Knock Knock Out
- Board's Eye View
- 30m
- 2 min read
Knock Knock Out is a light filler-length card game from Homosapiens Lab. It's played with a deck of creature cards showing cartoon representations of various classic monsters (skeleton, mummy, vampire, werewolf, Creature from the Black Lagoon, etc). Each creature card has its own particular effect. The game is designed by Chen Chih-Fan and Joel, and it takes 2-6 players.
At the start of the game two cards are placed out face up in a central row. Players are each dealt two cards which they can look at but they are placed face down in front of them. Gameplay is super easy: on your turn you can either flip a card from the draw deck and add it to the central row, implementing its effect, or, instead of flipping a card, you can take a card from the central row and add it to the cards in front of you, placed face down. The iconography showing each creature card's effect is soon assimilated; helped by an explanatory key card. Cards played to your own tableau don't get activated. If at the end of a player's turn there are seven different creature cards in the central row, that player wins the game. If ever there are seven creature cards in front of a player, that player is eliminated from the game.
This is a push-your-luck game but it's also a game involving bluff and misdirection because players don't know what cards are in each other's tableaus and the card effects manipulate the game. For example, there are monsters that require that you 'attack' the player to your left or right: they have to reveal one of their face-down cards and if it's the same as another face-up card in their tableau they are eliminated from the game.
Tho' most plays will end up with some players eliminated, Knock Knock Out is a brisk game that plays in around 10 minutes, so even if you're knocked out early in the game you won't be expected to sit out for very long. It makes for a light 'take that' filler. Our one gripe is that the game doesn't include a printed copy of the rules; just a QR code that takes you to the rules on a web page. Many will find that an annoying omission.
