My Big Fat Review
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What is Munchkin? Sounds like a snack, but it's not. Munchkin is a card based game very similar in humor to Zork or Kingdom of Loathing. If you haven't played those then the best way to describe it would be an off-the-wall-humor-dungeon-crawling card game. If your not into those things than it's not for you. If you are than you've just found gold. The game consists of several Races and Classes which have certain effects both negative and positive. Also certain weapons/armor can only be equipped to each Class or Race. There are some great cards in the deck such as Chainsaw of Bloody Dismemberment or Staff of Napalm. There's also Super Munchkin which allows you to use to Classes at the same time. One of my favorites is the Cheat Card which allows you to...well...cheat. There are also potion and curse cards you can use to help or hurt yourself or other players. A game can can last for an hour or two depending on how many people are playing. The other nice thing about this card game is you can start out with just one pack and add on later. There are several types of Munchkin games out there from Munckin Cthulhu to Munchkin Fu. I've only tried the original (with all 7 add on packs) and Cthulhu. Oh yeah you can mix all the different genres in together. At the heart of the game you will find part of the fun is working together with other players and then doing a bit of back stabbing. The game is really geared to screwing each other over. Quite fun and the humor in the game is quite original.
You'll find people who normally don't like board games or card games will enjoy Munchkin. It's different. I strongly recommend you have at least one person willing to thoroughly read the four pages of instructions and guiding everybody for a game or two. Once you've played once or twice it really does become second nature. My one gripe is that there are holes in the instructions. You can go to forums on the sjgames.com to find resolutions to conflicts you will encounter, but really it would be nice if Steve Jackson (the creator) just came up with a rules update. This game is really quite a bit of fun for the family. I would think most kids over 8 could play the game even though it's recommend for 12+. One last thing, make sure you don't accidentally buy Munchkin Quest. It is a completely different game, the cards from Munchkin don't work with it, and it's much more complex (definitely 12+). I'll be doing a review on it later, but for now give Munchkining a try.