Mitch Willis
United States
Kathleen
Georgia
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Overview
Kung Fu Fighting is a card game with plenty of “take that” action for 2 to 6 players. It was designed by Cliff Bohm, Geoff Bottone, and Colleen Skadl of Slugfest Games. Each player is a Kung Fu master participating in a free-for-all brawl, trying to be the last one standing. Players manage their hand of cards each round while trying to efficiently attack, defend, or restore health (aka Chi), as appropriate. The sole player with remaining Chi wins the game. Playing time will depend upon the number of players but, even with a full complement of 6, it shouldn’t last more than an hour. From what I’ve read, Slugfest Games is planning on releasing an expansion, titled More Kung Fu Fighting, some time in 2007.
Out of the Box
The game box contains 99 cards, 6 player mats, 6 chi markers, and a short rulebook. The cards and mats are made from pretty good stock and have a nice finish. The player mats have a chi track to keep score of a player’s health, a space for a stance card, and a space for a weapon card. The cards’ illustrations are nicely done; not much color but they bleed theme. The English text on the cards also complement the theme well and are reminiscent of the old dubbed Kung Fu B-movies (“Your Kung Fu is Weak”), as well as ‘The Matrix’ (“Bring It”) and ‘The Karate Kid’ (“If Done Right, None Can Defend”). The plastic Chi markers are a transparent red and are used to keep score of one’s health. There is also one blank card included, in case you want to make a card of your own.
The Cards
There are several types of cards. First, you have the basic attack cards: Punch, Kick, Trip, and Throw. Each will do a set amount of damage, but the Trip/Throw will force the defender to discard an active Stance/Weapon as well. Next, you have Weapon cards such as Sword, Fan, and Staff, just to name a few. These cards go on the Weapon space on your player mat when played and can be used both in attack and defense. Stance cards (Dragon, Monkey, Crane, etc.) are played on the Stance space on your player mat; these cards can enhance attacks, provide defense, or maybe even give you an extra card. Attack enhancement cards can be used to increase the damage of any attack; one of ‘em (Split Attack) will even let you attack two opponents at once. Blocking cards can be used to defend against attacks; these include cards that block punches or kicks or trips/throws or weapons. There a couple that will block all attacks, no matter what type, and a couple more that will allow you to immediately counterattack. Last, there are the Chi Restoration cards; playing these will allow you to regain Chi that you’ve lost due to fighting.
Set Up
Each player takes one player mat and one chi marker. Each will then place the marker atop the number 20 on the mat’s Chi track. The dealer will deal out seven cards to each player; the remainder of the cards will be placed in the middle of the playing area as a draw deck. A random player will be chosen to start.
Game Play
In the first part of your turn, you’ll draw until you have 7 cards in your hand. This includes discarding any unwanted cards from your hand before drawing. Afterwards, you may play as many cards from your hand as you wish with one exception. If attacking an opponent, you may only play one attack card (although you may play multiple attack enhancements along with it). Once your turn is over, play passes to your left. During another player’s turn, you may only play cards in response to an attack, i.e., blocking or counterattack cards. Play continues in this fashion until only one player (the winner) remains with Chi.
Fighting
To attack, you just declare who you’re attacking and either play an attack card or attack with a weapon, if you have one active. Whether you use an attack card or an active weapon, you may play as many unique attack enhancement cards as well. When calculating the strength of an attack, you start with the points from the attack/weapon card, add the points from the enhancement card(s), and add any enhancements that apply if you’re in an active stance. From that, you’d subtract any defensive points given by the defender’s active stance and/or weapon, if they have either. This total would be the number of slots that the defender would move his/her Chi marker down. When your Chi marker goes below 1, you’re knocked out of the game.
If you play the appropriate block card when attacked, you don’t take any damage whatsoever. Also note that if you are attacked with a Trip/Throw card, if you can’t block it, you must discard your Stance/Weapon card (if you have an active one) before calculating the damage. In other words, any defense you might’ve received from that card would not apply.
Observations
While there’s an element of hand management to Kung Fu Fighting, the game is highly random. You can counter that a little bit through selective discarding and by carefully picking your fights, but the bottom line is that a couple of bad draws can really cripple you. For what it’s worth, there are a couple of things that I’ve found that can help me stay in the brawl for a little while, and give me at least a fighting chance. I’m not usually aggressive right at the start, especially if there are a lot of players. I don’t want to make too many enemies too early, so I try to let some one else start the fighting. I also try to keep at least 3 or 4 cards in my hand since a lot of players tend to attack you if you only have a card or two, figuring that you won’t likely have the cards to block an attack. The players I tend to target for attack either have the most Chi or the least. If I can knock out the one with the least, I don’t have to worry ‘bout retaliation, while the one with the most is usually targeted by the other players as well.
Conclusions
As I’ve stated in previous reviews, I usually don’t like a lot of randomness in my gaming. Kung Fu Fighting seems to be an exception for me. Even thought it’s highly chaotic and can suffer from ganging up/kingmaking, in the right circumstances, it can be a lot of fun.
This is definitely one of those games where the people you play with will probably determine how much you like it. When we play, we tend to talk with bad Chinese accents (similar to the ones in the aforementioned dubbed Kung Fu movies) and make quotes from ‘The Karate Kid,’ all while making corresponding hand gestures. If you like the theme and have a group like that, you’ll have a blast. If not, I’d avoid it. As an overall game, I’d rate it a 6; but when playing with folks who like the martial arts theme, the fun factor jumps Kung Fu Fighting up to a “butt-kicking” 7.
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Posted Sat Feb 10, 2007 12:54 am
