Ninja Burger Card Game

I will start by saying that I am a huge fan of Steve Jackson’s Munchkin in all its forms, though there are some versions I haven’t yet played I make the assumption that I will like them. So when I spotted Ninja Burger I just had to have it. This is a card based game with dice to determine your success or in my case your failure. The aim of the game is that you are a fast food delivery ninja and you must complete your missions and build your honour in order to become branch manager thus winning the game and proving yourself the most honourable employee.

The game is simple but fun and relies on a little roleplaying. The set-up is similar to other Steve Jackson games, Fortune, Mission and Character cards with stats and honour tokens. You get three characters to pick from all varying in their skills and special abilities which brings me to my first tip – Read your card! I didn’t , I skimmed it keen to get going and completely failed to read that instead of the full $100 pay per round my character supported her family so I only got half that. I read it as $50 extra not less. This left me a little bummed because it meant I couldn’t afford to buy the Clown Suit to bolster my disguise skill.

The Mission cards list the skill checks you need to make to make the delivery. Including a mission to deliver to Santa Claus, this didn’t go well for one of our players and yes there was some elf murdering. Fortune cards are just that, they give you advantages, items or mean things to do to other players.

Usually the first time you play these games the you are all learning the rules and double checking, but for this game there was very little of that. As a fellow player commented, when you read the rules they seem a lot more complicated than they are, a couple of rounds in and we had a handle on the sequence of moves and have even begun shouting “dishonourable pig!” at each other. For me the first round did not go well, I failed my mission but not only that I was the only Ninja to do so, double dishonourable pig!

The advantage this game has over other Steve Jackson games is the time it takes to complete. The box advises about an hour but we found it could be as little as 10 minutes to win, though I shall state at this point something we learned very quickly and my tip no. 2 – Crap on your fellow Ninjas as soon as you can. One of the ways to win the game is to have a collective honour of 40 and the Ninja with the highest honour is declared branch manager. This is quite easy to achieve if you don’t start sabotaging your colleague’s deliveries early on. For instance a fellow player and ninja family rival took all my money, all of it, I’d even been lucky enough to get the biggest available tip from the tip jar and he took it all away. The term ‘super dicked’ sprung to mind. But all in good fun there will be plenty of time for revenge in the future.

The reason I like this game so much is the larger element of roleplay this game calls for. For instance some of the character traits and fortune cards give you the ability to substitute one skill roll with another, as long as you can explain this in a reasonable way. For example in our game Kiten was supposed to roll a stealth check to steal correct change, instead he substituted this with a drive check and drove in car through the front of the building to steal change, though he failed this check and lost his car (something I took great pleasure in as he had laughed at me when I had bought a mouse and he had bought a sports car) you get the idea. As long as you can explain it you can do it. A quick note on if you lose all honour, the rules state that you must give up your position and go and apologise to your ancestors, everything is lost and you must begin again with a new character.

Conclusion

If you are a fan of roleplaying, fast food, Steve Jackson games and fun then I highly recommend this game. It is reliant on imagination, being mean and, of course, dice rolls. With an estimated play time of an hour, it is great for getting a gaming night started and great to squeeze in at the end of the evening. I very much look forward to the next opportunity I get to play.

9GPPs

Comments from the other players:

“It is a classic Steve Jackson game”

“The best fast food theme based card game we’ve played” (we have surprisingly played a few)

“You can use your imagination to make you a better fast food master”

“We won the game in one round because we are awesome”

More information: http://www.sjgames.com/ninjaburger/