Well, better late than never.
Apparantly, alien sabatuers attacked the press over at Firefly Games. Initially annouced for a September 2002 release, the first supplement for the cult hit "Monster island" finally saw print in January 2003. Was it worth the wait?
In a word, YES!
"Escape From Monster Island" greatly expands the scope of the Monster Island universe. It provides simple and creative rules for allowing your "Kaiju" (that's Japanese for Giant Monster) to rampage through cities, fight armies, and terrorize civilains. It also provides rules for playing as a nation's army, rather than as a monster (but who would want to do that?"
The amazing thing is that it does this with a minimum of complexity. The rules for destroying buildings are deceptively simple. Each type of key building in the game (ie: Skyscraper, Science Cener) has a toughness rating that functions identically to a monster's toughness rating. Damage under this rating is ignored. Any damage over the rating destroys the building. If a monster repeatedly attacks the same building, it adds bonus dice to its damage, increasing the chance that it will destroy the structure. The great thing about this system is there's very little record keeping. You don't have to keep track of "building points or any other cumbersome mechanics.
The building types also have other neat game effects. Science Centers help scientists invent "Wonder Weapons" (Gadgets that mimic monster powers). Nuclear Power Plants can undergo meltdown if destroyed, etc.
The rules for playing an army are brilliant. Basicly, you use the same point-buy system as monster creation, but instead of assigning the points to characteristics, you use them to buy individual military units. These run the gamut from conventional military forces, such as tanks and infantry, to high tech UN Science troops that use jet packs and pilot hover tanks. Each indvidual unit has its own attacks and toughness ratings. Again, record keeping is kept to a bare minimum. All the info for your army fits on a record sheet the same size as a monster sheet (about half a sheet of paper.)
In fact, there's so much great information in this book, the 32 page layout feels a bit cramped. This sharply contrasts with the breezy, easy reading style of the first book. As in "Monster Island", the rules are filled with scattered quotes from famous monster movies, but they're much harder to pick out in the visual clutter.
Overall, I feel the writing isn't quite as good as the first book either. There were several rules that seemed unclear, and needed to be read over a few times before they made sense. One new power was left undescribed, and health recovery rules for flying tanks were glossed over, with some important details left out. I spotted several typos, but none that made understanding the rules more difficult in any way.
"Monster Island" turned up on several critics best of lists in 2002. It's a great, fun little game that really shows respect and reverence for the genre movies it's based on. "Escape From Monster Island" shows that same respect, and combines it with fun workable rules that let you play the full range of monster mayhem. Watch out Tokyo! The monsters are loose, and they're heading your way!
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