One of the cooler things we got to see at GenCon this year was the Funkoverse Strategy Game. As you’d expect, the game uses giant-headed figurines similar to the famous collectibles as the “miniatures” in this skirmish type game of maneuver and tactics.
The Funkoverse is a genre-spanning, genre-clashing collection of games that all use the same rules. This means you can have Batman take on Voldemort. You know that classic geek argument, “Who would win in a fight: the Joker or Blanche from the Golden Girls?” Well, with the Funkoverse game, now you can find out.
And yes, I’m completely serious; the Golden Girls are one of the sets you can add to your Funkoverse game. There’s also Batman (including Batgirl, Robin, the Joker, and Harley Quinn), Harry Potter, and Rick and Morty. And they are all cross-compatible.
Each set comes with a rulebook, gameboard, cards, and tokens. Each character comes with a card that describes their abilities. Each character has three abilities on their card (basically moves they can make that cost resources) and an always-on trait. For instance, once of Blanche’s abilities is the power to move four squares towards a rival Blanche can see while Hermione prevents her allies from being KOed when she’s standing next to them. Characters can also be fortified with items. The Golden Girls come with a cheesecake that allows a knocked-down character to stand up without sacrificing a move, while a dagger from the Harry Potter set allows the wielder to take a non-challenge action.
Non-challenge actions are things like moving two squares (diagonals are allowed but you cannot move through other characters or obstacles on the board) and interacting with objects on the board. Challenges usually happen when characters on opposing sides are standing next to each other. Each player rolls a number of six-sided dice. The challenger rolls a number of dice equal to the challenge score of their attack, while the defender rolls dice equal to their defense score. Dice are marked with blast icons (success for the attacker), shield icons (success for the defender) and !!! (which is three successes for whichever player rolled). If the challenger succeeds, the defender is knocked down. If the defender was already knocked down, they are knocked out and moved off the board to the cool-down track.
KOed characters, used ability tokens, and some objects after they’ve been used are moved to the cool-down track. The track has four zones, but most objects do not go all the way back to fourth zone. During a turn, players take turns activating characters still on the board. An activated character can take two actions, and even perform the same action twice (assuming they have whatever tokens might be necessary to pay for the action). Once a character has been activated, an exhaustion token is placed on their card and they cannot be reactivated until that token is removed. Once all characters still on the board are exhausted, the round is over. All exhaustion markers are removed and everything on the exhaustion track moves down the next lower zone. Anything moving off the first zone returns to the game, including KOed characters.
The boards are double-sided, and which side you use depends on which of four scenarios you pick. The scenarios dictate victory conditions and how you set things up. The game plays quickly and is fairly simple. It makes a great introduction to miniatures tactics games, existing in a sort of boardgame-minisgame hybrid space. And, frankly, it’s just a ton of fun to watch Rose and Blanche smack the Joker and Bellatrix Lestrange around.
Two to four players can play the Funkoverse Strategy Game (though if you want four players, you’ll either need to purchase one of the four-character sets or two of the two-character sets). Play time can be extremely variable depending on how many characters you’re using and what scenario you choose to play. Still, games rarely take as long as an hour to play, so you can easily get in multiple games in a single evening, allowing you to try out different characters and character combos. The Pops characters are colorful and fun, and many of the items are represented in game with physical objects you can actually put in the Pops’ hands. The end result is a fun game that can entertain a wide range of ages. If you’re ready to get some wacky Pops smack-down action going on in your living room, talk to the good folks at Dragon’s Lair Comics and Fantasy® today about getting your hands on one or more of the Funkoverse Strategy Game sets.
