Monster Crunch: It's now OK to play with your food

Halloween is officially upon us and it's driving me a little bonkers. I deserve some credit for not showing up to work everyday wearing a Ben Cooper "Sleestak" costume, but so far my efforts have gone unacknowledged. The universe is a cold, indifferent place.

For once, though, the Halloween Gods have smiled favorably upon us. Big G Creative has produced a table-top game based on General Mills' always-classic "Monster Cereals" and they've brought the whole gang! Count Chocula, Franken Berry and Boo Berry make routine returns to the shelves every Halloween, Fruit Brute and Fruity Yummy Mummy are spotted less often these days than Bigfoot. They are a welcome presence. Here's a summary of Monster Crunch! The Breakfast Battle Game:

In this fast-paced game of luck and strategy, players collect as many Cereal Cards in their Bowls as they can. Each Monster has special powers to give you an advantage and help you gobble up the most cereal. Use Milk Tokens to combine Cereal Cards and take bigger bites. The Monster Cereal character that munches the most wins the game!

You can get a closer look at the game's contents on Amazon, and watch watch video of a playthough of "Monster Crunch" courtesy of Board Game Geek's "Gamenight!" series.

DARK SHADOWS VS. CARDS AGAINST HUMANITY

I was going snowblind this week from proofing BRIDE OF MONSTER SERIAL, the follow-up to last year's MONSTER SERIAL book. So, I thought I'd step away for a few days and create something fun: A Cards Against Humanity deck inspired by DARK SHADOWS.

It's an idea I've been kicking around for a while. After all, the game seems to be tailor-made for all things DARK SHADOWS. Here's the game description from the official website:

Cards Against Humanity is a party game for horrible people. Unlike most of the party games you've played before, Cards Against Humanity is as despicable and awkward as you and your friends.  The game is simple. Each round, one player asks a question from a black card, and everyone else answers with their funniest white card.

The publisher is selling professionally made Cards Against Humanity decks, but also provides a free PDF file of their cards so that you can print and make your own. That's what I've done with this COLLINSPORT AGAINST HUMANITY deck. Inside this PDF file you'll get:

* 96 Black Cards. These are the "question" cards."
* 96 White Cards. These are the "answer" cards.
* 2 pages of dark and light artwork to use on the reverse side of each card. These are totally unnecessary, but I've included this art if you want to make a deck of cards that looks interesting.
* Please visit the official CARD AGAINST HUMANITY website to find the rules of the game: http://cardsagainsthumanity.com/

After hitting a creative wall yesterday, I polled some of my readers on Tumblr, who kicked in a number of questions and answers for these cards. If not for them, you probably wouldn't be reading this.

That being said: Don't be surprised if you spot an occasional typo in the cards. There might be a number of "duds," as well ... you know, cards that look like they might work in game play, but actually don't? If you're finding cards that do nothing but cause problems, please let me know.

And, finally, a WARNING. While these cards are fairly tame when compared to other Cards Against Humanity decks, they can still be a little ... lewd. Do say I didn't warn you.

You can download the PDF by clicking HERE.

UPDATE

If you're going to play CARDS AGAINST HUMANITY with a group of people (and you really should) then a 96-card deck probably won't get you very far. With that in mind, I've created a PDF file containing all of these cards in a design that's compatible with the original deck. Just print them out, cut them up and shuffle them into whatever CARDS AGAINST HUMANITY deck you happen to be using. If you don't already have one, you can download the original deck from the game's website HERE.

HERE is the link for the basic deck of DARK SHADOWS game cards. Enjoy!

It's a DARK SHADOWS Fiasco!

FIASCO is a game that's been getting a lot of heat in recent months. Generally, RPGs are a strange balance of left-brain/right-brain sensibilities, the kind of activity that needs both an active imagination and a solid set of mathematical skills. It's not enough to know how strong you character is, you've got be be able to factor in things like agility, armor class and weapon benefits. And, since it's a social activity, you sometimes have to do this while a little drunk.

I've always loved the idea of RPGs, but not so much the mechanics. Advanced Dungeons and Dragons always felt like a protracted SAT test to me ... I liked the idea of it, but didn't feel like I should need an RPG legal library in order to have a good time. Along comes FIASCO to save the day! Here's how the publishers describe it:

"FIASCO is an award-winning, GM-less game for 3-5 players, designed to be played in a few hours with six-sided dice and no preparation. During a game you will engineer and play out stupid, disastrous situations, usually at the intersection of greed, fear, and lust."

Does that sound like DARK SHADOWS to you? Because it does to me. It's an role playing game that actually feels like a game, and one that won't have you turning to the rule book every 30 seconds to settle an argument. If that doesn't make any sense, Tor Books has an interesting look at the game, as well as some video of the game in action (including none other that Wil Wheaton of STAND BY ME and STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION among the players.)

It was just a matter of time before someone created a DARK SHADOWS module for FIASCO. I'd given it some thought, myself, and mentioned to idea to PATRICK McCRAY. Being an overachiever, he had the first draft of the module written in a few days. I designed the package, made a few tweaks and viola! Here it is, in all it's gloomy and doomy glory.

You can download the module as a PDF file by clicking THIS LINK.

If you're looking for the rule book (and the module won't make much sense without it) you can find it on AMAZON.