When comparing Munchkin vs Qwixx, the Slant community recommends Munchkin for most people. In the question“What are the best party board games?” Munchkin is ranked 7th while Qwixx is ranked 8th. The most important reason people chose Munchkin is:
On top of casual banter, you’ll be actively talking with the other players throughout the whole game. You'll want to gang up in earlier rounds to defeat monsters, but tensions are bound to rise nearing the end of the game. At the start players are too weak to take on most monsters so it’s best to band together, but, obviously, not everyone wants to help you for free. You will haggle for the price of assistance – a share of the treasure, an equipment item from the player, or anything else. It’s up to you, you can even, say, make a player complete a dare you just made up. The end of the game can get loud -- even the game’s box states that it revolves around backstabbing your friends. Some comments are bound to fly around as players announce what cards they’re using to flip the round in the monsters’ favor and take away that sweet victory that was just about to be achieved.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Encourages both cutthroat and cooperative play
On top of casual banter, you’ll be actively talking with the other players throughout the whole game. You'll want to gang up in earlier rounds to defeat monsters, but tensions are bound to rise nearing the end of the game.
At the start players are too weak to take on most monsters so it’s best to band together, but, obviously, not everyone wants to help you for free. You will haggle for the price of assistance – a share of the treasure, an equipment item from the player, or anything else. It’s up to you, you can even, say, make a player complete a dare you just made up.
The end of the game can get loud -- even the game’s box states that it revolves around backstabbing your friends. Some comments are bound to fly around as players announce what cards they’re using to flip the round in the monsters’ favor and take away that sweet victory that was just about to be achieved.
Pro Amazing replay value
The game offers a lot of variety because of the big card count, which ensures that every game will be different. There are 168 cards in total, which include monsters, player classes and races, equipment items, special cards, spells, and much more.
Furthermore, Munchkin has a lot of expansions. Each of these offers even more cards with all kinds of different mechanics.
Pro Hilarious theme
The game is a parody of fantasy role-playing board games in its purest form, and the art on the cards reflects that. The game is filled with all kinds of funny characters and references that parody the board gaming culture. For example, there’s a card called “Whine at the GM” which makes you go up a level. Also, every expansion comes with a brand-new theme filled with more humorous content to bring to the table - the wild west, holiday-themed stuff, and yes, even hipsters. All the cards are illustrated by the popular cartoonist John Kovalic.
Pro An excellent game to bring out at parties
Qwixx is easy to learn, has virtually no setup, accommodates anywhere from 2 to 5 players, and can played in about 15-20 minutes. Thanks to all of this, it's a great impromptu game for any get-together.
Pro Incredibly easy to learn
Qwixx is a rather simple game that revolves around rolling colored dice, and then using the values of the dice to cross off numbers on a scorecard. It's similar to Bingo where a number is determined by random chance and then you cross it off your card. Any number crossed off on any given row takes the numbers to the left of it out of play for the duration of the game. You get points for each number you cross off. Whoever has the most points at the end of the game wins. These rules are very basic and can be understood by everyone easily, including non-gamers.
Pro Quick, but thrilling gaming session
Due to the dice rolling nature of the game, it moves along at a quick pace with very little downtime between turns. The thrill in every random roll and hoping for your perfect numbers to come up ensures the game stays exciting for its limited duration. Even if you get a bad roll with dice values that you can't or don't want to use, there is always the hope and anticipation that the next roll a mere few seconds later will be better.
Pro Simple, but interesting opportunities for strategy
While this is mostly a game of dice rolling and chance, there are a few small opportunities for some strategy and choices to come into play.
Every time you mark a number off your scorecard, all the numbers to the left of that number on the same row are taken out of play. This mean you won't want to mark off numbers every roll since marking a 12, for example, would take out your whole row. Therefore, on any given roll, you are allowed to "pass" and not mark off any numbers. This incurs a small point penalty and you are only allowed four passes per game, but it allows for a little strategy when you use your passes wisely as it helps keeps your options open on the scorecard.
Additionally, when it's your turn to be the active roller, you have the choice to use the sum of any white die with any colored dice. For example, if you rolled a 1 on a white dice, and a 5 on a red dice and 6 on a blue dice, you could choose whether you want to mark off a 6 red or 7 blue. This gives you a bunch of flexibilty when it's your turn to roll, as you can choose the numbers that would benefit you the best.
Pro Small and portable
Qwixx is very minimalist as it only contains six dice and some small scorecards. This makes it easy to transport without having to lug around a huge gameboard with dozens of pieces.
Pro No tedious setup or cleanup
Setup is as quick as giving each player their own scorecard and getting out the dice. When the game ends, cleanup is just as fast.
Pro Cheap cost
This is one the most affordable board games around, as it normally runs under $10 brand new.
Cons
Con Very long play time
Munchkin is not really a game you can quickly play out before doing something else. A normal match takes anywhere between one and two hours, but some people have reported playing for up to 5 hours. This is mostly due to the social factor – almost every action in the game is impacted by whether the other players choose to help you or undermine you. This is especially true for the end-game where each player is looking for the lucky draw to win and everyone else is trying to deny the win by enhancing the monsters.
Con Highly luck-based
Whatever you draw will directly impact the game, as is typical for a card game. Some games will just not go well for you, be it not getting good equipment cards, tackling monsters too strong for you, or other players drawing the right cards either to win or mess up your game.
Con Not very accessible
Munchkin isn’t something that people would call a great gateway game. The basics are not too difficult, and the mechanics of the cards are purposely simple, but there is simply too much to take in for a complete beginner.
If the player happens to be playing with more experienced players, then he’s at a huge disadvantage. There’s quite a lot to explain – levelling up, equipment, combat, and, most importantly, cooperation to defeat monsters. There are many variables to everything. For example, almost every equipment piece has some conditions and exceptions tied to it.
The beginner is probably unsure of the value of the cards in his hand either, which is very crucial in a game where every card matters. There’s a lot of reading to be done to find out what each card does, and this gets worse if you’re playing with expansions.
Con No easy way to keep track of levels in non-deluxe versions
Though the deluxe version comes with a handy gameboard and character figures, the regular game really lacks a universal and convenient way of following progression. The game can get intense at times, which can make some players mistake their level and miscalculate attacks. Most players end up using a piece of paper to mark the levels, others use coins or poker chips.
There’s an official mobile app that resolves this problem and, on top of that, helps track attack values, but it comes for an extra $5.00.
Con Simplistic and may get boring after a while
Rolling dice and marking numbers off a scorecard only has limited appeal before it starts to feel stale. Every game is essentially the same old routine, with the only difference being the random numbers contained within each dice roll.
Con Not a lot of player interactivity
There's no way to directly outplay your opponent since most of what happens during the game is the result of a simple dice roll. While you can lock your opponents out of certain colored rows by crossing off a certain amount of numbers, it really comes down to chance and nothing you have much control over. Due to this, there's not much direct interaction or counterplay among opponents.
Con Winning is too dependent on lucky dice rolls
How many points you earn is ultimately dependent on the dice rolling in your favor.
