Kaiju Fight Club (1993)

When small-time promoter James George receives a strange device that lets him bring monsters from television to life to fight in the ring, his event venue is suddenly revitalized. But things take a sinister turn, as the crowds appetite for violence becomes more and more monstrous. When James unleashes the greatest monsters of cinema to do battle, who will win? Who will lose?

Design

“Versus” movies are a staple of the horror B-movie genre. At some point, you ask yourself: who would win in a fight? These movies serve as an answer to that all too familiar question. We wanted to play on this trope for Spooktacular, but how? We were already kinda doing the entire concept of monsters fighting each other. 

We decided to go with the idea of organized bouts. It’s not just monsters fighting each other. There’s an entire promotion holding and organizing these matches. Monsters are placed onto teams and spectators can watch the carnage for entertainment, betting, and more! This is the benefit of framing the game as movies, we don’t have to represent a specific monster here. Just the “vibe” of a movie featuring them.

Kaiju Fight Club introduces Secret Teams to Spooktacular. Much like Killtron did with Solo Mode, and Scream Mart with bidding, Kaiju Fight Club is a game module in and of itself. Players are secretly placed onto teams and at the end of the game they win (or lose) together. As the promoter, it’s your job to manipulate these teams for bigger hype matchups and more profits for you!

Ideation

As you can see, this monster was originally called Monster Fight Club, but it turns out there’s already a bunch of stuff named that, so we decided to go with Kaiju Fight Club in the end. A lot of the posters featured monsters fighting, but the real monster (ie the one you control as the player) is actually the Promoter, who organizes the fights between the kaiju.

The final poster places more of an emphasis on the Promoter as a result. Now we know what we’re in for. The Promoter may be in a new environment, but so long as there’s monsters and teams to make, he’ll make his money one way or another!

Strategy

Kaiju Fight Club forces everyone to be part of a secret team that they know but cannot prove to anyone else. With the Promoter’s Fan Club and Serve Fans actions, you give other players the opportunity to buff up points for any given team. Which team they decide to do this for can give information about which team they are on! With only their word to trust, you have to use their actions to gauge whose team they’re on. Once you find your allies, you must do your best to help them out and gain more points for your team before the others figure it out!

I will admit that the Promoter himself is a weak monster. He doesn’t get as much of the cool plays and crazy effects that other more traditional monsters have. Instead, most of his strength comes from his excess knowledge about the teams as well as the fact that he’s simultaneously on two teams at once (giving him two chances to win). As a result, he must use this knowledge and the team aspect to help the other monster on his team perform better because he himself won’t be contributing as much points. If all else fails and the Promoter sees the writing on the wall, he can always just cheat and change people’s teams to better favor him! Curse Your Betrayal! It was inevitable.

Play If You Like:

• Playing on a team
• Using logic to figure out secret information
• Manipulating the game itself to cheat a win

Avoid If You Dislike:

• Not knowing who you can trust
• Your main strength coming from knowledge imbalances
• Using table politics to your advantage

See it LIVE!

Ready? FIGHT!

Alternate Poster

The alternate poster for Kaiju Fight Club comes from the dynamic Holo. I love the detailed Kaiju designs and, more importantly, just how hype it looks. It feels like I'd actually see this poster for one of the bouts.

Are you ready to rumble? Tell me in the comments below!