[TT] Munchkin Shakespeare

Munchkin Shakespeare is Munchkin with lots of Shakespeare references. If you like either or both of those two things, this is for you.

When I think of Steve Jackson Games, I think of Ogre, GURPS, and Illuminati. I think of hardcore gamer games with niche appeal. And then they published Munchkin, which apparently pays for everything else they do. If you are not familiar with Munchkin: it is a casual, humorous card game, distilling fantasy RPGs down to “kick open the door, kill the monster, loot the room, stab your friends in the back.” It is light, but it is entertaining. There are now several dozen versions, some of which have more than a dozen expansions. They cross all genres and frequently cross over with other games. This is SJGames’s equivalent of Monopoly (except that Monopoly is kind of horrible).

Munchkin Shakespeare had a successful Kickstarter, so much so that they made a deluxe edition. The deluxe Munchkin games come with decorate bits that add fluff but no crunch, primarily a board. People seem willing to pay more for bigger boxes and a board than for decks of cards you could store in a sandwich baggie. The board is genuinely useful for tracking levels. (If you ever want a safe Kickstarter campaign, Steve Jackson Games is good for that. Unlike folks making their first game, they have been doing this for almost 40 years. They deliver what they say they will, on time, even stretch goals extend the project. These are professionals.)

Our friends liked Munchkin Shakespeare over the (few) other sets they have seen. It has the usual mechanics, refined and clarified over the course of a decade. The humor is good, with lots of bonuses for literature majors. It is entirely appropriate to pause the game for a soliloquy. You might fight Two Bees, or the more dangerous Not Two Bees. You might wield the Slings and Arrows of outrageous fortune. And those are just the first Hamlet jokes that come to mind. Many of the jokes are obvious or explained, others are left as Genius Bonuses.

It’s fun.

: Zubon