Drawing game for testing, review and criticism

Who will draw the scariest monster of all time? Creativity, luck – five monster dice and a horror meter – and you're ready to play Mal mal 'n Monster by Joan Dufour and Benoit Turpin (YIKES!).

There's a horror meter that sounds great on its own. I immediately had my nieces excited about trying out the kids' toy with me. I'll reveal how it went down in this review.

Structure is sometimes a monster

The children's game was prepared quickly. We place the horror meter in the middle of the table. The monster tile is next to it. Each player gets a piece of paper and a pencil. Individual “monster characteristics” appear at the top of each drawing sheet. There are a total of six different features in the game: eyes, teeth, legs, arms, horns, and accessories. The sheet also has two sides. On one side there is an outline of a monster and a mouth. On the other hand, there are only monster properties and the space allocated to your monster.

These six features can also be found on the sides of the dice. There are also three sizes of horror slides for each of these features – size 2, 3 and 5. These chips fit perfectly into the four columns of the Horror Scale.

Each player chooses a color and gets a monster piece of their color. This color can also be found on the Scary-o-meter and identifies the player's column.

Monsters Are Coming: Gameplay

After the game is set up, one player starts and rolls more dice than the number of players in the round. Now he chooses a template and first marks on his paper the property that corresponds to the chosen template. Then things get creative – now you can decorate your own monster with this feature.

Meanwhile, other players can also take turns choosing dice and continue designing their monster. So the waiting time is very short because everyone can draw at almost the same time. We have implemented cool ideas for the “Accessories” feature: balloons, backpacks, scarves, hats or scooters.

Easy decisions – a lot of fun

I mark each chosen template on my paper in the highlighted columns. After the second, third, or fifth intersection of a feature, I can decide if I've drawn enough of that feature.

I decided that three eyes were enough. The scary three slide was still there and I threw it into the shaft of my scary meter. If I choose a segment, I won't be allowed to choose that feature from now on.

If there is only one eye die left on my turn, I can take a cosmetic chip instead. This is size 1 and after I throw it in the Spooky-o-Meter, I can draw a background for my monster – for example a mountain, a sun, or a playground like my niece.

game over

In each new round, the starting marker and dice are passed to the left. If a player's highest Scary chip comes out of the Scary Scale, he or she wins the Draw a Monster game.

Concluding my review of the monster

We all enjoyed drawing monsters. Even the grandmother participated in the painting. For another round we used our own colored pencils – four pencils are included in the game itself.

After a few rounds of testing, the kids also enjoyed rolling monster dice and drawing their own monsters. And of course each monster was the scariest monster ever.