First Impressions: Munchkin Apocalypse

Most recently to enter the World of Muchkin's ranks is Munchkin Apocalypse, which is the thirteenth iteration of  the classic Muchkin game.  This game was released back in late fall 2012 so it's had about six months of life so far.  Munchkin Apocalypse though uses nearly every satirical apocalyptic event and creature as cards in this game, from a Zombie Plague, to an Earthquake and a level 14 Huge Hyperintelligent Shark.  The game comes packed with 168 cards (92 Door and 76 Treasure), 12 Seal cards (which I'll get to in a moment) and an orange and green Munchkin die.  Oh, and a rule sheet.

The new variations to Munchkin Apocalypse are to the classes and there are no race cards, although there very well could be race cards such as "Mutant," "Human," "Zombie" or "Alien" in a future expansion.  Like any variation of Munchkin, there are curse-type cards which have been relabeled as "Disaster" cards, weapons and gear that everyone can equip and certain pieces that only the Scientist, Blogger, Militia or Kid class cards may be able to use.

What stands Munchkin Apocalypse apart from other base Munchkin sets is the inclusion of the Seal cards.  Yes, there is a drawing of a mammal seal that is part of the seal. . . seal.  Seal cards are similar to the Dungeon and Crypt cards in traditional Munchkin and Munchkin Cthulhu.  Whenever any card says to open a "Seal," you turn over one of the twelve cards and do what it says.  There's usually an effect that happens to the person who opens the Seal such as "The highest-Level player(s) go down a level."  Then there are continuing effects ("The highest-Level player(s) have a -3 penalty in combat.") as long as that one Seal is still on top of the Seal deck.  The continuing effects are only in effect as long as the card is on top of the Seal cards in play.

Seal cards can be "closed" which our group took to mean that they are placed back in the Seal deck.  The catch though with the Seal deck is that once the seventh Seal card is turned (by seventh, we took to mean, the seventh Seal opened and "in play," not counting the Seals that were closed), the game ends.  Then the person with the highest combat bonus with only the equipped cards they had in play, wins.  Levels do not count.  With the Seals though, hypothetically, a person at level one could win if they're equipped up the ass and just haven't turned over any monster cards, which happens at least once every game.

With all that in mind, the Seals added a new stratagem to how our usual Munchkin group (Conklederp, Coolman, Geroge I Am and one other person) played, which is usually let people progress without issue until about level seven or eight then people start backstabbing.  George I Am ended up winning after the seventh Seal was opened as she had a combat bonus of +21.  The game lasted just over an hour, which is pretty standard and we skipped a second game so that we could bottle some cider and maple wine.  Yes, we're those kinds of people.

In closing, I would recommend Munchkin Apocalypse to someone who's never played Munchkin before or for someone who is looking for another fun variation on the traditional Munchkin game.  You're not getting an entirely new and original game with all new rules, just a brand new repackaging of a fun and addicting game.  So yes, you should go out and buy it, or find someone else who already has.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Is 0 or 1 The Last Life?

Never Stopped Feeling Like a 12 Year Old Geek.

Last Thursday, Conklederp and I were having Coolman over for a game of Munchkin and I had previously thought that a d10 die would be perfect to keep track of your level, which apparently Steve Jackson and Company had previously thought of, but are no longer producing.  Now between the two of us, Conklederp and I have three full sets of D&D dice (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20 & d100) and I didn't want to take the d10's out of each little box and possibly lose them.  I wanted dedicated dice for the sole purpose of being used in Munchkin.

The obvious solution was to go to a pseudo close by gaming store, except the closeness of said gaming store meant driving through a downtown area of a smallish yuppie-ville, over an apparently crumbling bridge and then all the way back.  So a 16.6 mile round trip for 6d10 worth of dice.  Enter Yelp to see if I could locate a closer gaming, or even a comic store that might sell d10 dice.  As it turned out, there is a gaming store less than five miles away.  I'll go there, and pick up some Dutch Bros. coffee on my way back, because I have a horrible love affair with caffeine.

We'll now jump ahead to the part when I'm at Dutch Bros., after I was convinced that I had been on the wrong road for Epic Games and made a U-turn, only to discover 3/4 of the way to Dutch Bros., that I was, in fact, on the correct street.  So I pull up to the ordering window, order my iced ER911 and sit back.  Then the  guy at the window turns to me and says, "So, what are you doing today?"  It's a simple/normal enough question.  I just wasn't expecting to be talked to after the initial ordering.  I also took a moment to answer.  My first thought was, "Well, I'm going to a gaming store to buy some d10's for a game of Munchkin that I'm going to be playing with friends later tonight."

For some reason, I felt mildly shamed at possibly replying with that sentence.  And that bothered me.  The fact that I'm 32 years old, and I felt even the slightest bit like I'm being judged in that I was out to do something incredibly geeky as buy dice  Not to mention that it wasn't a six sided die either, but one with ten sides!!  So I ended up just saying that I was going to a store to buy dice, not bothering to mention the Munchkin part of it in fear that I would have to talk to this person further and try to explain what Munchkin was.  Don't get me wrong though, he didn't seem like a bad/intimidating person, I just get uncomfortable talking to people, mainly when they're people in public.  Or people on the phone, but that will come up later in Friday's post.  So naturally (??), the guy said "You're buying dice?  What're they for?"  Now, I get that he's just trying to be nice and trying to make conversation, but in my head I was thinking "God damn, please stop talking to me."  I instead say, "They're dice, for um, like Dungeons & Dragons."  He then said something about needing coffee for that, I said something like "Yup."  I then received my coffee, I thanked him, then drove off blaring Russian folk metal, because that's what I was listening to before I drove up to the window.

As I drove away, I thought, "Holy shit, that was similar to part of Ken Levine's keynote from PAX 2008." 

The entire keynote can be watched here.

 Granted in Ken Levine's story, he actually was being laughed at and I felt like I could've been laughed at.  

The point is, I shouldn't have to feel like that.  Ever.  And I shouldn't let myself feel that way just because the purpose of my leaving our apartment was to buy coffee and buy 6d10.  I guess it's something that I'll still have to learn to get over.  And in the meantime, I'll listen to this song again:

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Part III of Munchkin Will Be Published On Friday.

Confession Time:  I was actually working backstage in the main theatre at PAX when Ken Levine was giving his keynote address.  At that time, I hadn't played Bioshock and didn't even know who Ken Levine was.  And it wasn't until I got the PAX08 DVD's after working PAX09, that I watched his keynote that I finally saw what all the visual jokes were.  I'm pretty slow on some fronts.