Scarier than the 1998 Godzilla:-Terror in Meeple City

Game: Terror in Meeple City

Publisher: Repos Productions

Designer: Antoine Bauza & Ludovic Maublanc

Year: 2013

Meeple City was a happy place, a square mile of urban bliss located on an island off the coast of Japan. That was until the fateful day in 1963, the world was still reeling from Godzilla’s attack 9 years before, but Meeple City was attacked by not 1, but 4 giant lizards! The carnage was unspeakable with only two dozen people escaping from the island and reaching the mainland. Survivors tell tales of the monsters throwing cars at each other, biting through concrete and scoping up people by the handful to eat. The four lizards have never been seen since, and now Meeple city is looking to rebuild. Some people call them foolish for returning, but what are the odds that the monsters will strike again?

Terror in Meeple City is a deep and complex game in which you play as Godzilla-style monsters rampaging around town, knocking down buildings and eating people. You might think that sounds horrific, but the people were being used to hold up the buildings, so think of it as relieving them from their eternal Atlas-style punishment. You’ll stomp around the city throwing cars at each other, blowing down buildings with your monster-breath, dropping your monster-meeple on a building made of people-meeple to expose the tasty treats within. When I say you’ll be doing it, I mean it, this isn’t a roll a dice or play a card style game, this is a “put your chin on the monster and blow as hard as possible” type game.

So perhaps deep and complex wasn’t the right description. Terror in Meeple City is a light-hearted romp, you will be physically interacting with the board in several ways to knock down the buildings and the other monsters. The game is scored mostly on the people you eat, but you only get points for each full set of coloured meeple, so don’t go snacking down only on the old men, you’ll get indigestion, and no points, I don’t know which is worse! You also get points for eating buildings (you can eat a floor when you knock every meeple off of it). Every player also has 3 unique cards that change the way they play; A role which tells you how to get bonus points, a power which you can use all throughout the game which varies your play-style compared to the other players and a super-secret power which is a one-use powerful ability such as begging the other monsters for food.

The meeples actually hold up the floors of buildings which is a charming way of making a 3D game. The art style in the game is simply superb, it's a joy to look at whether fully set up or half knocked down!

There’s not much to describe gameplay wise, you move by flicking a wooden disc that you monster meeple stands on, you can blow by physically blowing with your chin on your monster, you can bite buildings by dropping your monster with a straight arm or you can throw cars by balancing them on your monster-meeple’s head and flicking them. Then at the end of each round you can eat 1 meeple in the same zone as you for each tooth you have left. Teeth are usually lost by having a car thrown at your face, but they can also be lost if you are responsible for scaring people off the board. The game end is determined by the number of meeple who flee (were knocked off the board), with penalties every now and then along the track, so you may want to start being cautious with your actions when the penalties are near.

On the left is the board that shows how many people have escaped, in the center are the monster boards which are used to hide how many meeple you have eaten, on the front they house your 6 teeth, of which 4 can be knocked out reducing the rate you can eat, on the right are the cards that make your monster unique.

Sure it has some issues, the glue used to make the board with initially isn’t strong enough (we resorted to using some UHU glue), the sticker job is overwhelming and the game isn’t exactly balanced when it comes to the powers. You might find that some actions are better than others (you will never get the same damage from throwing cars as a good, hard blow). But I can, and do, forgive all that because it’s fun! Terror in Meeple City is simply fun, it doesn’t care about being balanced because it doesn’t need to be, so long as everyone leaves the table with a stomach full of people in their monstrous Godzilla-tummies then everyone is happy.

7/10