King of Tokyo: Dark Edition Satisfies Your Appetite For Destruction
One of my favorite games of all time is King of Tokyo, created by Richard Garfield (who is also the creator of mega hit Magic: The Gathering). This is a kaiju-themed board game, relying heavily on dice to smash monsters against monsters ’til only one stands as the king of Tokyo. You don’t have to be a fan of Godzilla or Pacific Rim to play this game. This game is easy to learn, fun, and it’s the one game that my friends heavily request I bring to gatherings.
Iello Games is now coming out with another stand alone sequel called King of Tokyo: Dark Edition. At PAX East 2020, I spoke to John of Iello Games about what fans of King of Tokyo can expect from this new game.
Nerd Caliber: Tell us about theme for King of Tokyo: Dark Edition.
Iello Games: It’s very noir, 1920s. This is not a reskin of the original King of Tokyo. Still in Tokyo, but [not] the same game you are used to playing. This is a brand new game. Some monsters will be back from the first set but they will have new art. The dice have a translucent finish to them. They are slightly see-through.
There are new variants and new rules like, you’ll notice there is a tracker on the side of the board. That mechanic is called Wickedness. It’s going to reward you for some dice rolls that in the previous King of Tokyo, you would have thrown away. Your “ones” aren’t necessary bad anymore because you’ll get one victory point and move two spaces up the Wickedness tracker. And as we hit certain points in our Wickedness tracker we get our choice of tiles. And those tiles will add abilities to our monsters and it’s going to add an engine-building function, some of the tiles further up the track at ten, you may really want a certain function at three. So there’s a bit of an engine-building aspect to the new game.
NC: Why do you think King of Tokyo is so popular still after being released almost ten years ago?
Iello: Ultimately, King of Tokyo is all about one thing. You get to grab a handful of awesome dice. You can’t not love King of Tokyo dice. They’re chunky and they feel good and they’ve got the great icons on them. We throw cool dice and we beat up our friends. I don’t know how you can mess that up and it be unpopular [laughs]. That is King of Tokyo to its core; awesome dice and that experience of beating up our friends and taking control of Tokyo and spending energy on cool cards.
NC: One question I keep seeing online is, when will King of Tokyo Dark Edition, will be released, can you give us an update on that?
Iello: We were originally shooting for a GAMA Expo 2020 release, we wanted [it to happen] in March but it’s been scheduled for April 24, 2020. I can’t wait for fans to get their hands on this.
NC: Thank you.
