
2012Paul Peterson
Mainly reviews. Smash Up is covered on BoardGameVideo.com by 28 reviews, 8 how-to-play guides, 4 recorded sessions, 1 unboxings, and 7 other videos.
From BoardGameGeek
The "shufflebuilding" game Smash Up begins with a simple premise: take the 20-card decks of two factions, shuffle them into a deck of forty cards, then compete to crush more Bases than your opponents! Each faction involves a different gaming mechanism - Pirates move their minions around, Zombies bring back their cards from the discard pile, Dinosaurs have enormous power - and each combination of factions brings a different gaming experience. During the game, players compete to score points from Base cards. Players play minions to the bases, and you want to have the highest total power of minions at the base when it breaks. Sounds easy? Is it easy when an opponent's Alien-Ninja plays minions to your bases that destroy your minions? What happens when the Pirate-Dinosaur player plays Full Sail and frees King Rex to trample your minions into the ground, or when the Wizard-Zombies player uses their mystic power to create an outbreak, suddenly flooding minions to the base from their discard pile? Or if you were facing a Zombie-Dinosaur player instead who created an epidemic of massive beasts?!? With eight different factions, Smash Up includes dozens of combinations to try. Pirate-Aliens play different from Ninja-Aliens, for example. Which one will you use to crush your opponents? And did we mention the Dinosaurs have laser beams?
Smash Up has 48 videos from 41 creators: 28 reviews, 8 how-to-play guides, 4 playthroughs, 1 unboxing and 7 other videos. They date from 2012 to October 2026.
To learn the rules, start with "How to Play Smash Up in 3 Minutes - The Rules Girl" by The Rules Girl, which runs 3 min.
For an opinion before you buy, start with "Smash Up Review - with Tom Vasel" by The Dice Tower. 23 creators have reviewed it. To see it played, watch "Smash Up: Rich Sommer, Cara Santa Maria, and Jen Timms join Wil on TableTop SE2E06" by Geek & Sundry, one of 4 playthroughs.
If you like it, try Guillotine, Smash Up: Disney Edition, The Ninth World: A Skillbuilding Game for Numenera and Smash Up: Awesome Level 9000, also by Paul Peterson. It appears in convention videos from Gen Con 2016, Gen Con 2012 and UK Games Expo 2012.
8 of 41
2022Sean Fletcher, Paul Peterson
2 - 4 players30 - 60 minMedium weight
2018Paul Peterson, Boyan Radakovich, Mike Selinker
1 - 5 players30 - 60 minMedium weight
2013Paul Peterson
2 players45 minMedium weight
From BoardGameGeek:
The "shufflebuilding" game Smash Up begins with a simple premise: take the 20-card decks of two factions, shuffle them into a deck of forty cards, then compete to crush more Bases than your opponents! Each faction involves a different gaming mechanism - Pirates move their minions around, Zombies bring back their cards from the discard pile, Dinosaurs have enormous power - and each combination of factions brings a different gaming experience. During the game, players compete to score points from Base cards. Players play minions to the bases, and you want to have the highest total power of minions at the base when it breaks. Sounds easy? Is it easy when an opponent's Alien-Ninja plays minions to your bases that destroy your minions? What happens when the Pirate-Dinosaur player plays Full Sail and frees King Rex to trample your minions into the ground, or when the Wizard-Zombies player uses their mystic power to create an outbreak, suddenly flooding minions to the base from their discard pile? Or if you were facing a Zombie-Dinosaur player instead who created an epidemic of massive beasts?!? With eight different factions, Smash Up includes dozens of combinations to try. Pirate-Aliens play different from Ninja-Aliens, for example. Which one will you use to crush your opponents? And did we mention the Dinosaurs have laser beams?
Designer
Paul Peterson
Artists
Dave Allsop, Bruno Balixa, Carmen Cianelli, Conceptopolis, Crut, Pierre Raveneau, Isuardi Therianto, Francisco Rico Torres
Publisher
Alderac Entertainment Group
Mechanics