Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
Classic, campy monster movies are a blindspot in my cinema knowledge. I know the general stories of the big ones—Dracula, Mummy, Swamp Thing—but I’ve never seen the original films. With Keymaster’s release of Campy Creatures: Volume 1, however, I finally get to sink my teeth into those horror-laden worlds by taking on the role of a mad scientist showcasing their work. Let’s see how it plays.
Campy Creatures: Volume 1 Overview
Campy Creatures: Volume 1 is a reimplementation of Campy Creatures, but as I haven’t played the original, this will be a standalone review as opposed to a comparative one. The goal of this game is to accumulate the most points by the end of the third Round declaring you to be the maddest scientist of them all. It’s a compliment, I promise.
Each player starts with the same hand of seven Creature cards, each with a unique value and ability. Values range from 0-5 with the last card having a value of X, which can be manipulated by spending Energy tokens. Additionally, each player places a Clash Marker into the Clash-O-Meter, which is used to break ties over the course of the game.
At the beginning of each Round, four Scene tiles are revealed and a new slew of Mortal cards are drawn to form a common market. Scenes either feature an endgame scoring bonus or have an immediate effect. Similarly, Mortals all contribute to your score—positively and negatively—and can also alter your position on the Clash-O-Meter.
A Round consists of four turns, one for each Scene. On every turn, players secretly select a Creature card from their hand. At its core, Campy Creatures: Volume 1 is a bidding game where players are bidding for specific Scenes and first pass at the Mortals on the menu. Played cards are simultaneously revealed. Whoever played the card with the highest value takes the current Scene card, chooses from the available Mortal cards, and activates their Creature’s ability. Whoever played the second-highest value Creature then only chooses a Mortal card (no Scene), continuing until every player has activated their Creature. A new batch of Mortals is revealed and the next Turn occurs.
Mortals score in a variety of ways. For example, Engineers score 10 points for every two icons, while each Teenager increases in point value up to a maximum of 28 total points if you have 7 Teenagers in your final tableau. Not all Mortals are created equal, however, as the Townsfolk are actively fighting back against the onslaught of Creatures. They subtract points from your score and can also knock you down to the bottom of the Clash-O-Meter.
Creature abilities make all the difference in Campy Creatures: Volume 1. Cards like the Vampire allow you to cancel out the ability of the Creature to your left. The Man-Eating Plant allows you to take two Mortals instead of one.The Werewolf gives you an Energy token or lets you give your captured Mortal to any player, often hitting them with negative points.
After the fourth turn in a Round, four new Scenes are revealed with play continuing until three Rounds have been played. Whoever has the most points at the end of the game wins.
Campy Creatures: Volume 1: Clash of the Titans
I should never be surprised at the quality of a Keymaster game, but I was still impressed by the presentation from the moment I opened the Campy Creatures: Volume 1 box. Translucent green Energy tokens, wooden Clash Markers, and evocative art sell the theme in spades. The box is styled like a vintage VHS tape, and the Volume 1 designation hints at the intent to turn Campy Creatures into a multi-title series featuring different movie genres.
Bidding games lead to a lot of guessing and second guessing. Is my opponent to the right going to play their Vampire, invalidating my Creature? Should I play my Swamp Creature, throwing in the towel on this turn but setting myself up big on the next one? Is anybody else going to sell the farm to get this Scene card? Each turn in Campy Creatures: Volume 1 is an onslaught of what-ifs, and quickly making sense of those becomes essential for success.
Every player is working off the same information and the same set of cards, making everything equal. As a Round progresses, the number of options available to each player decreases, allowing you a bounty of information on which to make your decisions, since players don’t get their Creatures back until the start of a new Round.
The inclusion of the Clash-O-Meter is also welcomed, despite the name being dripping in camp. Ties come up a lot, especially at the 4-5 player counts, and this instantly solves any question about who goes first. It’s used to break all ties, including any that occur after the scores have been tallied at the end of the game. And even if a tie is broken using the Clash-O-Meter, those players retain their relative positions. The only way to jockey your position on the track is to play the Mummy to ascend to the top, acquire a Scene that grants that as an immediate effect, or hope other players get knocked down by Townsfolk.
The biggest wildcard is the Monster Creature card. With a value of X, the Monster’s strength value gets pumped by spending Energy when it’s revealed. If somebody is sitting on a pile of Energy and they haven’t played their Monster, then you need to be prepared for a possibility that not even your Vampire can stop them. Likewise, if a player hasn’t played their Monster this Round and they don’t have any Energy, then it might as well be a useless card in their hand. One less thing to worry about.
It’s also worth noting that the game has two different sets of Scoring conditions, leaning into the tape aesthetic with an A-Side and a B-side. Only the Engineers, Assistants, and Teenagers are affected by the scoring Side, but it’s always nice to have another option to mix up the strategy.
I really like the way the Mortals and Scenes pull on your pursestrings to spend that Energy. You can have situations where there’s only one positive-scoring Mortal out there, or there’s a Scene whose endgame scoring criteria is perfect for your current tableau of collected Mortals. You’re constantly weighing the desirability of these two sets of cards, both for yourself and your opponents. It creates a brutal dynamic of one-upmanship, turning mad scientists into the Monsters that they are so desperate to perfect.
Quick gameplay, gorgeous presentation, and an adversarial basis make Campy Creatures: Volume 1 worthy of entering the rotation when there are only thirty minutes to game. Players who don’t like confrontation will likely not be excited to see this box on the table. If you take offense at earning negative points, Campy Creatures: Volume 1 is not for you.
I live for the little bursts of serotonin that accompany the moments where you successfully out-maneuver your opponents and snag the Scenes and Mortals that you really wanted. That is to say, I love it when a plan comes together. And you don’t even have to blow the dust off the VCR to enjoy Campy Creatures: Volume 1.
Volume 2 can’t come soon enough.
Campy Creatures: Volume 1 (Third Edition) details
- Designer: Mattox Shuler
- Artists: Josh Emrich
- Publishers: Keymaster Games
- Release Date: 2025
- Player count : 2 - 5
- Age range : 10+
- Time range : 20 - 30 minutes
- Mechanism(s): Auction/Bidding, Hand Management, Set Collection, Simultaneous Action Selection
- BGG Geek Rating: 7.12045 - converted to Meeple Mountain scale: 3.5.
- More articles about Campy Creatures: Volume 1 (Third Edition).
