My son makes board games.
He makes a new one every other day, it seems. If we get a package in the mail, he wants the box to make his game. There are dozens of cardboard board games, scribbled upon with markers, all over our house. Sometimes he uses Hot Wheels, GeoTrax and other toys.
Of course, he also likes Godzilla. He had an idea for a game and I was more than happy to help out:
Take a map of Japan, some posterboard, get some gashapon-type figures, some dice and a couple of Monopoly sets.
I got a map of Japan and divided it up:
The number in each space corresponds to the number of buildings there. We used pieces from Monopoly City and U-Build Monopoly for this.
The basic premise is simple: King Ghidorah and Gigan attack Japan. Mecha Godzilla is being constructed at a secret base and Godzilla is out at sea. As the two alien kaiju move into Japan, the Earth Defense Forces and Godzilla move to stop them.
Two players: Aliens versus Earth forces. Or three players: Earth versus Gigan and Ghidorah on a team OR the Aliens versus Godzilla and Earth forces on a team. Or four players: Gigan on a team with Ghidorah versus Godzilla on a team with the Earth forces. (If one player is playing a "team," they move one of their monsters and then the other each turn.)
Goal: for the Aliens, destroy all buildings in Japan; for the Earth forces, kill Ghidorah and Gigan (defeated in battle with another kaiju three times).
Roll a die for movement. Even means the monster can fly and thus moves two spaces that turn; odd means they walk and they only move one. Since Godzilla can't fly, he always moves one. Mecha Godzilla can't start moving until the tenth turn.
Once an alien kaiju moves into a city, roll the four-sided die to see how many buildings it destroys. The monsters can leave before all the buildings are destroyed, if the player wants.
When Godzilla moves into a city, he accidentally destroys one building (unless there's only one building left, in which case he destroys none).
In the Monopoly games, there are some nuclear power plant pieces, too. You'll note the two "atomic" symbols on the board. If a monster destroys the buildings there, they can keep the power plant piece and cash it in for extra dice rolls. If Godzilla rolls through a space with a nuke plant, grab a die, pick a number and if you roll it, Godzilla goes into meltdown and gets sent back to his start space and has to wait five turns.
The five black squares are bases for the Earth Defense Force. We used cheap army guys from a dollar store for them. They can move one space at a time at the end of the Earth Forces' turn.
If they are in a city when an alien monster attacks, the alien can't destroy the buildings. Using a twenty-sided die, the EDF player rolls and the alien player rolls. If the alien rolls higher, the EDF group is destroyed but the monster can't attack the city until the next turn. If the EDF player rolls the higher number, the monster is delayed. The EDF cannot kill a monster, but they can stall them until either Godzilla or Mecha Godzilla arrive. (The EDF does not attack Godzilla.) At the end of the next turn of the EDF player, the destroyed army can be regenerated at one of the five bases on the board but 1) not if an army is in that space and 2) not if an alien monster is in that space.
When two opposing kaiju occupy the same space, it's battle time. Each side rolls the twenty-sided die and it's best of three. If two allied kaiju are in a space with an enemy kaiju, the side with two monsters gets to roll twice and total the rolls (it's still possible for the underdog to win). It's still best of three in that case. When a kaiju loses a fight with another kaiju, they have to either go back to their starting space or move four squares out to sea. Once a kaiju loses three monster battles, they're dead.
I think that's everything.
Have fun!
