Select all the Tier 1 Food tokens (showing a single dot on each side). Shuffle and deal each player 10.
Pick any beast and place it faceup in the center of the table. (For a first game, pick a Level 1 beast.)
Create a deck of Menu cards, shuffle, and place 1 next to the beast. Place 4 more faceup menus in a row: this is the “market”.
The game ends when a player ends theit turn without food. They win!
From start player, take clockwise turns until the game ends.
On your turn, feed the beast!
- Place one of your food tokens on the beast.
- If your payment is part of the Menu, you get a choice: either take the reward listed OR upgrade a food token of yours.
- If not, you paid the wrong food and anger the beast. Downgrade a food AND draw a new Tier 1 food from the supply.
“Upgrade” means you trade that food for one that’s exactly 1 Tier higher. As expected, “Downgrade” means trading food for one exactly 1 Tier lower.
Higher tier foods can substitute for ANY lower tier food. For example, if you want to pay Bread for something (Tier 1), you can also pay any Tier 2 food instead (such as Pie).
Once the beast has 10 food tokens (or more), it resets. The active player swaps the Menu for a new one from the market, then clears all food from the beast (back to the supply). Refill the market as needed.
That’s it! Have fun!
Every beast has the following properties.
- Rule: a unique rule that applies to the entire game.
- State: every beast can flip between two states (e.g. sleeping/awake). When you get a “state” reward, it flips to the other one.
- Menu: a single recipe that is true for the entire game.
At the top, you can see the beast’s “level”: higher means more difficult to play.
If you find it hard to remember the beast’s state, use the Sun/Moon token. (Faceup means the beast is in the first state, facedown means they’re in the other. They always start in the first state mentioned.)
Actions explain themselves. Below are some exceptions that didn’t fit within the text.
- If an action is simply not possible for you to execute, do nothing.
- If an action allows you to play one (or more) extra tokens on your turn, you don’t take their corresponding action. (Only the more expensive actions state that you do get the action as well.)
- It can happen that all your tokens are forbidden. In that case, skip your turn and pay no food. (This has no penalty as you did not pay “wrong food”—you paid nothing at all!)
- When an action mentions “food played” or a beast mentions “food stored on me”, it refers to the food tokens that currently sit on top of the beast tile. (The ones that are removed when the beast “resets”.)
Played the game a few times and ready for more challenge? You’re in the right place! Try any of the expansions below.
If turned on, the material will print menus that sometimes require multiple food tokens.
- This means you must pay that exact combination, at the same time, to get the reward (once).
- This is both a benefit (losing more tokens at once) and a downside (you need to have that exact set of tokens)
This doesn’t apply to “wrong food”. Paying the wrong food always happens one token at a time (and enrages the beast).
If you want to keep the game as long as usual, start with more food tokens per player (12 or even 15).
This expansion requires printing the advanced beasts too.
These are simply beasts that are harder to play or understand. They can have two extra properties:
- FURY: This rule triggers when you pay the “wrong food”. (This happens instead of the default rule.)
- FAIL: If the situation mentioned occurs, the game ends instantly and all players lose ( = the monster wins).
This expansion requires adding new material: the victim cards.
During setup, create a deck of victims, shuffle, and place 4 of these next to the beast.
A victim is “freed” from the beast whenever a player …
- Triggers a reset,
- OR for an entire round, everyone played wrong food
- OR for an entire round, everyone played valid food
The player who freed them, takes one card and places it before them. Their rule now applies until the end of the game. (This is required, which means you sometimes get victims that don’t help you.)
Finally, refill the victim row from the deck.
