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(Both games available in the online store at www.cheapass.com for US $14.95 each)
Related Links: Tabletop Game: Lord of the Rings
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Tabletop Game of the Week: Give
Me the Brain /
James
Ernest with both his eponymous label and Cheapass Games tends to take a
humorous approach to game design.
The two recently released special edition card games Lord of the
Fries and Give Me the Brain certainly depend on humor for a good deal of
their appeal, but each game would be good, light fun regardless of what
theme was pasted upon it. In
both games, players play the role of zombies working for the fast food
franchise Friedey’s (as featured in an early Cheapass game of the same
name).
The necro-cuisine nature of the restaurant plays out a bit
differently in the two games.
In Lord of the Fries, the theme allows for menus featuring a
radioactive special sauce and multi-tentacled fishies.
Give Me the Brain suggests that the employees only have one brain
between them and need it in their possession to pull off particularly
difficult tasks behind the counter (though I have no idea how Mr. Ernest
could have come up with such an idea).
The mechanics of both games fit the theme well, and the theme, in
turn, expands the player’s enjoyment of the simple mechanics. In
Give Me the Brain, players compete to empty their hands of cards by
playing the cards and completing the tasks written on them.
During each turn, a player can do two “hands” worth of
actions, meaning he can play a card that takes a zombie two hands to
perform or two cards requiring only one hand each.
The actions involve things like forcing other players to draw
cards or getting to play additional cards.
The most valuable actions require not only two hands but also a
brain.
Since the players have only one brain between them (represented
by a die), they must acquire it before they can play a card requiring a
brain.
The brain gets dropped (because the player who attempted an
action with it failed to roll high enough) and passed around many times
during the course of the game.
When the brain hits the ground, players fight for it by
attempting to play the highest bid card.
Highest card gets the brain and that player gets to keep it until
he drops it or another player’s action causes it to hit the ground.
That’s it.
The game is light and quick, and it is simple enough for anyone
to learn quickly. Lord
of the Fries is the better of the two games, and it is the game that
benefits the most from the new, special edition packaging.
LOTF is a contract bidding game with the Cheapass twist.
For the basic game, players assemble a deck with a certain amount
of some varied ingredients:
bird, meat, sauce, fish, bun, pie, etc.
The cards are dealt to the players and they compete to be the
first to empty their hands by playing sets based on the menu item.
Players can roll their menu item randomly or choose which item is
to be attempted on a given hand.
Regardless of how the item is chosen, every player, in turn gets
a chance to make the item before the caller.
The difference between the two choices involves what happens when
a player can’t make an item.
If the caller has rolled the choice randomly, players pass him or
her a card when they can’t make an item.
If the player chooses the item to be made, players instead pass a
card to the player on their left.
Though
nearly as simple as Give Me the Brain, LOTF is much more open to clever
plays.
LOTF Special Edition also benefits from the addition of new menus
and ingredients that add replay value and variety (though, I must note
that my entire group of players preferred the original menu to the
Special Edition additions). Bought
either alone or together, Give Me the Brain and Lord of the Fries are
good, light fun.
If you have room for a couple of light card games in your
collection, I recommend both.
If you can only find room for one, pick up of Lord of the Fries.
It has become a staple in our weekly sessions as the game we play
when we have just a half hour or so to kill and don’t want to chance
fumbling our lone brain. - Tolen Dante (March
22, 2003) |
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