- by Owen Morton
Those who read this website on a regular basis will no doubt remember that back in September I mentioned that I would perhaps write an article about the Monster in my Pocket Battle Cards, although I also said at that time that I equally well might not. However, as you will have no doubt guessed, I decided that this site needed to examine this marvellous game in close detail. I decided this primarily because I have no idea what else to write about, and Monster in my Pocket Battle Cards seem to fit the bill quite nicely for something suitably inane to discuss. There are secondary reasons as well, those being that the game is just so good it deserves to be remembered: even most of the Monster in my Pocket websites I visited while doing research for the previous four articles didn't mention the card game.
Unfortunately, I don't have the cards to hand right now (being at university and the cards being at home - and you might ask why I didn't bring them with me. Well, there are numerous reasons. Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, I didn't want to lose such important artefacts of my childhood. Secondly, I still annoy my dad and sister and indeed any member of my family by asking for a game, and if I lost them, this opportunity would be lost to me as well. Thirdly, and this is another rather important reason, I would be rather lacking in friends by now if I had started my time here by asking people to play Monster in my Pocket Battle Cards with me), so my information on them may not be entirely accurate. On the other hand, I have a strikingly good memory for rubbish (so much so that I on occasion, in exams, remember totally irrelevant stuff like the entire lyrics to 'Hey Jude' which doesn't always lend to good exam results), so the chances that I will be able to pack this article more full of facts than the one on Thundercats yesterday was are quite high.
The basic idea behind Monster Battle Cards was that they were a cheap rip off of Top Trumps cards, but in the event anyone reading this doesn't know what they were either, you dealt out the pack between all the players, and the object was to win all the cards. This could be achieved by a player choosing one of the values on his card to read out. There were four values: intelligence, strength, speed and weakness, and the number value for each of these attributes could go up to 10 in Series 1, 12 in Series 2 and I'm not sure what the upper limit for Super Scary cards was, because I only ever had six. The highest observed value is 55 (more on this later). The weakness score was a minus figure, so obviously the closer to 0 it was, the better. Anyway, the player would read out the number beside his chosen attribute. If his value was higher than all the values on the cards of the other players, he won all those cards. Otherwise, all the cards would go to the player who did have the best value in that particular skill. The winner of each round would choose the attribute for the next round, and so forth. This would continue until either one player had all the cards or until the cows came home, because with the sheer amount of cards I had (something approaching 100, possibly a couple more) the game could last years. This year, I started a game with my dad on around about 18th July and we played for about half an hour every week, the game finishing sometime in early September. That's how long it can take. And it only finished then because I got fed up and let him win (I can say this with relative security because I am fairly sure he never reads this website).
Monster in my Pocket Battle Cards are a symbol of high status in the playground at the age of 7, as I discovered to my pride. They are not a symbol of high status in the school library at the age of 17, as I discovered to my cost. At least, they aren't if you can't find someone willing to play it with you. After approaching numerous people who were not such, I happened upon one (incidentally, one of those who I had played the game with when I was 7 - goodness me!) who was similarly bored with revising for A-levels and other trivial rubbish, so we played Monster Battle Cards for quite a while before we realised a) it was a stupid game anyway, and b) we really ought to do some work, or at least go back to playing Hangman (for, as you may well have guessed, the individual I am talking about was indeed my Hangman partner and now occasional contributor to this website, Peter McDonald, who will probably tell me to remove his name from this site and erase his shame as soon as he sees it).
The one problem - or one of the few problems - okay, one of the many problems with this game was that ugg. Let's start that sentence again, in a manner that will still make grammatical sense once you bring the original clause to the end, like that one just wasn't going to do. There are three principal problems that I can think of with the game right at this very instant. There were probably many more and I will no doubt think of them as the article progresses. But let's look at what we have now:
Problem #1: It lasted a bloody long time, longer than anyone was willing to play it. But as I have made a fair amount of comment on this subject already, I don't think I'll do it all over again, though it would fill up space.
Problem #2: The inclusion of the Wild Cards in the pack made the game even more stupid. I don't believe I mentioned the Wild Cards above, but fear not, I shall do so now. The Wild Card was some genius's method of making the game much longer and, in some cases, making it thoroughly unwinnable (another made up word, according to the spell checker). The idea was that the Wild Card would automatically win any battle, whatever the considerable abilities of the other Battle Card(s) in question. This would be stupid enough if there were just one, because whoever got dealt the Wild Card would definitely win, after a long and annoying battle (annoying for the other persons, that is). But it gets stupider. Those who designed the game saw fit to include two Wild Cards in each pack. So, assuming there are two people playing, there are three possible combinations of Wild Card distributions. The first is that one person gets both, in which case they are destined to win, definitely. The second is that each person gets one each, which, as anyone can see, guarantees a draw. The third, and by far the most sensible, combination is that you take the Wild Cards out before you start playing and then proceed on the relative merits of the remaining cards. Alternatively, you can create some form of rule whereby a Super Scary Card beats a Wild Card, so the Wild Cards can actually change hands.
Problem #3: Although they were rather handy for solving Wild Card related problems, the Super Scary cards created problems of their own. An average Super Scary card could have values such as, in the case of Giant Thunderdell, an Intelligence of 15, Strength of 55, Speed of 35 and Weakness of -5. Actually, to be perfectly fair, that's not average, that's probably the best card of them all, but I can't remember the exact values for any of the other Super Scary cards (although, if you want evidence of Owen-sadness, I can remember the exact values for every single Series 2 Battle Card, and a fair proportion of the Series 1 ones as well). But anyway, you get the idea. How is an average Series 1 or 2 card (the best of which is probably Dragon, with an Intelligence of 12, a Strength of 12, a Speed of 11 and a Weakness of -5) going to stand a chance against a card like that? Basically, whoever gets the Super Scary cards will win. Fortunately, I have about six, so a fairly even distribution is likely. A solution to this problem is, perhaps, to take out both the Super Scary cards and the Wild Cards, which does put a crimp in the style, unfortunately. Well, it doesn't actually, but I have to say it does, and I don't know why I have to say so, but I just have this craving to. It's important. It must be.
So anyway, I hope this has given you a terribly unbiased overview of that master invention, Monster in my Pocket Battle Cards. As a matter of fact, I do rather enjoy the game, I've only been criticising it here because that's what I seem to do on this website. I never say anything's good anymore. I'll have to talk about something I enjoyed in a while. Actually, I enjoyed everything I talk about, I just am now in a good position to point out the flaws in it. But anyway, I'm beginning to digress. As usual.