New Game Round-up: Gigantoskop Introduces Primate Fear, Pixels and Asante Come to the U.S. & L5R Love Letter

As in Spank the Monkey, players scrounge around trying to find junk to build towers and locate parts for reinforcements to make the towers stronger, but they're not trying to reach the monkey and spank it this time. Oh, no. On the contrary, they are trying to get as far away from it as possible because this monkey is not a mischievous nuisance but rather a reanimated zombie monstrosity of an ape. Once the players have stumbled over all the monkey parts and the monkey awakes, it will climb after the players, eating the brains of the ones it catches until only one player remains – the winner.

In game terms, each player starts with a hand of five cards. On a turn, a player draws 1-2 cards, then plays at most one Junk card to start or continue building his tower and at most one Reinforcement card to strengthen his highest Junk card. He can also play one or more Attack cards on opponents to try to demolish their towers, lowering them within reach of Frankenmonkey. Players can use Defense cards to try to ward off attacks, with the active player rolling a die to see whether an attack succeeds. If it does, that player's tower might further crumble as the junk collapses on top of other junk.

Each time a player uses a card with a monkey claw on it, a new part is added to Frankenmonkey on the assembly board; if the monkey is complete, then the claw raises the monkey up one level on the height board. At the end of each player's turn, the monkey (if still complete) rises one level, eliminating players at that same height.

Players can use Primate Fear cards with Spank the Monkey rules and vice versa, or they can combine the games, with the goal being to spank the monkey before anyone else while still having your brain intact.