Terror in Meeple City Review

Terror in Meeple City can be described simply and succinctly with one word: Fun. From the minute you open the box and see the giant bag o' meeples and thick chunky monsters, through set up where you build meeple towers out of people and cardboard floors (complete with polar bear meeple-skin rugs), and into the meat of the game where you and your friends are laughing and cheering as trucks, buildings, and monsters alike go flying across the table, you will be having more fun playing a board game than you have in a while.

Where most dexterity games are about precision accuracy and controlled movement, Terror in Meeple City is unapologetically about destruction. Those fun towers you build will not last long as every action and movement in this game is about knocking and blowing over buildings or even attacking your opponents by throwing trucks at them. Many dexterity games can fall flat when you just can’t seem to accurately hit your target or have a bad string of flicks, but Terror in Meeple City ensures that even an errant flick will probably smash something down which is pure tactile joy even if you don’t score any points. This game is challenging enough to make you think yet will still have you laughing during everyone's turn. It doesn't feel like there is any downtime, and the 30-40 minutes you spend playing fly by.

This is a game that revels in itself. It is loud (first player goes to the person who makes the best monster noise), it is brash (if you don’t dodge flying wooden pieces that’s on you), and most importantly it brilliantly contains the action to the gorgeous square board. There are rules and penalties to ensure you keep your pieces and the meeples on the board that also manage to prevent any Serious Gamers from getting self-conscious about roaring, flicking, blowing those towers over. From the moment you get your special power cards and introduce yourself as a Pacifist Star Dancer to later in the game when you flip your secret power and steal 2 meeples from another monster’s belly with a Passionate Kiss you and your friend’s will quickly slip into the role of cartoony monsters.

One of the other great things about Terror in Meeple City is how accessible it is. In my opinion, Terror in Meeple City is a fantastic gateway game on the level of Ticket to Ride and other gateway classics. Everyone knows and is familiar with Jenga, there is enough strategy in Terror in Meeple City to elevate it past simply being a toy, and you will definitely get statements like "woah I didn't know there were board games like this!". The game sets up and plays quickly and the simple rule set makes it easy to pick up and start playing immediately. Because of how much pure fun the game is, it's also one that people will want to play again and again.

Unfortunately, Terror in Meeple City has one glaring issue that brings the game crumbling down. When it comes time to score the game, you receive points for each floor and enemy tooth you've consumed, but you only receive points for each full set of meeples (6 different colors) you've eaten. This means that it is entirely possible to have eaten more meeples than anyone else yet score 0 points! Remember that this is a bold game of destruction; the joy of Terror in Meeple City is in the SMASH BOOM BANG of the thing. If the best move from a game perspective is ever to take 2 or more actions just moving around so you can grab 1 or 2 meeples of whatever color you need to complete a set, then something has gone horribly wrong. You don't have the ability to control how buildings fall and meeples bounce enough to not get frustrated playing this as a Game-with-a-capital-G.

If you want a dexterity game about precision movement and calculated turns then you may want to consider looking elsewhere. On a shelf full of deep strategic games, Terror in Meeple City stands out as shining star where fun meets strategy in a light-hearted romp that turns ordinary adults into snarling, roaring, laughing, meeple-chomping monsters. If the scoring bugs you like it does me, a simple house rule that scores every meeple you eat is sufficient. It won’t unbalance the game any more than the dings, nicks, and dents that a well-loved copy will collect like merit badges over time.