Munchkin feels like a game with potential that is held back by a few key problems. The core mechanics are genuinely a lot of fun, and I love the way that it encourages collaboration, but only to a point. The interesting strategy that goes on between the players is quite entertaining. That said, it fails in a few aspects. Given that being a higher level allows you to fight higher level monsters, ending up at a low level when the rest of the players are higher level than you (which can happen by drawing one unlucky card) suddenly causes you to not be able to beat monsters to advance, and you can’t get treasure by bargaining with other players because you’re unable to help them due to your low level. Basically, you can just get knocked out of the running with one bad card draw and then you have to sit there and watch everyone else play the game. Another player spent basically the whole game at 1st level due to this very problem, and got kind of pissy and spiteful about it, which isn’t a great energy to be bringing to the game table. I think the game might benefit from having more single-use bonuses players could use to get back in the running. Also, it would be an act of blogger’s malpractice to let the artstyle and theming go unremarked upon. The theming is a kind of quirky, satyrical fantasy setting that is full of many boring, inane jokes, which combined with the horny and yet ugly artstyle made it feel like playing a Boomer newspaper comic. The art is genuinely so ugly, so horny, and inexplicably frequently so racist, that I have decided to issue a personal fatwa against artist John Kovalic. John, if you’re reading this, watch your back. Speaking of the horniness in the art (mostly the sexualization of female characters), some of the horny aspects of the game also feel kind of ahead of their time. The big titty catgirl card and forcefemme mechanics that feel like they came from the Rule34 side of the Internet in the 2020s. The horny racist art genuinely makes you feel like apologizing when you play some of the cards. I don’t think I’d play the standard game again, but my roommate does have a collectible Critical Role version of Munchkin, and maybe without the appalling art I’d be more forgiving of the janky mechanics.
