Diamonsters Review

Diamonsters is a game by Masao Suganuma, published by IDW Games. It is for 2-6 players. In this game, players will be trying to collect monster cards by playing a card from their hand in an attempt to have the highest card played. The player that can out think and bluff the other players the best, while capturing the best cards, will be declared the winner.

To begin, each player is given a hand of 5 cards, one of each number 1-5. The rest of the cards are shuffled together and placed face down in the center of the table. The blue plastic diamond pieces are placed where all players can reach them. Play now begins.

The game consists of several rounds of play. Each round begins by flipping the top card of the deck face up. Players will then play a card from their hand face down onto the table. Once all players have chosen a card, everyone reveals the card they played. The player that has the highest card wins. However, it’s not that simple. If 2 players have chosen the same card, their cards cancel each other out and are returned to the player’s hand. After that if only 2 cards remain a 5 card (named Go) and a 1 card (named Ichi) , the 1 beats the 5. In any other case, the 5 would win. The players that didn’t win take their card back into their hand. The winner takes the face up card from the deck and the card they played and place it into their collection. If there is no winner thanks to players cancelling each other’s cards out, the face up card is discarded. Once this has all been done, all players draw cards back to a hand limit of 5. The round ends once a player has either 3 monsters of the same kind in their collection, or they have 5 diamonds showing on the cards in their collection. It must be noted that the 4 card (named Shi) eats 2 diamonds. These must be subtracted from the total in a player’s collection. The first player to do one of those previously mentioned things, wins the round and receives a blue plastic diamond piece. The round can also end if there are no more cards in the discard pile to be shuffled. In that case, the player with the most diamonds in their collection wins. After that, a new round begins and play continues. The first player to collect a certain number of diamond pieces, as determined by the number of players, is the winner.

COMPONENTS
The game consists of a deck of cards and a handful of blue plastic diamond pieces. The cards have some really cute and colorful artwork. The monsters are very kid friendly and aren’t scary in any way. My daughter really loved the art. She thought it was really cute especially the 5 card (Go). She kept calling it a Sasquatch. She didn’t like 4 (Shi) because he ate all the diamonds. In any case, the cards are very high quality and look great. The diamond pieces are great as well. They’re just the right size and the blue plastic pieces look really nice on the table. All in all I have to say that the components are pretty nice.
8 out of 10

RULEBOOK
The rulebook for this game is actually more of a rules pamphlet. There’s really not a whole lot to it. It folds out to show a really large picture of Go, the 5 card. The rules start off with an introduction from Go as he introduces each of the cards and how they work. That’s pretty neat. From that the rest of the rules are explained out really well. There are lots of great pictures and examples throughout the pamphlet. It even fits nicely inside the long rectangular shaped box. I really like the design and look of it and think they did a good job with it.
8 out of 10

GAMEPLAY
This is a fun and light card game. It’s very simple and quite quick. It plays in about 20 minutes. You are guessing and bluffing your way through the game. It was really fun to play with just 2 players. I really like the quickness of the game. You can pretty much play the game anywhere because it’s portable. The main idea of the game is just to try to out think and out play your opponent. It’s not a very strategic game and it’s not a brain burner. However, it’s a great little light filler game that is family friendly. Yes, you can play it with up to 6 players, but I wouldn’t recommend it. To me the game plays better with fewer people especially with 2 or 3 players. The theme really doesn’t matter very much but it’s still quite cute. In any case, the game is fun to play.
8 out of 10

OVERALL
Diamonsters is a light card game full of monsterific fun. It’s very light and simple to play. It’s very quick and can be played in under 20 minutes. The artwork is light and fun. It’s very kid friendly and is something that the younger players will really like. Fans of any type of light card games should enjoy this. It’s really easy to play and is one that kids and adults of all ages can play together. My daughter loves the artwork and enjoys playing the game. For me, it’s a nice little filler game that I can play with her or as a warm up to more serious gaming. I recommend you give it a try. It’s definitely a diamond in the rough.
8 out of 10

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