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Aug 01, 2018 • By Ashley Voge

Fun and games with Monster Cereals

August is here, which means October is near. And in the cereal world, that means the Monster Cereals will soon make their annual appearance.

Boo Berry, Count Chocula and Franken Berry should start creeping around cereal aisles across the U.S. at the end of this month.

New this year, the trio also will be appearing in the game section of the store (along with Fruit Brute and Fruity Yummy Mummy) in “Monster Crunch: The Breakfast Battle Game.”

Starting August 26, Target will stock the Monster Crunch game. It also will be available on Target.com.

Want more of the Monsters?

All five of them are featured in a 500-piece Monster Cereals puzzle, also appearing first at Target, this month.

The game and the puzzle are both published by Big G Creative (not affiliated with Big G Cereals).

The board game description encourages people to play with their food:

In this fast-paced game of luck and strategy, players collect as many Cereal Cards in their Bowls as they can. Each Monster has special powers to give you an advantage and help you gobble up the most cereal. Use Milk Tokens to combine Cereal Cards and take bigger bites. The Monster Cereals character that munches the most wins the game!

“We loved the idea of bringing Monster Cereals fun beyond breakfast or a midnight snack. Monster Cereals are only available for a limited time for Halloween, so the retro game gives us an opportunity to share these beloved characters with families and cereal fanatics year-round,” says Taylor Roseberry, assistant marketing communications manager for Monster Cereals.

So, what made the Monster Cereals game-worthy?

The characters now span generations, and the concept of eating a bunch of delicious cereal is relatable and simple enough to adapt into a family-friendly game.

“When we’re considering any licensed characters, the first thing we look at is whether they are appropriate for the whole family? Do they inspire fun? Are the characters conducive to game play?” says Cristy Collins, marketing director at Big G Creative. “The Monster Cereals were a perfect match. The Big G Creative team all grew up eating the cereal as kids, so we had a fondness for the Monsters and we knew that we couldn’t be alone in that. We coupled that with our strategy of capturing the retro trend that’s happening right now and partnered with phenomenal designers to release a game to help fulfill fans’ appetite for Monster Cereals merchandise.”

Both the game and puzzle feature a retro Monster Cereals box and character look to them, to give fans a nostalgic treat on game nights.

“We remember the Monster Cereals as they were. People can relate to the Monsters holding bowls of cereal on the box because they still look enough like the Monsters of today. It’s a really great surprise and delight for adults to get to experience the retro feel of those classic characters,” says Collins. “It’s also a cool way to give parents a way to share their childhood memories of the cereal Monsters with their own children.”

Roseberry said she was more than delighted when the first game box arrived at our headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

“Big G Creative did an amazing job of combining the retro Monsters look parents will remember from their childhood with a family friendly game and puzzle featuring the whole crew of Monsters characters,” says Roseberry. “It’s been a few years since Fruit Brute and Fruity Yummy Mummy cereals have been available, so this year we are excited to introduce these characters through fun game play and activities.”

The official launch of the Monster Cereals games is happening this weekend at Gen Con Gaming Convention, and distribution is expected to be across the U.S. by the beginning of September.

The Monster Crunch board game is available for $19.99 and the puzzle retails for $12.99, both are currently available exclusively at Target.

Learn more about the Monster Cereals legacy in this “Inside the General Mills Archives” video.

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