Gamehole Plush Monster Island

Every year, John Kovalic designs a new plush for Gamehole Con, the parent convention that hosts Dorkstock. A couple years ago, it occurred to me that I could combine those plush into a Monster Island game, a game I’ve owned for a couple decades now. The hard part, beyond retroactively acquiring a second set of most of the plush (the owlbear, alas, is no longer available), was coming up with their stats and special abilities while keeping the variety of creatures somewhat balanced in game play.

Plush Bulette faces off against plush Rust Monster on a green fabric mat with a blue fabric pond near a plush rainbow food truck. Assorted meeple are nearby, presumably fleeing from the battling kaiju, not unlike the Bulette who was strategically retreating.

Among other things, I needed to take into account that some abilities just wouldn’t be useful against other monsters. The cute orange beast pictured here, for example, is a Rust Monster. But the other monsters don’t wear armor! They do, however, have the ability to pick up and throw several crocheted food trucks and garbage cans, all of which are theoretically made of metal. While it would have been amusing to let the Rust Monster just destroy those items, it seemed better to let is recover health by consuming them, though playtesting went through a couple iterations of what that restored health value would be.

Preparing for a battle of four plush monsters: Rust Monster, Gelatinous Cube, Flying Spaghetti Monster, Kobold. On the green fabric play area with blue pond, in addition to the monsters, there are three crocheted food trucks, two crocheted trees, three crocheted garbage cans, and a scattering of plastic meeple.

But I didn’t make the food trucks just for the Rust Monster. Food trucks are part of the Gamehole Con tradition, adding food options beyond the convention center selection. And if there are food trucks, well, there have to be people (OK, meeple) gathered near them. This was one of the places where I tweaked the Monster Island game mechanics… each monster has two special abilities, and they’re activated by consuming meeple. That includes the Rust Monster’s ability to heal by consuming metal… they lost in the last playtest round because while they were in reach of a metal item, they were out of meeple. Oops. (The pictured kobold is a stand-in from 9th Level Games’ Kobolds Ate My Baby!, since the kobold is this year’s plush.)

While both scheduled Monster Island events for this weekend are sold out, the rules and plush will be available in Dorkstock’s games library for play in the room (Waubesa – up on the second floor of the convention center) for anyone who feels a need for a silly kaiju battle.