allboardgames.com
Spank The Monkey box art
2003 Ranked #7,069

Spank The Monkey

A tactical card game in which junkyard workers build unstable towers to reach a teasing monkey. Attacks can destroy rival junk and cause cascades, while reinforcements protect a fragile climb.

Party Games Card Game Fighting Modular Board Take That

Players

2-6

Play time

Not listed

Age

12+

Complexity

1.44/5

Rating

5.91

Harder to teach Low interaction Deep strategy

Overview

At a glance

Is this game right for my group?

ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.

Teachability 2.4/5

Harder to teach

Replay value 3.9/5

High replayability

Interaction 3.3/5

Low interaction

Player scaling 4.4/5

Scales well

Strategic depth 4.6/5

Deep strategy

See all 5 specifications

How it plays

How does it play?

Spank the Monkey is a fast-paced, humorous card game with sneaky tactics. All players are working in a junk yard where a teasing monkey has appeared.

Core mechanisms

Key systems that shape the decisions players make.

Read the full game description

Spank the Monkey is a fast-paced, humorous card game with sneaky tactics. All players are working in a junk yard where a teasing monkey has appeared. Your job is to climb up to the monkey and spank it. There are 5 types of cards in the game. Junk cards, like the totem pole, surfboard, and garden gnome, are used to pile on top of each other and form the "board" in front of each player. Each junk card has its own height, strength, and often a special ability when played. The combined height of your junk cards is used to see if you have reached the monkey. Some junk cards are a bit fragile, but they can be strengthened by reinforcement cards like duct tape, ivy, and a hired security guard. Each junk card also belongs to at least one category of which there are 7 in the game. During the game, you attack the junk card of other players in an attempt to make them fall down, or at least lower them a bit. There are three kind of attacks; throwing attacks (bowling ball, flock of seagulls, and dynamite) that you can use on any junk card, hand attacks (chainsaw, blind, and crowbar) that you can only use on cards at the same height as yourself, and the sneak attacks (lawyer, wasp’s nest, and ball cannon) that all have special abilities. A die roll is used to solve the attack. You add the attack value of your attack card and compare it to the combined strength of the attacked junk card and any reinforcement cards it might have. The defending player may play defense cards that either lower the die roll (umbrella, satellite dish, and wok) or completely stop or redirect the attack (electric force field, tennis racket, and trampoline). If a junk card is destroyed, you have effectively lowered that player's height by the height of the card, and if there are junk cards above the destroyed card, they fall down, and the defender is forced to make a collision roll to see if the junk cards also are destroyed. The fifth card type is called special, and it is a kind of catchall for all the crazy special effect you may do in the game. There are all kinds of tricks, like giving you an extra turn, starting an earthquake, and having a police raid. Expanded by: Monkey Business

Browse all classifications

Shopping

Where to buy

No verified retailer offers are available yet. The references below may still help you continue your search.

Unverified shopping references

Editions

Language and publisher variants currently recorded in the catalog.

Edition Year Language Publisher / Region
No editions imported yet.

Player resources

Rulebooks, player aids, FAQs, and solo resources.

No files imported yet.

Game and edition data

All specifications (5)

Play and group

Players
2–6
Best with
2–6
Play time
30 min
Age
12+
Complexity
1.4/5
Credits and catalog connections

Credits

Designers

1
Peter Hansson

Artists

1
Peter Svärd

Publishers

1
Gigantoskop