Game: Ninja Burger

Thread: Re: Slow, boring and repetitive... yes, it's by SJG

onze — 2008-08-11T16:19:39+00:00

What they said. With a few drinks, some lite roleplaying and some insults thrown around, this game is hilarious.

I should also add that I've never seen a game with expansion last more than an hour and a half. If you keep failing missions perhaps you did not make a good enough use of the meetings? There's also a rule whereby when you get under a certain amount of honour the franchise is closed down.

Thread: Re: Slow, boring and repetitive... yes, it's by SJG

Progmode — 2008-08-11T15:14:17+00:00

Did you play with the expansion or just the base game?

The expansion adds more opportunities to screw with your opponents. In general I say an expansion shouldn't have to "fix" a game, but the NB expansion really does make the game much more enjoyable.

I second that the "right group of people" helps too.

Thread: Re: Slow, boring and repetitive... yes, it's by SJG

Karlsen — 2008-08-11T14:24:23+00:00

It really depends on who you play it with.

I've played it a few times. One time was with a group of old roleplaying mates and it was a lot of fun. It kept us entertained the whole time. Another time was with some part time board gamers, realistically it was a snore fest.

The game on its own is not great, it needs the right group of players to drag it over the line. Worth it if you have the right group, not worth it if you don't.

Thread: Slow, boring and repetitive... yes, it's by SJG

MerricB — 2008-08-11T04:58:03+00:00

Ninja Burger was the second of two games that Josh brought to our most recent boardgame day (the other was Willow Game, which was excellent).

Unfortunately, NB shows all the signs of a typical Steve Jackson Game: fun theme, amusing cards, and terrible, random gameplay.

The idea is great. The players are ninjas, working for a burger delivery store. Each turn you draw one order (mission) that you have to fulfill - unless you can trade it with another player at the meeting.

To complete the missions, you need to roll dice and score under the skills you have. Each mission details the tasks you have to do - mostly very amusing - and the modifiers to any skill rolls. Unfortunately, normally there'd be at least one skill that you were hopeless at.

To counter this, you have fortune cards which normally gave you items you could buy to increase your skills. There are quite a few different skills, and the item bonuses are rarely that good. And they probably didn't apply to the skill you wanted.

The object of the game is to get five or more honour than any other player... except opportunities to hurt the other players are extremely limited, so the game tends to drag on, and on, and on, as you fail one mission after another (and eventually offer penance and draw another ninja) or everyone has become halfway competent and gains honour at the same rate. At some point, a threshold of total honor is reached and the game ends. Don't know how long that takes, though... after two hours we'd had enough of the pointlessness of the game and awarded Rich the victory with his amazing, climbing Ninja (he automatically succeeded on every climb check).

There are just too many random elements, and too few opportunities to actually influence the game in a meaningful way. The cards are amusing, yes, but you need more than that for a game. I'm not going to play this game again in a hurry.

Thread: Re: In 30 minutes or.... your game is stagnant...

MerricB — 2008-07-29T03:49:44+00:00

GeneSteeler wrote:
Gorfinger wrote:
Ninja Burger is a very fun tongue in cheek sort of game, the only problem is that the mechanics get old... fast. We set up the game during the awful snowstorm that hit Michigan and shot right into it with four players. We were pulling our missions, getting our ninja loot on, and rolling each check with that horrible ninja accent hoping it would move the dice in our favor. The problem? This went on for HOURS... this card game was wonderful but it was simple and began to drag on losing our attention.

Wow - My first (and only) play was almost identical. The game went from amusing to painful over the span of about 2 hours until we called a premature end...

Very, very strange... same here.

Thread: Re: In 30 minutes or.... your game is stagnant...

GeneSteeler — 2008-07-28T05:18:41+00:00

Gorfinger wrote:
Ninja Burger is a very fun tongue in cheek sort of game, the only problem is that the mechanics get old... fast. We set up the game during the awful snowstorm that hit Michigan and shot right into it with four players. We were pulling our missions, getting our ninja loot on, and rolling each check with that horrible ninja accent hoping it would move the dice in our favor. The problem? This went on for HOURS... this card game was wonderful but it was simple and began to drag on losing our attention.

Wow - My first (and only) play was almost identical. The game went from amusing to painful over the span of about 2 hours until we called a premature end...

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swuyau — 2008-05-26T11:47:12+00:00

card

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Blix — 2008-05-08T20:24:11+00:00

Ninja Burger Bookmark

Thread: Re: In 30 minutes or.... your game is stagnant...

Gorfinger — 2007-12-21T11:53:04+00:00

Yea, the set number of turns was the first thing I thought of after playing the game for the first time. It is really good but the end point of the game needs a lot of house rule help!

Thread: Re: In 30 minutes or.... your game is stagnant...

Zimeon — 2007-12-21T07:34:07+00:00

I have almost never played with the normal winning rules (except first time). I just tone them down, I lower the max honour for a game-end, and raise the minimum. Also, I believe I lowered the limit that someone can be ahead. I believe I also set a set number of turns.

Thread: Re: In 30 minutes or.... your game is stagnant...

Gorfinger — 2007-12-20T21:06:57+00:00

I agree! The theme was just amazing and we had alot of fun with the antics that came with the game, so I will give it a go and tell you what I think!!! Thanks for the comment!

Thread: Re: In 30 minutes or.... your game is stagnant...

dogzard — 2007-12-20T20:59:39+00:00

I ran into the same problem with Ninja Burger myself. But a friend of mine said that the Ninja theme was just too cool to throw away. So, I attempted to make some house rules that would raise the interaction level a bit, and make the game more interesting. The file is located here:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/file/info/25096

and is under the name NinjaBurger.doc. A lot of people have downloaded it, but I've received no comments as of yet. Check it out, give the rules a try, then let me know what you think. I'd really appreciate it.

Bottom line, the game idea is just too cool to discard. Yay, Ninjas!

Thread: In 30 minutes or.... your game is stagnant...

Gorfinger — 2007-12-20T07:03:01+00:00

Ninja Burger is a very fun tongue in cheek sort of game, the only problem is that the mechanics get old... fast. We set up the game during the awful snowstorm that hit Michigan and shot right into it with four players. We were pulling our missions, getting our ninja loot on, and rolling each check with that horrible ninja accent hoping it would move the dice in our favor. The problem? This went on for HOURS... this card game was wonderful but it was simple and began to drag on losing our attention. We almost saw the light of day when Griff got one honor point from being ahead but three amazing rolls later and I got two honor points pulling the game on for another six rounds. By the end, we just called the game, I hate doing that but it just got out of hand and we wanted to play something else before time ate our gaming souls. Luckily, we were slapped out of that stagnant feeling with our first game of Ticket To Ride at our table! It saved the ninja day..."I would give this game one and a half yams... and that’s being generous..." A flash cartoon quote but I felt it was needed here to emphasize my point. This is going to be one of those rare to play games that sit near its good friend When Darkness Comes. Never to be found by the daylight of gamers tables... anywhere...

Thread: This can be a waaaayyyyy better game! Priming the pump!

El Hidalgo — 2007-06-23T09:48:34+00:00

Ninja Burger is a fun playing, laugh filled game the first few times around. My best buddy and I began to wonder at about play session five what went wrong.

Sure we could have gone out and bought the supplement of Sumo Size Me but felt that the game needed to stand on its own merits. So we started to banter about house rules and variants. Greg came up with an interesting mechanic designed to increase player interaction and cut back on the dice rolling doldrums. His Help or Hinder mechanic was first discussed, then scribbled on some note paper he showed me at church, and tonight we got together to redeem the game.

This was a refreshing session. Coincidently my seven year old daughter decided to join us and the Help or Hinder Mechanic made it easier for us to include her into play. At one point she even led the game in honor points!!!

With four of us at it we wanted to see if we could indeed avoid the tedium of dice rolling and increase our interaction. The Help or Hinder Mechanic did a couple of things.

First it made us pay more attention to other player's missions.

Second it helped to level the playing field when someone was having an unbalanced great run on dice rolls.

Third it imposed a consequence to our next turn if we used the mechanic but also provided a reward if it worked.

Fourth it speeded up the game.

Ninja Burger is a game with untapped potential. After the first half a dozen plays it could easily sit on a shelf untouched. The Help or Hinder Mechanic which Dogzard will post in this forum is a nice feature that will add game life to Ninja Burger. Look for it in the very near future.

Thread: Re: Ninja Burger - A quick review

El Hidalgo — 2007-06-22T03:18:59+00:00

Wow! Interesting Web Site with fun ancillary products.

So am I to understand that this was first a tongue in cheek RPG before it became the card game??? Bares more looking into. Maybe there are ideas, mechanics, and structures in the RPG that would make the card game better.

Thread: Re: Would You Like A Shuriken With That?

JohnRayJr — 2007-06-21T20:43:02+00:00

dogzard wrote:
Nicely written. I think you nailed it right on. This matches almost exactly my thoughts on this game. However, I am currently working on some "house" rules that boost interactions between players, and give people more options. When they're done, I will post them on BGG.

Let me know once they're up so I can take a look.

Thread: Re: Would You Like A Shuriken With That?

dogzard — 2007-06-21T09:59:56+00:00

Nicely written. I think you nailed it right on. This matches almost exactly my thoughts on this game. However, I am currently working on some "house" rules that boost interactions between players, and give people more options. When they're done, I will post them on BGG.

Thread: Would You Like A Shuriken With That?

JohnRayJr — 2007-06-21T01:49:31+00:00

Ninja Burger

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This review is intended to be comprehensive – below you can find detailed descriptions of the game mechanics, components, and theme, as well as my own thoughts on the game and what I like or dislike about it. Ninja Burger is a simple game, so each section of this review is fairly brief.

Contents

1.) Overview
2.) Theme
3.) What's in the Box?
4.) What's NOT in the Box?
5.) Rules
6.) Components
7.) Quality of components
8.) Thoughts on the Theme
9.) Thoughts on the Gameplay
10.) The Final Word

Overview

Ninja burger is a light-weight game that combines two unlikely elements – ninjas and fast food – in to a goofy, laugh-out-loud game. When I say the game is “light-weight,” I mean players make simple decisions, roll a few dice, play an occasional card, and laugh at each other's misfortunes. Ninja burger is for 3-6 players and playtime is difficult to predict (the "30 minutes or less" listed on the box is very conservative; 45-120 minutes is more accurate).

Theme

Players are novice ninjas who must use all of their prowess to deliver burgers to an outrageous assortment of customers (window washers, pirates) without being seen. Bungling, non-stealthy ninjas will only bring dishonor upon the proud Ninja Burger franchise! The game ends when one of the players is promoted to branch manager.

What's in the Box

144 Cards including:

16 Ninja cards
72 Fortune Cards
56 Mission Cards

3 black six-sided dice

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What's NOT in the Box

Ninja Burger is not a complete game out of the box. Players gain honor by completeing “missions” (burger deliveries) and are paid a salary which can be used to buy “ninja stuff” (fortune cards). The game does not come with any sort of tokens for honor or money; instead, the rulebook instructs players to use pennies or whatever else is at hand. It's pretty sad that Steve Jackson games could not even include a few cardboard tokens for such a simple game.

Rules

Players begin by drawing three ninja cards. Each player then selects their ninja and discards the other two cards. Each round, players are paid a salary, draw a mission card, decide whether or not to go to the staff meeting, attempt to deliver burgers, and are either honored for their success or dishonored for their failure. They may also purchase “ninja stuff” and play fortune cards to screw-up other players.

Each Ninja has set of skills including combat, stealth, climbing, disguise, customer service, and 'other stuff,' as well as a unique special ability. These skills each have a numerical value ranging between 9-14. Whenever a ninja uses a skill, he rolls three dice to determine success or failure, hoping for a roll equal to or less than his skill. For example, if a player is delivering a burger to a window washer, he must climb the building to reach his customer. If his ninja has a climbing skill of 12, he rolls three dice and hopes for a total of 12 or less.

Collect Salary

Every turn, players receive $100 (the most honorable ninja receives a $50 bonus)

Draw Mission Card

Each player draws a single mission card which lists their customer, the requisite skill(s) needed for the particular delivery, the reward for success and the penalty for failure.

Staff Meeting

Based on whether or not their ninja is well-suited to the mission they have drawn, players may begin their delivery immediately or go to a “staff meeting” at which players can trade missions. The decision to go to a staff meeting is made in secret. If a player turns out to be the only one getting an early start on their delivery, they get a bonus. If they turn out to be the only one going to the staff meeting, they also get a bonus. Players who attend the staff meeting draw a single fortune card, and players who do not get a second chance at completing their delivery if their first attempt fails.

Missions

Once the staff meeting has adjourned, players take their turns in clockwise order, reading their mission card out-loud and then rolling three dice to see if their mission was successful. After each player has gone, players begin a new round by drawing salary.

Game End

The game can end in three ways. After round 5, if the total honor of all players exceeds 10 times the number of players OR drops below 4 times the number of players, the player with the highest honor wins. After turn five, any player that is winning by 5 or more honor points immediately wins the game.

Fortune Cards

Players begin with a hand of 3 Fortune Cards. These cards include “Ninja Stuff” which players can buy at any time (usually items that improve their chances of successful delivery) as well as one-time use cards that can be played to screw up other players.

Components

Ninja Cards:

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Mission Cards:

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Fortune Cards:

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Quality of Components

Quality of present components: very good. Quality of absent components (money and honor): non-existent.

The large-format cards included in Ninja Burger are attractive, pleasant to use, and easy to shuffle. Game-text is clear; flavor text is hilarious. Steve Jackson Games produced a very nice set of cards, overpriced it, and then neglected to include the other components necessary to play.

Thoughts on the Theme

Ninjas + Fast Food = ROFL. Until the humor wears thin after a couple of plays...

Thoughts on the Gameplay

After reading the rules above, you're probably scratching your head thinking “but doesn't that mean that I just roll three dice every turn and see how it goes?” More or less. You can angle for missions that fit your skill-set better, you can occasionally play cards that slightly improve your chances, and you can play cards to screw other players up, but you're still just rolling three dice each round. The gameplay here is so thin even a ninja couldn't hide behind it. The worthwhile part of the experience is the absurdity itself: reading the cards is what gets the laughs, rolling the dice is just part of the joke.

Though I prefer games that require some thought, I'll indulge in this sort of fluff if the humor is sharp enough, as it is here. If Ninja Burger has one fatal flaw even as fluff, it's that it can go on, and on, and on. The mechanics don't create any forward trajectory or momentum. This sort of game definitely wears out its welcome after 45 minutes, and Ninja burger will often run longer than that (imagine a two-hour game of card-reading and dice-rolling). I suggest setting a round limit (7-10) and giving the win to the player with the most honor at the end of the final round.

The Final Word

Ninja burger is a hilarious game that lapses into tedium. If you require some thoughtful mechanics even in light games, this one isn't for you. The game is incomplete out of the box, a serious mark against it in my book, and overpriced to boot. At most this game is worth $10 (not $25), and even then the replay value is minimal. You'll lose interest after you've seen or heard all of the cards.

Theme: 10/10
Components: 4/10
Gamplay: 4/10
Replay Value 3/10

Overall: 4/10

Thread: Re: Ninja Burger - A quick review

OmegaDolphin — 2007-06-02T01:06:08+00:00

randougall wrote:
OmegaDolphin wrote:
I think it depends on the group you play with. When we played we made a lot of ninja noises and laughed as we figured out the intricate details of the missions.

Theme Heavy yes, but that is what makes this work. I wouldn't play it if it was Vichy French Burger.

'Ninja noises'?!?

Well you know...the type of noises you usually hear right before the ninja kills you. Or any sound effects from old kung fu movies.

Thread: Re: Ninja Burger - A quick review

DougBeebe — 2007-06-01T15:20:00+00:00

The expansion to Ninja Burger (Sumo Size Me) increases player interaction through Fortune cards that allow you to set additional tasks for the other ninjas to complete before finishing their missions. That definately increases the involvement when it's not your turn. Additionally, in every group I've played this with, there is also a lot of selling/trading of equipment with other players (which I'm pretty sure is within the rules), so I've not seen the problem you're having.

At its base though, this IS a light, theme-based game, where some of the fun is from visualizing delivering burgers to places like Cyberspace and Area 51...

Thread: Re: Ninja Burger - A quick review

Randougall — 2007-06-01T13:59:04+00:00

Thread: Re: Ninja Burger - A quick review

Karlsen — 2007-06-01T11:30:32+00:00

OmegaDolphin wrote:
I think it depends on the group you play with. When we played we made a lot of ninja noises and laughed as we figured out the intricate details of the missions.
Ooh yes, who you play it with makes a huge difference. The far and away best session of this we played with was old roleplaying friends. We weren't deliberately hamming it up, but it just came naturally with that group. Fell somewhat flat with a different group.

Thread: Re: Ninja Burger - A quick review

xlorp — 2007-06-01T04:11:03+00:00

El Hidalgo wrote:
So what are the opportunities I have with Ninja Burger that I do not have with Yahtzee?

It seems there are two challenges here

1) Moving the game away from the over dependence on dice
2) Increasing the fun player interaction

If honorable geek enjoys the theme of ninja burger but wishes to enjoy it in the company of others with only a minumum of dice-dependence, then said geek will be pleasantly surprised by purchase of the orignal franchise product!

I give you
http://www.ninjaburger.com/rpg/
Ninjaburger, the RPG.

Thread: Re: Ninja Burger - A quick review

El Hidalgo — 2007-06-01T04:00:27+00:00

Noooooooo! Not Yahtzee! So what are the opportunities I have with Ninja Burger that I do not have with Yahtzee?

It seems there are two challenges here

1) Moving the game away from the over dependence on dice
2) Increasing the fun player interaction

I can see that one way to build interaction would be to bring the "fun" into it by talking it up and playing it out with the noises and hacks and slashes from old kung fu thrillers. In that sense one will only get out of the game what one puts into it. So this is no ordinary filler, it would have to be a chosen one when people are slap happy, in a good mood, intoxicated, or all three. Since we do not drink and game it would have to be two of three.

Thread: Re: Ninja Burger - A quick review

dogzard — 2007-06-01T03:16:23+00:00

Those are good ideas, but they don't address the core issue, player interaction. It's just not fun to sit and watch someone else roll dice. Believe me, I want to like this game, but if I want to roll dice, I can just play Yachtzee. (God, no!)

Thread: Re: First play +Mini review

SPNSAndy — 2007-06-01T03:01:21+00:00

The expansion was included as well, I don't know what is different from the original game to the expansion.

I've never played the expansion, but your review alerted me to one difference:

There is also a sheet of punch out tokens for honor and money, of typical quality.

When I brought the game home from the store and opened the box the first time I was annoyed that the box included neither money nor honor tokens. I definitely felt overcharged at that point. I wouldn't have minded so much if the outside of the box had said, "You will need: Money, Honor tokens." But no, I didn't know that until I opened the box and read the rules.

It seems arrogant of Mr. Jackson and company to include a necessary game component in the expansion but not in the base game. That's the really galling part--that they give you the money and honor tokens, but you need to buy the expansion to get them. It would actually be less obnoxious if they just never gave you those things at all. In any case, I refuse to buy the Ninja Burger expansion for just that reason. I don't want to give them the satisfaction.

That said, I enjoy playing the game. I've also been trying to figure out ways to incorporate the phrase "walking the leopard" into everyday conversation.

Thread: Re: Ninja Burger - A quick review

OmegaDolphin — 2007-06-01T02:58:17+00:00

I think it depends on the group you play with. When we played we made a lot of ninja noises and laughed as we figured out the intricate details of the missions.

Theme Heavy yes, but that is what makes this work. I wouldn't play it if it was Vichy French Burger.

Thread: Re: Ninja Burger - A quick review

El Hidalgo — 2007-06-01T02:25:19+00:00

Dogzard
Would it make it more interesting to make a house rule where one could select a different Ninja every time a mission came up? Since each players gets three Ninja to choose from at the beginning of the game, depending on the mission, one could select a different more appropriate ninga to the task. After all if I have a delivery service some areas are better known by one delivery person than others.

Also is there another way to work the fortune card deck? There may be some mechanics that can be added to modify the game, restore the fun, and lessen the dependence on die rolls.

I concur with the number of dice roll being excessive. But given that it was so much fun initially, are there other rules that can be changed and incorporated to make it more playable?

Thread: Ninja Burger - A quick review

dogzard — 2007-05-31T23:04:40+00:00

First things first. A well made game, with attractive components. The cards are plastic coated, and large enough to handle easily. The lack of "money" and "honor" tokens is very disappointing. However, the game is basically printed in a red/black theme, so several boxes of checkers did the trick.

OK, on to the important stuff. Ninja Burger is about the operation of a fast food franchise (say that 3 times fast!) It is your job, as a Ninja, to deliver meals to the customer, without being seen. To accomplish this, is to bring Honor to your franchise. The ultimate goal is to gain enough Honor to be promoted to Branch Manager, and win the game.

This is a cool theme, and much humor is derived from it. However, this game is all theme, theme, and more theme. Take away the theme, and all you're left with is dice, dice, and more dice. Player interaction is minimal, so when it's your turn, you sit and watch someone else role dice. (whee.) This gets old at near lightspeed. Once you've seen most of the cards, the humor wears off. Once that happens, you really do wish you were a Ninja, so you could sneak off without being seen.

Replayability is very limited in this game. I've played it exactly twice, and my enjoyment has dropped exponentially. I can't really ever see myself playing this again, unless at gunpoint. More player interaction would improve it to a degree, but when all you're doing is rolling dice, the point of the game gets lost in the tedium. I would reccommend a "Pass" on this game, but that's just my opinion FWIW.

Thread: Re: That was fast!

MurWiz — 2006-12-25T16:21:54+00:00

Almost the exact same thing happened this week. We dug out this game after a long absence from the table. My elder son went first, had a successful mission with extra points of honor, and ended with 10. Each of us (3 other players) following failed our missions, and lost one honor. 10-5-5-5, game over on one turn.

I think next time we play we'll have a house rule that you can't win before turn three, just to make it more interesting.

Thread: Session Report

Zirak — 2006-08-29T00:59:51+00:00

Players – Frank, Eli, Peter & Jason

I have a few games which were in some of my earlier purchases, which I just haven’t been able to bring to the table. Some of these I now just want to bring out just to say that I have actually played the game & it’s not just gathering dust and some of them are games which I am eager to play, but just have not had the right opportunity. So because of this, I decided to bring some of these games to the gaming night at the Ferryman’s to try and get some game-time with them.

Our first game of the night was a game of Ninja Burger. Thankfully I had in my trusty bag o’ games some counters which were needed for money & honour tokens. I quickly explained the rules to the others and we begun our game.

We first chose our Ninjas and then got our first missions. All of us except Peter decided not to go to the staff meeting gaining us all a re-roll on our mission & Peter got a fortune card for attending the meeting. Peter had a good Ninja which allowed him to choose between two missions & to look at everyone’s mission card, who is attending the staff meeting, before he decides if he wants to attend. Frank’s Ninja had fairly good stats but had to send half his money home to his family, thus halving his income. Each Mission required us to roll dice against our stats to try and gain enough honour to become the new branch manager. We also had a range of fortune cards which we could buy to modify our rolls and a lot of cards which could be played on other players to make their missions harder.

The cards were all humorous & lots of hilarity was had as we went about our missions. The unfortunate thing with this game, as with a lot of Steve Jackson games, is that once you have gone through the cards once and have read all them, they lose a lot of the humour and can become repetitive. We did in fact get through the whole deck of mission cards and started missions which we had all seen before. The game did feel a bit long as all of us kept gaining and losing honour, meaning we had no clear leader during the game. Eventually Frank pulled ahead with 14 honour, five higher than Peter had and won the game.

I did enjoy the game, but I think it is going to be one of those games which appears on my games table once every blue moon as the replay value of the game I find – as did the others – is not high. The expansion might make the game more fresh for a while, but again once you have read the cards, the game for some can become stale quite fast

Thread: Re: That was fast!

beri — 2006-07-08T09:23:04+00:00

We had a game that I won in one round last night.

I played something like 'Amazing Disguise,' which awards one honor. I beat a mission that gave two honor. The other two players failed their missions, losing one honor each, which meant that I gained one more honor, and won by having 5 honor more than the next closest player.

We played a second round that lasted about an hour and a half. Still, I don't think anyone can beat my record for shortest game!

Thread: Re: compairisons to Munchkin

ced1106 — 2006-06-08T04:19:05+00:00

I'd pick Munchkin over Ninja Burger hands down. While the "take that" and "pile on the leader" play of Munchkin (which I don't see often, since I play three or four player games) is there, there's positive social interaction (viz. allies). Ninja Burger doesn't have many negative social interactions, and, at best, the negotiation only happens during the Staff Meeting phase of the game. The Mission phase is pretty much a solitaire "dice vs. skills" activity. In Munchkin, *anything* can happen at almost *any* time of the game.

I *am* surprised that anyone playing Munchkin or Ninja Burger hasn't played a plethora of humor-based games. Cheapass combines humor with light opponent outwitting and resource management. Before Munchkin, SJG still had a history of humor games: Illuminati, Hacker, Car Wars, Awful Green Things, Toon, Globbo, and the dark humor of Ogre. Even their GURPS RPG was one of the few RPGs that supported non-serious campaign worlds.

aka. Washu! ^O^

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thoia — 2006-01-24T01:36:41+00:00

Missions

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thoia — 2006-01-24T01:36:31+00:00

The Ninja Character Cards.

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thoia — 2006-01-24T01:35:06+00:00

Fortune Cards

Thread: Re: compairisons to Munchkin

cerulean — 2005-12-09T20:22:41+00:00

Give Me the Brain
IGOR: the Mad scientist's Lament
Grave Robbers From Outer Space
Killer Bunnies
Nanofictionary
Elixir (2000)
Guillotine
Fishing for Terrorists
Gloom

All by different publishers other than SJG. Jackson does not have the monopoly on wacky card humor; he's just the most famous of those publishers. People useMunchkin as a touchstone of card game silliness simply because it is the most well-known, kinda like how all sci-fi is compared to Star Trek and Star Wars.

Thread: compairisons to Munchkin

Jpwoo — 2005-12-09T17:37:08+00:00

I find it interesting that this game is compaired to Munchkin almost exclusively. I did it in my review. Some of the other reviews did as well.

They are both Steve Jackson humor type games. Only this one is pretty fun. Is SJ games really the only only ones making humorous card games? Is there another supreme humorous card game to compair to?

Thread: First play +Mini review

Jpwoo — 2005-12-08T05:31:48+00:00

Blake and Kerrie came over for our weekly gameing night. Normally we play some Earthdawn but Jeff3 couldn't make it so we played some board games.

First up was Ninja Burger.

Blake was playing the ninja who got only 50 bucks/turn but had good stats, April was playing the tubby ninja with the bad stealth skill. Jeff2 was playing the rich guy ninja who gets 150 bucks per turn, I was playing the Catgirl ninja, and I don't remember Kerrie's ninja's secret power.

Jeff2 April and I had never played before, but it didn't seem to matter all that much. The three of us jumped out to a good lead. Blake just kept on getting errand cards and as such couldn't make much honor.

Toward the middle of the game I gave Kerrie a bunch of money for some disguise ability and then Jeff played a card that blew up all of her money! eep! I declared a rivalry with Blake, and then sent the white ninjas in to jump him before a mission. The white Ninja's murdered Blakes overworked ninja mom, letting me win the vendeta. Jeff2 immediately played a card that let him take the vendetta off the graveyard and he declaired a rivalry with me. Good stuff. Actually I helped Blake a little bit, he gained some honor by starting a new ninja.

April amassed a ton of stealth cards and had like a 15 stealth, but she failed a few missions. Jeff2 and I were passing lots of missions and were well ahead of everyone else. He got to 14 when I had 10, so one more would mean that would win the district manager position. Blake took one for the team and went to the morning meeting to keep jeff2 from getting a reroll. With Jeff2 failing his mission for lack of a reroll and me passing my next couple of missions we brought the game back to being pretty close between us. It was a jeff dominated evening.

By when we had obtained enough honor to move to the end game Jeff2 and I were tied and went to an honor duel. I had 15 combat to his 12 so I was pretty confident but my catgirl rolled high and and his rich ninja rolled low, killing me and giving Jeff2 sole possession of the burger empire.

Jeff2 Winner, Me tied for first but dead...so really I'm in last place. 3rd and 4th, April and Kerrie were about tied I think. 5th Blake.

After Ninja burger we played Citadels and then Bohnanza. A fun evening of light games.

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Mini Review

Ninja burger is a Steve Jackson published card game based on the web comic of the same name. (website: http://www.ninjaburger.com/)

Caveats: I have only played a single game. The expansion was included as well, I don't know what is different from the original game to the expansion.

You are all Ninjas working for Ninja Burger the descrete fast food joint who will deliver burgers with the utmost subtlty. It is a light hearted game with a little bit of take that flavor but not too much.

Set up: Everyone starts off with 100 bucks, 6 Honor, and three ninjas to choose from.

Each ninja has a backstory and a special power, and a list of skills. There are some skills that every ninja posseses, like Stealth, customer service,and combat. some others skills only specific ninja have, like Math or Driving. The skill numbers seem to range from about 7 to 12, they may go higher, I didn't see.

Play:

First everyone is given a delivery. This represents where you are delivering burgers that day. Each delivery has a name, some flavor text, a list of hazards to overcome, a reward for success, a penalty for failure, and a funny drawing. There are also errands, which are like regular missions only with little risk or reward, these are things like cleaning the shop.

Then each player decides if they are going to the staff meeting, or getting an early start. Going to the staff meeting give you the opportunity to trade missions or cards or money or gear with anyone else at the meeting. It also gives you a fortune card. The fortune cards are where you get special abilities, ninja gear to buy, bad things to play on other players.

Players getting an early start get a single reroll while they are completeing their mission.

Really this choice is the big one in the game. Going to the meeting give s you special stuff and lets you trade off missions you are poorly suited for. But the reroll can be a big boon in passing a mission. I do like this mechanic and think it is an interesting enough choice to have to make every turn. (possibly one of the only choices your make in the game!) Basically if you think you are going to pass a mission flying colors and you won't need the reroll, you should go to the staff meeting and get the bonus card. If you don't have a hope of passing the mission, you might as well go and try to trade and get a bonus card. However if the mission is in the middle, where you think that you might pass it, but aren't sure, getting the early start is the play.

After the staff meetings the missions start. Starting with the player who has the most honor starts his mission.

The player reads his flavor text using funny voices hopefully (not required) and then starts to make the tests listed on the card. So say his job is to Deliver burgers into outer space, the first test is climbing -2 (it is difficult to climb into space.) The player looks at their climbing score. lets say it is 10. Then looks to see if they have any gear, lets say they have ninja climbing claws equipt, which gives a +1 to the climbing skill. Their skill for this test is 10 base +1 for item -2 for difficulty, leaving them with a 9 climbing. The player rolls three six sided dice trying to roll their skill or under. Getting an early start lets you reroll one of these tests once during a mission. The second Test on the Card is say, Computers. The player than looks to see if they have that skill. Lo and behold they don't! All players have a skill called other stuff, generally it is a 10, and you can use that for skills you don't have.

If a player passes all of his tests he gets a reward. Generally an honor point or two.

If he fails he takes a penalty, generally the loss of an honor, or some discarding.

Play passes clockwise around the table with players completeing their missions. When all missions are completed the whole cycle starts again. With everyone getting another 100 bucks salary and a new mission card.

Game end: the game ends when one player has 5 more honor than the next closest player. Or when the table has 10 x Number of players worth of honor all together. When this happens the player wiht the most honor wins. If there is a tie there a single combat roll between all the tied players.

Perhaps it plays a bit long but victory conditions could be lowered to taste of course.

Components: The game is mostly two decks of oversized cards. they reminded me of paint chits in size. The cards are good quality. There is also a sheet of punch out tokens for honor and money, of typical quality. The game sells for about 24 bucks, a little pricey but that is typical Steve Jackson pricing. I wouldn't feel ripped off buying it.

The cards themselves have some great cartoony ninja artwork. The flavor text is a lot of fun. It is what makes the game. Of course if you aren't a fan of ninjas and pop culture refrences your milage may vary. But we laughed a lot playing it.

Fun Factor: I liked this game a good bit, I can tell that I wouldn't want to play it every day. But as something to break out every once in a while I liked it just fine. Overplaying would take some of the shine off the jokes I'm sure.

I have played munchkin, and I didn't enjoy that very much at all. In munchkin you have bascially no control over how well you do. It is all chaos and take that abuse.

This game has a few take that cards in the mix but not too many. And generally if your oponenent manages to defeat the bad card you give them they generally will gain honor, so there is some risk to playing a hazard on someone. The addition of the Staff meeting mechanic gives you an important choice to make each turn. You are still basically at the mercy of the dice in this game but the three dice give you a bell curve effect so things will pretty much go as you expect them to.

I would take this over Munchkin anyday of the week. It isn't going to find a permanant place in my heart, but I would play it again, and have a good time!

One line summary: A fun lighthearted card game with ninjas!

Thread: That was fast!

sdonohue — 2005-08-21T05:57:48+00:00

We had just finished a round of Heroscape and Joe only had about 35 minutes before he had to go. Tim suggested Ninja Burger. I agreed, somewhat reluctantly since I didn't think we had much chance of finishing in 35 minutes. 20 minutes later we were done.
Things didn't go well for me or Tim, with both of us failing 2 of our 3 missions (and on the same turns, so Joe got bonus honor both times). He ended up with 13 honor to my 8 and Tim's 5. I've never played a round of Ninja Burger that went so fast.
We were playing with the Sumo Size me rules, so there were a few new wrinkles. Our game went by so fast though that no even played a goal. It was a good time, but maybe just a little too fast - I'm sure the dice won't favor Joe so much next time...

Thread: Ninja Burger

pbwedz — 2005-07-19T19:29:56+00:00

Ninja Burger is a card game for 3 to 6 players. The game is composed of 3 decks of cards (Ninja deck, Mission Deck and Fortune Deck) and 3 six sided dies. There is a lot a similarity to the card game Munchkin, so I will refer to that game from time to time during the review.

To start the game, each player is given three cards from the Ninja deck (2 cards if playing with 6 players). The cards describe your character’s abilities using a D&D like format (i.e. Climbing 14, Stealth 12, etc) and a special ability. You pick one card and reshuffle the other Ninja cards back into the deck. The Ninja deck is not used again unless your character dies (not overly likely, but possible). You then need to find some tokens to track your character’s honor. Everyone starts with 6 honor and 3 Fortune cards.

The goal of this game is to deliver Ninja Burgers from your Ninja Burger restaurant so well that you become a branch manager. There are 3 ways to do this:

1. Get 5 more honor than anyone else playing.

2. When the total honor of all the players reaches 10 times the number of players, the current manager gets promoted and the player with the most honor takes over his job.

3. When the total honor of all the players reaches 4 times the number of players, the current manager gets kills himself for doing a bad job and the player with the most honor takes over his job.

The rest of the game is played in rounds like so:

• Everyone gets a $100. If one person has the more honor then everyone else, he gets $150. (Yes, you need even more tokens to track the money.)

• Everyone picks a card from the Mission deck. This is the place you need to deliver your burger. (i.e. The monster you need to fight in Munchkin.) The card will have tasks you need to complete to deliver your burger. You compare the tasks to your Ninja card to see how hard it will be. So for example your mission might require you to Climb, Swim and Fight. If your Ninja card says you Climb at 12 then (when the time comes) you will need to spin a 12 or less on the three dice to do this task, etc.

• Now you have the choice to attend the Ninja Staff Meeting.

o If you go:
 You can trade Missions with the other Ninjas
 You get a Fortune Card

o If you don’t:
 If you miss one of your tasks, you can re-roll and try again once per mission

• Each player now tries to deliver his burger (starting with the player with the highest honor). So let us say the Mission card says you need to Climb, Swim and Fight and your Ninja card says you can do those on a roll of 12, 13 and 10 respectively. If you can do all three, the burger is delivered and you get ‘good stuff’ : more honor, etc. otherwise you get ‘bad stuff’ : lose honor, etc. To make things more fun, other players can throw Fortune cards at you to make the task harder, again just like Munchkin. Let’s assume you miss a roll, you have the following options:

o You can Re-Roll if you didn’t go to the staff meeting
o You can use a special ability to help you (if you have one on your Ninja Card)
o If the Fortune cards in your hand have items or events to help you, you can play them. It will cost money to play an item card. You can also trade for fortune cards with the other players to help you. This will cost you money andor other Fortune cards. Whatever you both come up with.

This cycle continues on until someone wins. In case of a tie, there is a fight to the death tie breaker.

My thoughts:

• Game Components – The cards are ok, but the lack of chips is a pain. You are going to need a lot of tokens for the money and the honor. Be ready to steal chips from another game.
• Rules – Average, generally clear, but I had to re-read the rules a few times on some of the finer points.
• Length – 30 to 40 minutes. This is a big point for me. Munchkin can take way too long with a lot of players.

I think the game is an improvement over Munchkin, but the theme is much weaker. The dice spinning seems to get old quickly for me. I give it a 5.5 on the BGG scale. An average game, but slightly better than Munchkin (which I give a 5). However, I think the game will get old quickly and the lack of tokens is weak. You are going to now need at least 12 of the two different types of token per player to cover your bases.

Not a bad game, but not one I would buy either.

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KineticKill — 2005-06-03T04:10:38+00:00

Sample Ninjas

Thread: Limited Honor Variant (shorter game)

IngredientX — 2005-05-09T23:17:34+00:00

IMHO, Ninja Burger's biggest problem is that it runs far too long with its published rules. Here's an easy way to shorten the game without removing much of its flavor. It's an expansion of my posting here... http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geekforum.php3?action=viewthrea...

1. Get 100 poker chips. These will represent Honor.

2. Count out a number of poker chips equal to 10 times the number of players. This will be the "Honor Pool." The rest of the chips go in the game box.

3. The Ninjas' starting Honor should come from the Honor Pool. Leave the remainder of the Honor Pool in the middle of the table.

4. Any time a Ninja wins Honor, he takes the appropriate number of chips from the Honor Pool. However, when a Ninja loses Honor, he takes the appropriate number of chips from his personal stash and returns them to the game box. This means that the Honor Pool will never grow.

5. Once the Honor Pool is extinguished, the game is in its last round. If a Ninja needs a chip after the Honor Pool is extinguished, he takes it from the game box. If a Ninja loses honor after the Honor Pool is extinguished, it still goes into the game box; this means that once the endgame is triggered, it can't be reversed.

6. You have two options with the Franchise Shamed! and Franchise Honored! cards.

a) Playing Franchise Honored! means that all Ninja get $200. Playing Franchise Shamed! means that all Ninja lose $200. In the latter case, any Ninja with less than $200 loses what he has. A Ninja with no money is unaffected by the Franchise Shamed! card.

b) Do not play with the Franchise Shamed! and Franchise Honored! cards.

That's about it. It's still not my favorite game, but it doesn't last two hours anymore...

Thread: Session Report

toucana — 2005-03-14T05:51:49+00:00

A couple of friends and J spent some time playing Ninja Burger. We recently accquired the game via a trade on BGG. Since most of us were new to Steve Jackson games, we decided to give it a shot. SJG has always intrigued us since the drawings were funny and the theme is always light-hearted. I have also played Munchkin previously and had good fun with it.

So, beside JY and me, we had AB and LX joining us as well. The game started off a little slow with the rules being read and all, but once we went through two rounds, things were clear to us. In the earlier part of the game, we enjoyed reading the different cards and items and had a good laugh at some of the creative descriptions of the missions and fortune cards, however, we also noticed that getting the full amount of honor to end the game was almost impossible. After a full hour and a half, we were still less than half way through the 40 honor required to end the game. Plus, we had already exhausted the mission deck and reshuffled the fortune deck at least three times.

We finally decided to cut the game short and declared that the game would end with three additional rounds. After that, the tension was clearly there. AB managed obtain 8 honor and was declared the winner. We noticed that even though she had the most items, she still had a terrible time getting more honor as there were many ways to screw people over.

Overall, I think this game is slow and certainly not as enjoyable. Perhaps with the right crowd, this might be better.

Right off the bat, the game ran into some trouble since

Thread: Re:Shouldn't there be a sequel/expansion to this?

Ravsitar — 2005-03-02T05:53:54+00:00

Hav0k (#67673),

Indeed there is/will be an expansion. Called "Ninja Brger 2 - Sumo-Size Me!" See here : http://www.sjgames.com/ninjaburger/sumosizeme.html

Thread: Session Report

sbwilson — 2005-02-27T02:59:10+00:00

Well, they finally got around to getting me to play Ninja Burger. Three games of it in fact...not that I was chomping at the bit to play that many times, it's just that the first two games were over in about 15 minutes. Game three lasted over an hour...ugg.

In game one, there were five of us. In round one, everyone failed their mission except me. Them: 4 honor each. Me: 6 honor. Round two they jump all over me throwing card after card. With an amazing streak of luck I march through unscathed - and with a few extra honor points to boot. I waltz through my second mission for 2 more honor. Me: 10. Closest player: 5. Game over.

Game two I decided to stick around and defend my honor. Bad mistake. I couldn't complete a single mission, and yet I still managed to not be in last place. The game ended abruptly when a card was played that caused all players to lose 2 honor points. That dropped us below the minimum and it was game over again.

Game three I really should not have played. The jokes were still somewhat funny, but I was losing interest. After an hour I was down to 1 honor point and the person in the lead had 13. I decided to go join my ancestors and resigned from the game. Three games of this in a row was really too much for my tastes.

Overall it is a humorous game, and one I enjoy playing every so often (at least more often than Munchkin...shudder...), but a game day of all light games really left me wanting something more satisfying than this.

Thread: Session Report

miker42 — 2005-01-19T15:52:39+00:00

The players were myself, my wife, my mom and my dad. I have one word for this game...WhataBlast! We all had big fun once we played a couple rounds and had a handle on the rules. Usually we play party games like Pictionary, Cranium, etc. I have taken it upon myself to broaden our gaming horizons. I'm slowly working my wife towards some wargaming! I got Ninja Burger at one of my local game stores on a whim. I usually buy a game or two for my wife every year Christmas.

The "super role playing lite" mechanics of the game were a little foreign to everyone at first. But after a couple of rounds we had it down.

The best part of the game was getting everyone to "tark rike a ninja" My dad went from a seemingly Japanese ninja to an Italian Sopranos Ninja on one delivery. I even got my wife to join in because the laughter going around the table was just infectious.

We didn't play the game to completion and decided that the 5th round would be the last since it was getting late on a Sunday evening. (5am wake up calls to beat Atlanta traffic come early). My mom was top Ninja with 10 honor.

All in all we laughed our Samurai Swords off and had big fun. We can't wait to play this with some of our friends.

Thread: Re:An easy way to calculate honor...

Hav0k — 2004-11-26T17:01:53+00:00

We use glass counters (flowers decoration I think...) for honor.

We tried using a mini 52 card deck for money, but it is not enough for a lot of players (5 or 6)

We ended up using pen and paper to record money

Thread: Re:Shouldn't there be a sequel/expansion to this?

Hav0k — 2004-11-26T16:58:22+00:00

Thedalek (#55862),

I agree. If SJG has expansions for Munchkin, why not for this game?

Thread: Session Report

funvill — 2004-10-11T14:33:15+00:00

There was 4 of us
The game lasted about 90min or so,
this being our first game it slowed down everything a little, but the game was very easy to learn.

its very well blanced game

7/10

Thread: Shouldn't there be a sequel/expansion to this?

Thedalek — 2004-09-22T12:02:29+00:00

I'm thinking "Pirate Pizza." Then you could have the whole Pirates Vs. Ninja thing.

Image

drasher25 — 2004-09-09T14:23:51+00:00

Ninja Burger Kit

Thread: Re:An easy way to calculate honor...

MurWiz — 2004-09-07T20:06:38+00:00

Just FYI:

We use a pool of glass beads for money, and individual TCG "life counters" (and we have almost a dozen kicking around the house) for honor. No, you can't easily determine if you've hit the 10x mark, but our experience after two games is that everyone's watching this pretty closely after a few rounds.

Thread: Re:An easy way to calculate honor...

Karlsen — 2004-06-02T22:04:40+00:00

IngredientX wrote:
It plays a little too slowly for my taste, but my weekly group loves it.

We've found it can play really quickly or really slowly, quite variable in that respect.

Thread: An easy way to calculate honor...

IngredientX — 2004-06-02T12:46:14+00:00

Use poker chips. Count out 10 times the number of players to form an "honor pool." The players' starting 6 honor comes out of the honor pool.

This is a much easier way of figuring out the game's end. Both of the games I've played have ended by running out of honor chips, so I'd imagine that's more common than the other two endgame conditions (leader has 5 more honor than second place, or whole group has less than 4 x # of players' honor).

There's no question, I'd have a higher opinion of this game if it came ready-to-play. But at least SJG remembered to include the dice this time.

I broke down and bought the game anyway. It plays a little too slowly for my taste, but my weekly group loves it.

Image

KineticKill — 2004-05-21T23:19:20+00:00

Ninja Burger Box Back Cover

Image

KineticKill — 2004-05-21T23:19:20+00:00

Ninja Burger Box Cover

Image

Mystah Softi — 2004-02-13T11:24:07+00:00

Thread: User Review

MarkMeredith11 — 2003-12-08T01:28:33+00:00

The best way to put this? GURPS for Dummies, Ninja-style. It's that simple. For those uninitiated, GURPS is a Role-playing game that goes on one simple principal: Take your skill (eg. Climb: 12), roll 3 dice. You succeed if you roll that number or lower (eg. Climb: 12. You roll an 11. You succeed.)
Each character (all 14, I believe) has different attributes. Some are stealthier, some have better combat. You go on missions, roll against the different obstacles you are up against ("you want to climb mt. Everest? Roll your Climb skill -2.), and deliver your burger in less then 30 minutes. Now, the fact that this is GURPS, dumbed down, is not necessarily a bad thing (I might convince my girlfriend to play), and after all, it is designed by Steve Jackson himself, the designer of the GURPS system, so it's no surprise.
The minute I saw the concept for this game on SJ's website, I knew I had to have it. Wow. Thanks, Steve.
This is a fantastic game, and I'd reccomend it for anyone who's ever wanted to be a ninja, but didn't want to actually run around in pajamas and black socks.
Rating: 9

Thread: User Review

cc_TheToph — 2003-12-04T02:13:42+00:00

Ninja Burger
Published by Steve Jackson Games
Designed by Steve Jackson

Filler Game for 3-6 Players

Etymology of a Game Purchase: I have all the Munchkin games, and while I do like them okay, the original Munchkin’s best attribute is the John Kovalic art. Munchkin Fu is the best of the GAMES, IMO, and the man who did the art for Fu (Greg Hyland) contributed the art for Ninja Burger. Though the title of “Ninja Burger” didn’t inspire me to want to buy the game (I had never heard of the web site), but the art was a step in the right direction, and when I watched it being played in the game store, I knew that it must be mine.

The theme of the game is that you and the other players work for a franchise of Ninja Burger, a company that promises to deliver fresh burgers anywhere in 30 minutes or less. As a delivery ninja, you are trying to become branch manager of the franchise. Here’s a quick review…

Components:
There are three decks of cards in the box, and three six-sided dice. One deck is the available Ninja Burger Ninjas, the second deck is the Missions deck, and the third is the Fortunes deck. The dice are quite nice, the cards are elongated and nicely laid out in the landscape style for Ninjas and Missions, and portrait for the Fortunes. Though I liked the art very much, and the card size as well, I was a bit miffed that there was no inclusion of money or honor counters, as both are required to play the game. After all, at $25, this is no Cheapass Game. However, I understand somewhat the complexities of the American game-publishing market, and will forgive these oversights if the game is good.

Gameplay:
Simply, the gameplay is as follows:

Pick a ninja. Go on missions. Get paid. Die. Pick a new ninja. Accumulate rewards. Gain honor. Win.

I enjoy the game because it is relatively simple, in spite of some apparent complexities. Each ninja has enough attributes and skills to play a simple role-playing game, but their use is so obvious and direct that the game remains simple. Missions, drawn randomly, determine what skills you will be able to use (roll dice against), so it’s pretty obvious what to do. The only role-playing that comes in arrives when you have to explain away small cheats or skill roll switches.

I will talk about a couple interesting elements in detail later.

Ninja Cards:
The 16 ninjas are all named with different ability scores and special abilities. The main mechanic of the game is the skill check, which is accomplished by rolling 3d6 and having a number that is under your skill level. Most skills are in the 7-12 range.

Mission Cards:
Mission Cards are the central element of the game, as they contain deliveries that need to be made in all sorts of fun and crazy situations. I don’t want to ruin the funny, so all I will say is that there are plenty of interesting places to deliver burgers. The Mission cards vary in difficulty (number of different required skill rolls), and in reward.

Fortune Cards:
Are the rewards, and range from ways to make things difficult on the other players to neat items you can buy, use, and sell. These are essentially the Munchkin treasure cards, except you have to buy the items you draw from your hand.

Staff Meetings:
Every round (i.e. every morning) the staff gets together to talk about the missions that have been drawn. Not everyone has to go to every staff meeting. In fact, those that don’t go get a free re-roll because they “started working early”. But the staff meeting is a great time to get rid of missions that don’t suit your ninja, or the low reward, low honor errand-style missions. The person with the most honor is the head of the meeting, more or less, but it is here that you can trade bad missions for slightly less bad missions.

Pay:
In addition to earning rewards and honor, you also get a paycheck. This assists in the purchasing of items.

Honor and the End:
Honor is earned by completing missions. The game is won when the all the players’ honor added together reaches a certain level. At that point, the player with the most honor is named Branch Manager as the old one is promoted away. Game over. If there is a tie, the tied players face off in a duel to the death. But there is also another way to win. If the total player honor drops below a certain point, then the old manager is killed and the person with the most honor wins. Either way, the game does not take as long as Munchkin to complete because everyone’s honor contributes to the ending condition.

Some Thoughts:

This game is fun. We’ve played twice, once with three and once with four players, and both times we wrapped up in less than 45 minutes. Could it be shorter? Yes, but the staff meetings are fun. Will the game hold up to repeated plays? I believe that I will enjoy this game for about 10 plays. After that, the humor will start to fade and I will be ready for something new. But I’m sure my RPG-raised friends will like it for longer than I do. It is more focused, and a little more fun, than Munchkin.

Rating - 7