Monster Farm (2020)

Monster Farm is a Drafting, Bidding, and Resource Management game.
You take the role of a Monster Farmer and decide which monsters you want to feed. Then you get to bid on Monster Fruit to feed them in the Open Market. If you need more fruit, you can go to the Black Market to get more. Also, you can use a Monster Thief to steal fruit for you. All the while, Seasonal Events will cause you to adapt to new conditions on the farm. Do you have what it takes to be a Monster Farmer? (Please say yes! The monsters are really hungry and need someone to feed them.)

In Monster Farm there are 5 phases to the game

Phase 1
In phase one, everyone gets 5 five Monster Cards, then you pick one and pass the others. Each Monster Card has the fruit required to feed it listed below. Overall, the more points a monster is worth the harder it will be to feed it. You keep doing this until you have drafted your farm. In this stage, you might be trying to draft easy monsters to speed up the game and get a blitz win. Or maybe you go with a few big, harder monsters hoping that if you feed just a few big guys, you can pull it off. Or maybe you do a balanced draft. It is all up to you and the monsters you draft will affect the way you play the rest of the game.

Draft 5 monsters for your farm!

Phase 2
In phase two, a Seasonal Event happens; this will cause all farmers to adjust their strategy. It could be gaining a monster, losing a monster, or maybe gaining some random fruit and more. Things will change and affect your strategy. However, this is an environmental change and it affects everyone. It is not just one player becoming lucky or unlucky.

Phase 3
In phase three, there is an Open Market bid. You are bidding on a bundle of three fruits. Each player bids on the market starting with the first player for that round. Each player must bid higher or pass. If you pass you are out of the bidding round. This becomes quite tricky. Maybe you really need only one fruit or you may need all the fruit. How much should you bid? It could also be that you don’t need the fruit but you buy it so that you can prevent someone else who does need it from buying it. Do you bid it up and hope you don’t get left with it? A lot can happen here. There are various fruits, some will help you feed you monsters others will give you a permanent income bonus. At the bottom right of each card, you can see how many of those there are in the deck.

Also once per game, you can play a Monster Thief to steal the bid! It is like a tactical nuke. You only get to use it once during the game so play it wisely.

Phase 4
In phase four, you are buying fruit on the Black Market. The fruit is random and you can even get a rotten fruit which is completely useless. Since it is the Black Market, there is no quality control. Remember the Monster Gems you spend here means that you will have less when you go to bid on the Open Market.

Phase 5
In phase five, you collect your base income of 3. If you have purchased Fruit Stands or Monster Cafes from the Open Market or Black Market, your income is increased. For each Fruit Stand, you will receive an additional 1 Monster Gem added to your income. For each Monster Cafe, you will receive an additional 2 gems during this phase. You keep these cards until the end of the game.

Winning the Game
Repeat phases 2 thru 5 until someone has fed all of their monsters. The first person to feed all their monsters receives a Monster Egg for an additional five points. All other players finish playing the rest of that round. Then each player adds up the points on their fed monsters and the one with most points wins and is now the “Master Monster Farmer!”

In Monster Farm, you get an amazing 2 to 6 player game that the whole family can play in about 30 minutes. I have been playing board games for quite some time but often much of my games go unplayed because they just don’t fit the number of players, or they take too long, or they just don’t fit the ages/abilities of the players. I wanted to make sure that the game would be fun for both adults and kids. I wanted it simple but yet have a good depth of strategy. Also, I wanted a game where you don’t just play for 5 minutes then wait 15 minutes until it is your turn again. This game passes the Smore Games QualityTest, which is, after people play the game once, they want to play it “Smore!” I want to thank all my playtesters and the feedback they have given. This is an OUTSTANDING GAME! Have fun!