The idea to make a game using tiddywinks mechanic is not new to the market but Marco Maggi and Francesco Nepitello are been the first to really integrate it in a strategic boardgame. In 2001 X-Bugs got a great success. It was a not so simple game (actually it was “quite simple” but not “so simple”) where 4 different races were fighting against each other. Every turn rolling special dices you was allowed to move some of your pieces trying to kill enemies (ending over them) or destroying enemy base (always landing over). The idea was presented again in 2007 in Micro Mutants: Evolutions with the adding of special cards and also a special carpet used to play. The game was still simple (but a bit more difficult than “quite simple” and far away from “so simple) but placed itself somewhere in the middle between a kid game and a adult game.
Marco and Francesco were not tired of ten years flipping counters so, this year, with the new publisher Ares Games, released a new evolution of the old X-Bugs, called Micro Monsters.

Micro Monsters is a “so simple” game that I really need few sentences to describe it: during your turn you roll a single die and move one of your pieces displayed on the result. Every army has 3 different kind of warriors: small and quick (little round), medium (big round) and heavy (long and rectangular). A total of 8 warriors. Every die has two faces for small round, two faces for big round, one face for rectangular and also a face depicting a special power. Autogators, Bigbears, Finbacks, and Turboturtles differs only for the graphics and for these special powers.
If you land over an enemy remove the enemy counter. If you land on an enemy base remove one energy token from the base and move your counter back to your base. Removing the last energy damage the base (flip the base on the damages side). Another hit and it is destroyed.
So simple and so funny.

Read the full review on Opinionatedgamers.com web site