Italian board game publisher Ares Games has announced plans to release a wink-flipping battle game called Micro Monsters.  The game is intended for kids ages six and up, and is scheduled to release in March.  Micro Monsters was originally slated to be released in the U.S. by Nexus Games (see “Micro Monsters to Invade U.S.”), which shut down last year (see “Nexus Games RIP”).

 

Ares Games was established in 2011 to take over production of the War of the Ring board game and the Wings of Glory series of airplane combat games from Nexus (see “Ares Games Gets Rights to ‘War of the Ring’” and “Ares Games Acquires ‘Wings of War’”).  Now Micro Monsters joins the roster of games formerly published by Nexus to be released by Ares.

 

Micro Monsters was designed by Francesco Nepitello and Marco Maggi, and represents the third iteration of their wink-based game system.  This is a simplified version of the game system originally developed for Micro Mutants (published in 2010 by Fantasy Flight and Nexus) and X-Bugs (published in 2001 and Steve Jackson and Nexus).

 

The playing pieces are sturdy plastic tokens or “winks” that feature a silly little toy-like monster, such as the wheeled reptile “Autogators,” the plushy “BigBears,” the inflatable “Finbacks,” or even the rocket-powered “Turboturtles.”  Many of the creatures have special abilities which can be activated by the roll of the special die in the game.  All four breeds of creatures are included in the basic game.

 

Game play centers around flipping or flicking the playing pieces like the classic game of tiddlywinks.  The special game die tells the players which pieces to flip or which special abilities to use. 

 

Micro Monsters is playable by two to four players, and plays in 15 to 30 minutes.