As a young teenager, I created piles of board games with winding tracks of encounters and interesting events. I had fun with them and so did my brothers, but they were really quite bad; and we only enjoyed them because of the inside humor I included. In retrospect, they were really quite bad, and I was immensely surprised to open the box of Monster Quest (Axel Games, 2007 – Roy Curtiss) and find one of the games I had designed years go! Of course it's quite different, but this fantasy role-playing board game has winding, interconnecting tracks and piles and piles of cards. However, there is nothing for me to recommend about this game – it's as if a teenager designed a game and managed to get it published. The game mechanics are a mix between Dungeon, Careers, and Monopoly with some tremendously annoying facets. The components are bland, to say the least, with some horrible choices – such as the board pegs. The time is entirely too long, and players will likely be begging for the experience to end. I wanted to like Monster Quest, as I'm a sucker for fantasy games of this style; but this one absolutely drove me crazy.

The board is made up of a large outer track with nine smaller tracks emerging from it at different points, as well as separate town and dungeon tracks. Each player places their piece on the starting space and decides whether they will start on the outer track or the town track. Players receive a player board, in which they use pegs to denote that they have thirty-five hit points, five platinum pieces, fifteen gold pieces (five gold pieces equal one platinum piece), and fifteen silver pieces (five silver pieces equal one gold piece). Players receive four spell cards, five map cards, and six wisdom cards with the remainder forming large stacks near the board. A pile of monster and location cards are also placed near the board, as well as six-sided and eight-sided dice.

On a player's turn, they can do one of the following options:

Roll two six-sided dice and move around the outer or town track.

Use up to three wisdom cards and move the distance shown on them, whether forward or backwards.

Use a map card, going to the space shown on the card.

Depending on where a player lands, different things may happen.

If a player lands on another player, or if that player lands on a dungeon space, they must go to the dungeon. They must travel around this circular twelve-space track until they either land on the exit, land on the guard (paying two silver pieces) or go around six times (to escape back to start).

If the player lands on the entrance to an inner track, they may pay the costs to enter that track and then proceed on that track on the following turn, using only one six-sided die to move.

If the player lands on a property, they may buy that property for the amount listed. Each property gives a different ability; and whenever other players land there, they must pay the owning player a certain amount of money.

Some spaces cause the player to lose hit points.

Some spaces cause the player to go to a specific spot on the board.

Some spaces force the player to spend money or give the player money.

Some places are marked with a "B/W" symbol (better or worse). A player must roll two six-sided dice then roll them again. If their second roll is equal to or greater than the first roll, they gain the good property of the space (likely getting money). Sometimes there is a negative effect if they fail.

Some spaces cause the player to fight the monster. Players find the monster from the monster deck, and the player fights the monster by rolling two dice (two six-sided or two eight-sided, depending on how hard players want the game to be). If they hit the monster, players then roll one six-sided die to see how much damage they do. If they miss, the player takes the amount of damage the monster deals out. Players can continue until they or the monster are dead or may quit and leave the space the following turn. If the player dies, they go back to start, starting at their original levels, but losing any upgrades or cards that they might have gained.

Some spaces allow a player to pay for healing.

Some spaces allow a player to purchase armor, which subtracts from monster damage.

A player can use wisdom or spell cards to assist them in fighting monsters. When they defeat a monster, they gain the treasure on the monster's card. Six of the monsters have special jewels, when a player collects all six, they win the game. There are a few other rules, such as a player who owns property may move backwards on the main track, or players get bonuses when they complete inner tracks once or twice; but that's most of the game.

Some comments on the game...

1.) Components: The box is large and square and too big to fit on many shelves. I could easily forgive that, if the stuff inside was better. It's not. There is some artwork on the board, which is okay – but not one of the 450 cards in the game has artwork on them, save the game's symbol! I want to see the monsters I'm fighting; I want to see the different items and spells. This, combined with a huge board with hard-to-read spaces that point in every direction and are in a difficult font, makes the game less than appealing to play. The monster cards are especially annoying, as you have to hunt through the deck each time you fight one, and there's no indication which ones have the jewels on the board. This means that players have to either memorize the monsters that have the jewels or hope that the monster they fight has a jewel. And the pegs! They are monstrously tall pegs that don't fit into the boards properly.

2.) Theme: The lack of artwork is a problem that leads to the biggest problem – the entire lack of theme. Players are some generic hero, use very few weapons – and most of the cards in the spell and wisdom deck do the exact same thing. When going on any inner trail, you might be able to land on the space you want, but likely you'll hunt around forever. The monsters are all exactly the same, except with different attacks and hit points. The inner trails all feel the same, although you might get bit by a snake in one and get hit by a blizzard in another. Finding any specific spot on the board, with the apparently gigantic amounts of maps lying around, is difficult, because you have to read the spaces to find them.

3.) Rules: Here is a candidate for one of the worst written rulebooks ever. There is a ton of time spent on properties and how they work, yet there is very little instruction on the sequence of battles – one of the most important parts of the game. Everything is mixed up, and I had to hunt for a long time to find out what happened to a character when they died!

Arg – enough of this. Let me simply list my problems with the game, in no particular order.

It's too long. Three to five hours for a game in which you simply roll, move, roll, move, roll, move is entirely too lengthy.

The dungeon is idiotic. When you get sent there (which seems to happen to quite a bit), you have to travel around six times to get out. You might get lucky and land on a space to get out, but likely you'll travel around and keep getting hit on most of the spaces. And six times around the board, which is a pain to remember, takes a minimum of six turns in the dungeon. And many times I've seen someone finally get out, just to be sent in again. Whee!

Monster fights are ridiculously hard, and the rewards are small (except the jewels). There is no way I'm playing on level "3", in which a player uses two six-sided dice to fight, it's hard enough on the normal level. And rolling a six-sided die for damage is yawn-inducing. When a villain has thirty-five hit points, and you roll a "1" for damage; it's very annoying. There's also no way to keep track of the hit points of a monster, other than someone reciting them out loud, as the other player wearily rolls the dice.

While the inner/outer path idea (similar to Careers) is a good idea – it's of no use here, since a player has no idea what the point or difference between the paths are.

I appreciate that they did the three different types of coins for themes' sake, but it's a pain to keep switching out coins for others. And using silver coins for anything is really a waste of time, since platinum coins are the only ones that matter.

Properties. Who thought adding a touch of Monopoly would make the game better? The ratios of how much properties reward for how much they cost is strikingly disproportionate, and the "benefits" they give usually don't make sense. And what thematic reason is there for allowing a player to go backwards on the main track once they own a property?

The game is mind-numbingly boring. It's one of the only games I've ever quit partially through (I would say halfway, but we were nowhere near finished). Even for fantasy geeks who love games like Talisman or Runebound, this one just wasn't even in the same league.

Good things.

I liked the wisdom cards allowing movement instead of the dice. This is a nice mechanic from Careers that works well in games.

So you see that I can't remotely recommend this game, not for kids, not for adults, not for anyone! I feel bad, because I'm sure that the designer put a lot of effort into this game. However, I doubt they played it much outside their own gaming group, because a lot of the flaws that I've pointed out would have been caught. I'm always looking for a good fantasy gaming game that brings a little bit of the role playing experience to the table. This game is about as far away from that experience as possible.

Tom Vasel
"Real men play board games"
www.thedicetower.com