Munchkin - Game Design and Production Blog 1 (INFR 2330)

Welcome to my blog ! For this initial post I will be talking about a game in which we had played within my first class of Game Design and Production at UOIT.

The name of the game that we had played is Munchkin. Within the world of Munchkin you have several races and character classes to choose from. For races, you have examples like elves, and half-lings, and for classes, you have things like thieves, warriors, and clerics.

This game is usually played with 3-6 people. In this case, we had 6 people in our group including myself, so we all took part in the game. With six people in our group, we had particularly long turns and, also, seeing as we were not used to this game, it took longer than an hour. Also, even though the game that we played took that long, we didn't even get to finish the game or even see as to who would win.

5 Things Liked About The Game:

Within Munchkin there are many various qualities that one could like. My favourite qualities within Munchkin is the gameplay, characters, monsters, skills, and the escaping system.

The gameplay within Munchkin is very unique. Though turn-based, it gives a certain thought process to a player while in their turn. After you draw a dungeon or 'door' card, you must flip it. If it doesn’t apply to you, then you can play a monster card from your hand that you can defeat, in order to level up. However if it applies to you in some way, shape, or form, then you must abide by it. If a monster, you must fight it. With this, if on another person's turn, hurt them, or backstab them within the instance that, if they are in a fight with a monster, you could send a negative bonus to them in which would lower their capability of fighting a monster and in turn could ruin their turn, kill them, or lower their level. This is the gameplay of the world of Munchkin!

When playing Munchkin, there are many types of characters of which you can become. As explained before, you have types of races and classes. Within classes, there are many choices. For classes, there are wizards, warriors, thieves, clerics, bards, and rangers. As for races, you have humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, orcs, and gnomes. With each of these character types, you have certain bonuses or certain skills that come along with the class or races. Thieves have backstabbing and thievery, while Elves have a better chance of escaping. With each of these different customizable features, a game of Munchkin can become very interesting.

Monsters within Munchkin are on a different level. Their sheer amount of hilarity on certain cards can make a game of Munchkin incredibly fun, or really difficult. For example, a lawyer monster does not touch a thief because of a relation in the type of business or trade. Therefore a thief is the same as a lawyer? This, along with different monsters with certain effects for certain races or classes make the game more exciting. When I had played during class with my group, a fellow group member was an elf, but a certain monster hated elves. He was lucky because it was not his turn, because if that monster was to face him, because of the monsters certain effect on hating elves, he would have died regardless. This makes the game of Munchkin incredibly funny depending on how you customize yourself within and for gameplay.

As said before with races and classes, they are paired with certain effects or skills that give bonus to the character and or, enable them to make certain actions within gameplay. Warriors have an ability so that if you are on the same level as a monster, the monster will die. This is different and has benefit because, within the game, you must have status effects or have bonuses that make you stronger than the monster or else you and the monster die together. For elves, with their running capability, they are able to run easier within a game. They have the skill so that they have to roll less of a number to run away when the normal price to roll, is 5 and 6 only. With all of these skills in Munchkin, they prove to be very fun to see, try, and modify.

Munchkin is a fair game when it comes to escaping without any bonuses. The way that they handle the escaping methods, is the player who is trying to escape rolls a die. If it lands on a 5 or a 6 as stated in the earlier paragraph, it is a successful escape. If not, then the player suffers the consequences that is stated on the monsters card. This is quite fair because, it is left up to probability to choose whether you are able to escape or not. With bonuses from treasure cards, races or classes, it increases the ability to escape, but even so, they also made it that with certain creatures, the escaping method would be harder for certain classes. The creators of Munchkin worked out the factors for escaping well, and made it fair for anyone who played.

5 Things Disliked About The Game:

Although stated above that there were many various qualities that one could like, there are also qualities that one could dislike. Among these dislikes, for me, I dislike the difficulty of getting items, teaming system, bonuses, death, and the levelling system.

In Munchkin, while playing, I found a problem with it. This problem, was obtaining treasures and items. Although you could obtain treasures easily from killing a monster, with the certain disadvantages that may happen, you could be at a low level, fighting an incredibly strong monster in which you would obviously die and lose items. Along with this, there are cards in which make you lose the items you have in possession. In general with the way that the treasure system was working, if one person would keep losing, they would never obtain a treasure and would continuously have a difficulty during a fighting phase.

Another problem that I had with Munchkin was the teaming system. When fighting a monster, if high level, you may team up with a person in which is also playing the game. What I dislike about this system, is that, with my knowledge, you are only allowed to team up with one person to fight the enemy and not multiple. In the case that neither of your powers are greater than the monster, you both fail and suffer a consequence. Also, when teaming up, certain skills used from a class would be applied to a team rather than one character individual. Ex. The Thief backstabbing skill.

Although bonuses come on treasure cards and classes or races, there are still some setbacks. With bonuses, for example, if you want two "big" weapons, to be wielded by your character, you cannot until you have a certain bonus card stating that you can. Also, if wanting a certain bonus, depending on what it is, you can only play it at certain times within game, when non-bonus cards like curses can be used anytime during gameplay.

Death, was a weird occurrence when it came to the game of Munchkin. In usual games, when you encountered death, you were done with the game, could not play again, and lose everything, however with Munchkin, you had to lose all your items, but you were able to keep the class in which you were and the race. You also just restarted the next turn that came around to you. This did not state that you were actually dead, but it more had the fact that you were back to a beginner, but with special allowances. For example, if you died, but you were a thief, the second you have more than two cards, you could use a thief skill, and backstab someone so that they lose a point of bonus on their character during a fight.

Levelling up in Munchkin can be one of the hardest things to do when there are many other players. The only ways to level are to beat monsters, get bonus cards, or buy your levels, in which the money you get is never refunded past the 1000 mark. Ex. If you have 2250, you get two levels, but lose the extra 250 in the process. If you get a bonus card, it is quite easy for other players to get rid of that card or one of your levels depending if they have a curse card or not. Also, if you cannot beat a monster, depending on their after-effect, you may encounter death, or lose level(s).

What I Would Change:

The one flaw that I could clearly see within the game of Munchkin would have to be the set of rules that is given. I would first make certain sections in which would show and explain how to do each occurrence within the game. When it pertains to death, I would either make certain monsters have a certain effect that when one would die, they lose the game and cannot re-enter. Also, when dead you completely restart, which means no cards, and just draw four cards the next turn. When levelling, I would make it so that the money used to level, could be stockpiled, so you can use the next amount of 1000 which includes your stockpiled amount to get to your next level. As for bonuses, id make it so that they can be used at any instance, and not just on your turn, and not as difficult to obtain. With the teaming system, what I would do, is make it so any amount of people can team up, and certain skills could be used on one person, two, three, and so on. For treasures and items, I would make it easier to obtain, as such for example, you would be able to obtain one treasure for each turn you do not have any in possession.

If you have any comments, post them in the comment section below..

NO I AM NOT COPYING RAY WILLIAM JOHNSON.

Kazekumaru -- Peacing out!

Questions to consider:

1. Basing on what you saw of my likes, what would you say about Munchkin?
2. Looking at the dislikes, would you still want to look further into Munchkin?