KING OF TOKYO

How To Play King Of Tokyo

OBJECTIVE OF KING OF TOKYO: Be the last monster standing.

NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 2 to 6 players

MATERIALS: 6 individual monster boards, 66 monster cards, 6 monster markers with plastic holders, 8 dice, 50 green cubed energy markers, 28 tokens that correspond to card effects, 1 rule booklet.

TYPE OF GAME Competitive Fighting game

AUDIENCE: For all players 8 years and older

OVERVIEW OF KING OF TOKYO

In King of Tokyo, you play as one of 6 monsters hoping to ransack the city of Tokyo. Your monster will be competing against others to be the best monster or at least the last one standing, to be crowned the King of Tokyo. 

Using dice to fight, collect energy, heal and gather points, you’ll be racing against the clock to either gather 20 victory points first or knock out your opponents.

SETUP

First, each player must choose the monster they wish to play as for the game and set their life (the heart icon) to 10 and their victory points (the star icon) to 0. Next, the board will need to be set up on a flat surface so that everyone may reach it easily. The King of Tokyo cards will need to be shuffled and placed centrally. 

The previously shuffled deck will have the top three cards dealt face up next to the board and have the card tokens placed near them as well. Next, all the green energy cubes should be pooled together and placed centrally. Finally set the black dice within easy reach of all player and set aside the green dice (these are only used if a player purchases specific cards).

GAMEPLAY

Rolling dice

Each player’s turn is split into 5 phases. The first phase requires the player to roll the 6 black dice provided by the game. You may roll the black decide up to three times, but you may stop rolling at any time after the first roll. After a player rolls the dice, they may pick any number of the dice they wish to reroll and roll them again they may do this a total of three times but after the third time all dice are locked in and you must take the responding action. 

Resolving Dice

This brings us to our next phase of resolving dice. You can resolve your dice in any order but if you are able to resolve them you must. Each symbol corresponds to a certain action you must do. Here are the actions possible.

Victory Points

Victory Points

If you roll three-of-a-kind of any of the numbers on the dice, you gain that number’s value in victory points. Each additional same number rolled earns you one additional victory point. For example, if you rolled three threes you would get 3 victory points; if you rolled 4 threes you would get 4 victory points. 

Energy

If you roll the energy symbol, the little green lightning, you gain that many energy cubes. For example, if you rolled three of the energy symbols you would bet three energy cubes. These are kept in front of you until you spend them on cards in the market.

Smash

If you roll a smash symbol, a monster hand, each monster not in the same place as you will lose one heart for each smash symbol you rolled. For example, if your monster was in Tokyo and you rolled 3 smash symbols each monster not in Tokyo loses three hearts.

Smash Symbol

If you are not in Tokyo and roll a smash symbol each monster in Tokyo will lose that many hearts and then they may decide to yield Tokyo or stay. If they yield your monster will now move into Tokyo in their place. Also, if you are the first monster to roll a smash symbol in the game you will do no damage because no monsters should be in Tokyo, but your monster will have to move into Tokyo.

If a monster loses his last heart a skull will show on the character card, they will lose all their energy cubes and cards they have purchased through the game.

Hearts

If you are not in Tokyo, you may gain one heart for every heart symbol you rolled. No monsters in Tokyo can gain life by rolling heart symbols. You also cannot gain more than 10 hearts.

ENTERING TOKYO

The next phase of a player’s turn is entering Tokyo. If no one is in Tokyo you must enter Tokyo, at the beginning of the game the first player will move into Tokyo during this phase of their turn, and in 5 to 6 player games, there will also be Tokyo Bay if this is empty the next player must enter Tokyo Bay. You may only leave Tokyo or Tokyo Bay if you lose a heart. You may then yield it to the player who caused damage. 

Markey Phase

The next phase of your turn is the market phase. You may buy cards for the market with your stored energy cubes. To buy a card you must pay the number of cubes indicated at the top of the card you wish to buy.

Once a card is bought a new card replaces it immediately. Player’s can also play 2 energy cubes to sweep all three cards into the discard pile and reveal new ones. A player may continue to buy/sweep cards as long as they have energy cubes to do so.

End of turn

Check your power cards before passing your turn as some of them activate when your turn is over. If you’ve completed all the actions above, you may pass your turn to the next player.

ENDING THE GAME

The game ends at the end of a round when either a monster has reached 20 Victory points or there is only one monster remaining. Whoever reaches one of these goals first is the King of Tokyo.

Nakoa Davis
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