Monkey Lab “Variant”

Monkey Lab “Variant”

When Monkey Lab was originally published, some changes were made to the original design that I was unaware of. Not until I opened a copy of the published game did I see that the cards were not quite as I expected. There was not much to do about it at the time, but I thought I’d share now this with anyone interested.

Published Card Distribution:

8 x Move One Item
8 x Exchange
8 x Steal
8 x Move Twice
8 x Move Guard

Total Cards = 40

Original Design Card Distribution:

12 x Move One Item
6 x Exchange
6 x Steal
6 x Move Twice
6 x Move Guard

Total Cards = 36

The published version added four more cards. Since the deck of cards is a timer for the game, this inadvertently added to the length of the game.

The published version flattened out the distribution of cards. Each card had an equal chance of popping up. The original design meant for the utility card “Move One Item” to appear 1/3 of the time. In the original design it felt much less often that you had a “dead” card in your hand.

If you want to modify your game, you can remove four cards completely, sleeve the remaining cards, and add a slip of paper inside four of the cards to make them a proxy for the “Move One Item” card.

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