Game Review: Affentennis

By Ben Baldanza
November 16, 2007

Publisher: Braunkohl Verlag
Designer: Jürgen Kohl
Players: 2
Playing Time: 60 minutes

[Editor’s note: This review first appeared in the Winter 2007 GA Report; check out the Gamers Alliance website for details on subscribing to the GA Report.]

Affentennis—or “Monkey Tennis” in English—was a curiosity game at Essen 2006. How on earth could a game with that name and funny little monkey characters holding racquets actually be a good game? It may not help the case to know that the game was originally designed as “Smurf Tennis,” but the college teacher designer could not get the legal rights to use the Smurf characters even though ones holding tennis racquets were readily available. He was relieved to find similar characters using a monkey from German television, and Affentennis was born.

Now the truly best part: This is an excellent game! Silly figures aside, Jürgen Kohl has designed a well thought-out dexterity game and certainly the best tennis simulation ever invented. The monkeys stand on triangular bases and are used only to point to the space on the hex-court where the player stands. The ball is hit with a “racquet” that is a rubber band-powered device. To hit, a player lines up the racquet, pulls back the plunger, and releases it to propel the ball forward, hopefully in the direction and speed attempted. The court is made of felt with a hex grid on it, and this allows the game to be “rolled up” and stored in a simple bag.  You need a fairly large table to hold the court, though.

Affentennis plays like a real tennis match with certain rules adapted to make the board game reflect the physical realty of the outdoor game. The serving player must position his monkey behind the baseline on the proper side of the court, while the receiver can position his monkey anywhere. The point that the monkey is positioned in determines from where the racquet will be swung, and this is either of the two rear adjacent hexes. Following the shot, the hitting player can reposition his monkey up to five spaces in any direction.

The receiving player can move his monkey up to six points worth of spaces in order to get to the just-served ball.  Each forward space costs one point, a diagonal backward space costs two points, and a space backwards directly toward the baseline costs three points. This models the exertion and momentum shift needed to make these movements happen, and accurately reflects that the player was out of position either due to his mistake or a particularly good shot by the opponent. In one of the best designed rules of the game, a player who needs more movement to reach a ball can “borrow” up to five spaces from his next “after hit” allotment—but if he does this, he must return the ball under constraints and is limited to the direction that he can shoot from. This also accurately reflects how a player would be limited in his shot selection if he had to overexert himself to get to a ball that would otherwise be out of reach. After the shot is returned, the player can reposition up to five spaces less any spaces borrowed to make the return.

Using just these basic hit and return rules would make for an interesting enough game with a lot of strategic play potential, but Kohl, an athlete himself, has gone a step further to add some of tennis’ best features: the volley, lob, and smash. When close to the net after a hit, a player can use two reposition points to place the Lobby Block, a piece of wood that creates a physical barrier for the opponent to shoot around. After the opponent’s shot, the block is removed. The opponent can attempt to lob over the block by using a ramp, and this is a lot of fun and works very well. Lastly, a monkey can smash a return when in the proper positioning by setting up a Smash Block on the opponent’s baseline, and knocking over the block with his shot. These three options work very well in the game and give the game a true tennis feel, while adding a good deal of shot and positioning strategy.

A few years ago, Goldsieber produced Tennis Masters, and while this game remains an enjoyable two-player dexterity game, Tennis Masters is more about getting good with flicking the plastic racquet and uses fuzzy balls that stick to the court. Affentennis is a much more fluid and realistic game, and the clever attention to details and how they are implemented makes it a far superior game. A limited supply of the games was produced, and Kohl was eagerly demonstrating the game throughout the Essen fair. Most people approached assuming the game would be a fun break, but then left recognizing that there was much more here than just a silly monkey game. Kohl is a volleyball player, and originally wanted to produce a game about that sport but found tennis to be more approachable. If he can work out the details of a volleyball game as well, it will undoubtedly worth a good look. He is now producing a second edition of the game so hopefully it will become available soon for those who want to add this super new dexterity game to their libraries.

[Editor’s note: As of November 2007, Kohl has sold out the first edition (150 copies), second edition (500 copies) and special ten copy editions like the one pictured above. He now has the third edition (1,000 copies) available, which includes a video explanation of the game in German in addition to the rulebook.]

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