Publisher: Sky Lion Games
Age: 10+
Players: 2 – 4 players
MSRP: $59.99
Release: Available now
The Winner of the Barnes & Noble 2026 Family Game of the Year is Making Monsters, which combines the perfect amount of bluffing, push your luck, and bag building into a fun board game that the whole family can enjoy.
Read on for our review of Making Monsters!
Weird Science
Making Monsters is primarily a ‘bag building’ game: players acquire monster part tokens, put them in their cloth bag (the ‘Stockroom’), shuffle them up, and draw them out. By matching the tokens to the slots on their monsters, players can complete their funny little terrors and reanimate them later that round for victory points.
The game starts with each player choosing a laboratory board and character, a cloth bag with a starting selection of monster parts, their order tokens, and a random monster. The lab board includes two default monsters, and spaces for additionally drawn monsters at the end of each round.
Rounds kick off with players selecting one of three order tokens, which are divided into a top and bottom half. These color-coordinated square tiles determine what you’re going to do that round — which is mostly drawing tokens from your bag! However, there’s a twist. If the bottom of your order token matches the color of a neighboring player’s top-half token, you get to perform the more powerful Super Action on the bottom.
That’s where the bluffing, guessing, and table-talk comes into play. Do you think your neighbors are going to play their six-draw blue order to pull the most tokens at the start? Or maybe they’ll go for their red order to try and get a free monster part. With only three choices, there’s enough strategy without being overwhelming for younger players, and keeping the action moving swiftly.
All the components are exceptionally high quality
On the other hand, the system definitely works better with more than two players. With three or more players, it’s not uncommon for every player to achieve their Super Action almost every turn!
The Super Actions include free victory points, adding wild monster tokens, and playing a free LESTER card.
Each player has a personal hand of LESTER cards, their friendly robot assistant. Each card provides a helpful benefit, such as adding more monster parts, or removing a piece of rot. However, since the LESTER cards are only triggered on one of the Super Actions, we found they rarely came into play. It’s not uncommon for one player to never play a single card in a game, making them feel superfluous.
Be My Frankenstein
The meat of the gameplay is drawing monster tokens from our bags. Once the order tokens have been revealed and players determine which half of the order token they get to take, everyone can draw the listed amount of tokens simultaneously.
There are five different monster parts, plus a wild mutation, and rot. Rot is bad (the cherry bombs of Making Monsters, for fans of Quacks). As rot is drawn, it must be added to the rejects pile (along with any parts that don’t fit a monster). If the rejects pile fills up, the player goes ‘bust,’ and are forced to reanimate later that round.
Each round, players can choose to reanimate their monsters, or wait (unless they bust). Players may want to wait for a future round, as reanimating more monsters at once provides a bigger score and better rewards. But, if they go bust with too much rot, they must reanimate whatever they can, and don’t receive those bonus victory points.
After reanimating, all tokens come off the board and back into their bag, including off of unfinished monsters.
The science of scoring
The push your luck element is quite solid, with most players reanimating between one and three monsters every other round or so.
Every time you reanimate, you also get extra rewards tied to the lazy susan graveyard board in the middle. The glossy, circular board comes with a neoprene mat and wooden disc, creating a light spinning effect. It’s hardly necessary, but it technically limits players each round when choosing their rewards after reanimating. Rewards include adding additional monster tokens, and selecting permanent upgrades, which slot neatly onto the lab board.
Upgrades can provide some nice bonuses, but many only trigger on reanimating, and you only do that a few times per game. They also add a bit more complication. If playing with younger players, we recommend removing the upgrades entirely.
Our youngest, at six year-olds, was able to play the full game with some assistance. Though her monster selection and token acquisition were based more on vibes than strategy!
The components for Making Monsters are hugely impressive. All the pieces are thick, glossy, and solid, from the monster parts and upgrade tiles, to the detailed graveyard board. The monster cards are printed on larger tarot-size cards, and feature fantastic, colorful artwork of original creations, as well as fun puns and references, such as the zombie Flesh Prince, shark-monster Swim Shady, and silly centaur Pasture Prime.
After reanimating, players have to add additional rot tokens into their bag, which eventually triggers the end game.
The end game, dubbed the Mad Science Fair, is a mega-round where players can put their favorite monsters back on their lab board. Everyone pulls tokens one at a time, trying to complete as many monsters as they can without busting.
I played an exciting game where I was comfortably winning up until that final round. But then I faced some horrifyingly bad luck as I busted without completing a single monster in the Mad Science Fair, while another player managed to complete all five for a crazy 30 point boost, stealing the win!
This Mad Science Fair did not go well!
The Rating
Making Monsters has a recommended age rating of 10+. The monsters are cute and cartoony. There’s a minimal amount of reading. Younger games can play with some assistance.
The Takeaway
I’m notoriously, hilariously bad at bag-building games, to the point that it’s a running joke in my family. Thankfully, Making Monsters helps mitigate my cursed luck through order token choices, Super Actions, upgrades, and the all-important choice of reanimating each round. And it all comes together in the Mad Science Fair, a delightfully epic and climactic ending that can potentially crown a new winner.
Some of the elements feel a bit too extra (such as the LESTER cards), and we wouldn’t recommend the game for only two players. But at three and four players, Making Monsters scales perfectly and plays quickly, with a fun theme and delightfully creative monsters.
Making Monsters is currently available at Barnes & Noble, SkyLionGames, and other retailers.
