In Quickpick: Island of the Monster Masks, players are visitors to the strange “Island of the Monster Masks,” home to a variety of unusual creatures. The visitors must wear masks themselves so that they can fit in among the island inhabitants, but in doing so it becomes impossible to identify who is a visitor and who is a native.
The game system combines pattern recognition with dexterity elements, along with simultaneous play. In each turn, a “mime” player draws a card and attempts to imitate the face on the card. The other players must guess which monster it is in order to collect a matching mask, and the player with the most masks wins the game.
Quickpick: Island of the Monster Masks was designed by Martino Chiacchiera and Benedetto degli Innocenti. It features artwork by Xin Mao. The game is for 3 - 8 players, ages 4 and up. MSRP is $14.90.
While Ares is best known for its more “hard core” wargames and historical games, it does produce a growing line of family-friendly games, including the comic-book themed Co-Mix, also scheduled to release in October (see “ ‘Co-Mix’ Competitive Storytelling Game”).
The relationship between the two companies will not be limited to a single project. Planplay has been distributing Ares product in China since 2011, and will be producing Chinese language editions of a number of Ares Games.
