also, we were careful to make sure the game did not always boil down to "whoever kills Stripe wins" because that would invalidate everything done during the early and middle game. Therefore, although killing Stripe will put you ahead if you were doing well, many games end with Stripe still alive, so defeating the other Gremlins is extremely important.

And, of course, it's always fun to annihilate Gremlins with Ornamental Wall Swords and Microwave Ovens.

Enjoy!

Andrew

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Andrew Parks
Quixotic Games LLC

Thread: Why Gremlins?

jphien — 2008-09-19T01:38:48+00:00

Andrew, if your watching this site. What made you decide to do a game based on Gremlins? Don't get me wrong, I think it was cool enough to buy the game and I like the movie a lot also. It's just that the movie is getting up there in years and there is not a lot of hype around the movie these days as far as I know. You know, like a 25 year anniversary or something.
Well, I really enjoyed 300 and although this looks a bit simpler I'm hoping it will be good. I just picked it up tonight and I have to go to work soon so I won't get a chance to play it right away. When I do I hope to write a review.

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Jypsy — 2008-08-10T16:20:39+00:00

The various Gremlins tokens included in the game, sorted and stacked by image.

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Jypsy — 2008-08-10T16:12:26+00:00

A new game of Gremlins about to begin. All pieces are in starting positions.

Thread: Gremlins FAQ

Andrew Parks — 2008-08-06T00:21:32+00:00

Hello out there, Kingston Falls!

I have compiled a few questions I've received while demoing the game:

1) When replenishing Gremlin, Event, and Weapon Tokens on the board, what happens if a player is in a space that is being replenished?

The space is replenished as normal (place the player's piece on top of the replenished token). The player does not automatically encounter the new token, but may choose to do so on his or her next turn.

2) When replenishing Gremlin Tokens, do we only draw from the remaining pool of face down Gremlin Tokens? Or do we also draw from face up Gremlins that have already been captured by players?

You only use the face down Gremlin Tokens. Once a Gremlin is defeated by a player, that player keeps that Gremlin Token face up on the table for the rest of the game for scoring purposes.

3) Which spaces make up the Town Square? Do they include the four "Start" spaces?

No, only the central four spaces (colored red) make up the Town Square. When a player is sent back to his or her Start Space, they are not considered to be on Town Square.

That's all for now. Please feel free to add your own questions here!

Andrew

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Andrew Parks
Quixotic Games LLC

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Andrew Parks — 2008-07-29T23:51:41+00:00

Event Card

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Andrew Parks — 2008-07-29T23:51:05+00:00

Weapon Card

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Andrew Parks — 2008-07-29T23:50:30+00:00

Gremlins Box Bottom

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Andrew Parks — 2008-07-29T23:49:57+00:00

Gremlins Box Top