Eurogame Ludicrous Theme Hall of Fame- LOS MAMPFOS

Here at Fortress Ameritrash, one of the things we all agree on is that theme, a sense of narrative, and a tight fit between those traits and solid mechanics are chief among the qualities that make a game great- whether it's from the US or Luxembourg. We've often criticized Euros for their lack of these characteristics and we have chafed at some of the more nonsensical themes (penguins) that the genre is known for. Today I came across a new title that surely must be entered into the Eurogame Ludicrous Theme Hall of Fame- LOS MAMPFOS.




Now, don't consider this a review because I've never played this game from Zoch Verlag and I likely never will- for one thing, I'm not a big Rudiger Dorn fan (outside of TRADERS OF GENOA) but I'm also not a big fan of a shitting donkeys theme. I like WWII and robots much better.

Yeah, that's right. The theme of the game is that you feed these gigantic, squatting wooden donkeys oat biscuits and then they move around these fields. The rules have that irritating Euro-cloyness in describing what you actually do in the game- "once they are well-fed, they lift their tails up and let the recently digested biscuits drop onto the grass." Which is a nice, Euro-way to say "the donkeys take a dump". The goal of the game is literally to collect different colors of shit (which are of course wooden discs). It appears that the usual assortment of "clever" movement rules are there along with some kind of card drafting and selection wheels but it's all just a distraction to picking up donkey turd. The ad copy tells us that the game is " for sombrero wearers with a good memory – and a preference for donkeys’ droppings".

All that being said, it looks like the mechanics clearly illustrate and specify the donkey shitting theme. Which in terms of theme/mechanic integration is more than can be said of say, TIGRIS AND EUPHRATES.

Now, don't get me wrong...Zoch has done some really neat games for children (JOCHEN DER ROCHEN, for example) and I'm sure the game is targeted toward kids who giggle at the thought of poo- but I wouldn't be surprised to see a cluster of adults gathered around LOS MAMPFOS at the next big game event, tee-heeing their way through this madness yet snubbing the themes, dice rolling, and graphics of AT games as "childish" or "immature". If I were an outsider to the hobby and walked in on that scene, I would run home screaming and burn every copy of MONOPOLY or TRIVIAL PURSUIT in my closet to avoid being associated with such an awful, degenerate hobby.

But now, if FFG were to redo it with a shitting Orcs theme...that might be a game.