loading...
Please Take Note: This is a review of the game’s final prototype. The art, game bits, and the rules discussed are all subject to change. The game is being reviewed on the components and the rules provided with the understanding that “what you see is not what you might get” when the game is published. If you like what you read and want to learn more, we encourage you to visit the game’s official web site or visit the Kickstarter project page to back it and get yourself a copy! Now that we have all that disclaimer junk out of the way, on with the review!
The Basics:
- For ages 4 and up (designer suggests 6+)
- For 3 to 6 players
- About 15 minutes to complete
Geek Skills:
- Active Listening & Communication
- Counting & Math
- Hand/Eye Coordination & Dexterity
- Memorization & Pattern Matching
- Reflex & Speed
Learning Curve:
- Child – Easy
- Adult – Easy
Theme & Narrative:
- What Mad Scientist is complete without a Monster? Time to grab your shovel, visit your local graveyard, and get the right body parts to build your own Monster before your rival Mad Scientists do!
Endorsements:
- Gamer Geek rejected!
- Parent Geek approved!
- Child Geek approved!
Overview
It’s tough being a Mad Scientist! Everyone fears you, the pay is lousy, and you spend most of your time either avoiding angry peasants or nosy kids with a talking dog. In fact, one would be wise to avoid the profession altogether if it weren’t for the fact that the benefits are awesome! Creepy castle, eccentric lab assistants, and let’s not forget your very own “build-and-control” Monster! Of course, finding the bits for your Monster can be a problem, especially when you have competition! It’s an arms, legs, head, body, and brains race to the finish line where fame, fortune, and global domination await the victor!
FrankenDie is comprised of 8 six-sided die, and 42 Body Parts tokens, and 1 Graveyard token. The six-sided die have one of the five Body Parts (body, head, arm, leg, and brain) and a lightning bolt which is only used when a player has completed their Monster.
The FrankenDie game bits - Body Part tokens, Graveyard token, and the dice!
Game Set Up
Pretty straight forward. Grab your friends and sit down at the family lab table. Place the Graveyard token in the middle where all the players can easy reach (read: “slap”) it without pulling a tendon. To decide who goes first, see which player can do their best impression of a Mad Scientist yelling “IT’S ALLLIIIIIVE!”, act like Frankenstein’s Monster, or my personal favorite, scream like Fay Wray. Once the group decides the winner, they are crowned the “First Player” and all 8 dice are passed to them with as much fanfare as the group cares to muster.
Monster Building for Dummies
The object of the game is to be the first player to collect 1 head, 1 brain, 1 body, 2 legs, and 2 arms to build your Monster and then bring it to life through the means of natural electrical discharge of a very short duration and high voltage between a cloud and the ground or “lightning” to the layperson not aptly versed in the Mad Scientist lingo. But I’m getting ahead of myself as you first need to visit the graveyard to do a little digging.
On a player’s turn, they roll all 8 of the dice. Turn order only determines who is rolling the dice. Throughout the entire game, all the players, regardless if they are rolling are not, are playing! Once the dice stop fumbling and jumbling, all the players scan the dice as fast as they can to identify “sets”. A “set” is any body part or lightning bolt of any number shown on the dice. The first player to identify a set shouts it out and quickly slams their hand down on the Graveyard token. The next player does the same and so on until all the players have slapped their hands down or decide not to. Players need not call the same set.
Starting with the bottom player, their called set is verified by looking at the dice. For example, if the player called out “3 Brains”, they check to see if there are no more and no less than 3 Brains shown on the dice. If there called set is verified, they are awarded that Body Part token. If not, well, better luck next time. If they already have that body part, that do not collect it.
Note that the Body Parts need not be collected in any specific order. You can get your brain first and the head later or collect an arm and a leg without a body to attach them to. Beggars cannot be choosers when digging in the graveyard at night, after all. A wise Mad Scientist will take what they can get!
The round continues with the player’s hand above the first and so on, working your way up the hand pile, until two players are awarded a Body Part token or all the player’s calls have been resolved. If two players call out the same correct Body Part set count, only the first person is awarded the Body Part. However, since only the first two players are awarded for correct set counts, and the rest go home packing, this ends the round with only one player taking back to their lab the Body Parts they needed.
It is completely acceptable to call out a Body Part you do not need in order to stop another rival from claiming them. While the player will not collect the Body Part in question if they already have it, they stop their rival from claiming it which, honestly, feels pretty good. What is not acceptable is calling out a “zero set”. For example, a player cannot call out “Zero Brains!” There must always be at least one of the Body Part shown on the dice before it can be called.
Once the round ends, the game continues with the dice passed to the next player to the left.
The Trouble with Success
If any player has more Body Part tokens then any other player, they are considered the “Lead Genius” and must always be the first player to slap their hand down to claim a Body Part. Failure to do so immediately disqualifies them from claiming any Body Part sets for that round. Ties in Body Part counts do not count and do not make the two or more players with the same Body Parts “Lead Geniuses”. The only exception to this rule is when a player has all 7 Body Parts (1 head, 1 brain, 1 body, 2 arms, and 2 legs) to form a completed Monster body. Whoever has their entire Monster on their slab ready to bring to life must always be the first player to slap down to claim a set!
An example of a completed Monster
Epic Lightning Win!
Once a player has all 7 Body Parts, they need only bring it to life with a bit of lightning. Lightning bolts are one of the six images on the die and they are called out as a set in the same way as the body parts. Remember that any player who has a completed Monster must be the first player to smack their hand down on the Graveyard token to claim their set! If they are not or fail to correctly state the number of lightning bolts, they must wait until the next round to bring their creation to life.
Once the player with the full Monster body does bring their creature to life by calling out and being the first to claim the lightning set, they are declared the winner and are highly encouraged to cackle madly and dance an evil jig around the table!
Prediction
My little geeks and I love playing another dice monster game, Zombie Dice. However, the game lacks character interaction as the other players do nothing but watch their opponents roll the dice. Sometimes a game of Zombie Dice can go on a bit too long as players continue to risk and lose. There have been a number of times where my little geeks will want to stop playing out of boredom or growing frustration with the dice rolls. From what I have read about FrankenDie, it would appear that boredom will be the last thing on my little geek’s minds when playing the game!
The rules are very straight forward and easy. It took me only a few minutes to go over the rules and provide my two oldest little geeks (4 and 7-years-old) some examples before they demonstrated they understood the rules and how the game was played, brilliantly. I was immediately impressed that my 4-year-old was just as fast as my 7-year-old and their skill level appeared to be equally matched! This would make a game with them most interesting, to say the least! As I watched them “practice”, I began to get the impression that I was going to be the “slow player”!
THIS WOULD NOT STAND!
As I wrestled the dice away from my little geeks’ hands and got them to sit down around the table, I asked them what they thought of the game so far.
“I really, really like this! It reminds me of Zombie Dice but is much faster.” ~ Liam (age 7)
“I’m going to build a big monster and crush you, Liam!” ~ Nyhus (age 4)
Oh, I’m so excited! My two little geeks are chomping at the bit to play the game and are leaning in ready to pounce on the Graveyard token! This is going to be a fast game, but will it be fun? Let’s find out!
Final Word
My little geeks were awesome at playing FrankenDie! They were fast and cunning, often just beating me to the Graveyard token. They had the clear advantage as I purposely held back my slaps out of fear of hitting their hands too hard. They took full advantage of this, I am sure. I played several games with both of them and each game came down to a battle for the lightning bolts. Not once did any of us get left behind and everyone was more or less at the same stage of Monster building, making the lightning rolls very exciting!
Perhaps the most memorable of games was my 7-year-old little geek, Liam, versus Father Geek staff member, Karl. The game was fast and furious with Karl not letting up or “playing easy” against my son. Not that he had a chance to, mind you, as Liam was playing aggressively from the very beginning. Eventually Karl got the upper hand and had a completed Monster with Liam only missing one Body Part. The dice were rolled and Karl called a lightning bolt, but he hit the table too hard and some of the dice, including the one with the lightning bolt (supposedly), crashed to the floor! House Rules state that a dice off the table is a dice not counted. The roll was therefore canceled and re-rolled. Liam smashed his hand down first to claim the needed Body Part token. Recall that you must be the first player to slam your hand down if you have a completed Monster body. By slapping his hand down first, Liam had locked Karl out! Now that they both had a completed Monster body and it was anyone’s game!
The tension was running high at the table as Karl rolled the dice. As fast as the lightning he was looking for, Liam called the lightning bolt set and slapped his hand down BEFORE Karl could even blurt out a sound! I checked the set called and verified it was correct. Liam had won and pumped his fists in the air in victory! Karl could do nothing but watch silently, head down, and sulk.
Mad Scientists, Dr. "Mad Skillz" Karl and Dr. "Awesome" Liam, battle it out for the epic win!
Gamer Geeks, FrankenDie is a great game, but does not have enough depth to be given the “Gamer Geek approval” rating. It is designed to be a light and fun party game. As a result, the game depth is shallow and the degree of strategy and tactics is light at best. The game could serve you well as a light filler in the same way as Zombie Dice would, but you won’t be making an evening out of FrankenDie. Do check it out if you are in the market for a quick filler game, but don’t expect anything other than a party game with fun mechanics and quick game play.
Parent Geeks, this is a light-hearted, fast, and fun matching game that little geeks and big geeks can play together easily. The learning curve is exceedingly easy making the game almost immediately accessible to a wide range of ages and game playing experiences. Even non-gamers will enjoy FrankenDie making it a fun game to bring to the family table when you have a diverse group of people. Game play is quick and all the players remain involved from start to finish leaving almost no downtime for minds to wonder or interest to wane. From start to finish, it’s non-stop action and players must focus or be quickly left behind!
Child Geeks, this is a great Monster building game you can play with your friends and family with very little time needed to get it out and start the fun! Roll the dice and call out a set to collect the necessary Body Parts to create your ultimate Monster! You’ll need a sharp mind, a quick tongue, and lightning-like reflexes to win, but you already have an advantage over the adults! Your younger, smaller, and quicker! Ha-ha! Take that, Grownups!
FrankenDie is a very entertaining Monster/Mad Scientist themed party game that is already being improved with new options and ideas. The base game, as described in this article, will provide all the players a fast and furious game experience where physical reflexes are just as important as mental reflexes. Adding to the game’s enjoyment is a planned expansion that will provide the player’s with Mad Scientists with special abilities. This expansion alone could bump the game from “Gamer Geek rejected” to “Gamer Geek approved” making it a game well worth watching and getting excited about!
For now, with only the base game to play with, I am very content. It has replaced our copy of Zombie Dice and is quickly becoming a family favorite. FrankenDie was designed to be entertaining and it most certainly delivers. Do check it out if you are a fan of fast games suitable for the family that provide excitement and entertainment! Learn more about the game by visiting the game’s official web site or visit the Kickstarter project page.
This game was given to Father Geek as a review copy. Father Geek was not paid, bribed, wined, dined, or threatened in vain hopes of influencing this review. Such is the statuesque and legendary integrity of Father Geek.
Share the goodness!
You might also be interested in:
Man… I still protest to this day that I am the true winner! Liam gets a solid asterisk by his victory!!!!!
Sorry, Karl, but Liam’s victory is 100% legit.
You have no one but yourself and your manly muscles to blame for the knocked off the table dice.
Perhaps, if you spent more time eating potato chips and watching TV instead of exercising and working out, this wouldn’t have happened….
What a great review! Thank you for the praise and support.
[...] games, such as Zombie Dice and FrankenDie, are HUGE hits with my little geeks and see a great deal of action during the weekend and on the [...]