Saturday, August 17, 2013

Lunch Money.

Lunch Money Card Game
A couple of months back we faithful three, decided to check out PortCon, Portland Maine's  celebration of geek culture interests including anime, gaming, science fiction, costuming, fantasy, video gaming, boffer combat, comics, pop culture, steampunk, and more!” (that is the official description)  However the reality for us simple board gaming types was far from pleasant. We found out rather quickly that the "gaming" portion of their sell sheet should be completely removed and replaced with something like "prancing, picture ops for regressed eejits." Thus we have referred to this convention as PukeCon or PoorCon ever since.

 However, we did manage to walk away with a wee gem of a game I purchased from a vendor there simply named Lunch Money.

Lunch Money is an elimination type street fighting card game designed by C.E. Wiedman and released in 1996 by AtlasGames.  The concept is rather dark and simple, each of the 2-4 players is a young schoolgirl fighting with everything they have for the Lunch Money in their opponent's  pockets.

Game play: Each player starts with 15 points in hand, counters of any sort can be used. The objective is to beat your opponents silly with the various cards until they lose all of their tokens and become unconscious. The last little girl standing wins.
There are several types of cards, including Basic Attacks, Special Attacks, Weapons, and Defense cards. Each is distinguished by a different background color to the artwork: for example, the images on Defense cards have a blue tint.

Look at Me when I'm Hitting you!

Basic Attack cards do a set amount of damage (i.e., take away health points) if not countered. Damage ranges from one to seven points depending on the card played. Basic Attacks can be countered by Block or Dodge. If not countered, the targeted player marks off the appropriate number of points, and the turn ends.
Special Attacks usually do damage, but have other effects as well. For example, Poke In The Eye does only one point of direct damage, but also renders the target unable to defend against a follow-up attack from the same player who used Poke In The Eye, and either leaves the target defenseless against an attack from the next player to take a turn, or, if the next player is the victim, makes the victim lose a turn. Special Attacks can be countered by playing Block, Dodge, or, in the case of Grab (which does no initial damage, but sets up the victim for other attacks like Headlock and Choke), Freedom.

Love the little messages on the cards

Weapons, like Basic Attacks, do simple damage (always three points) without additional harmful effects to the target, but unlike all other cards, they are not discarded when played. A player can thus use the Hammer, for example, repeatedly over the course of many turns. Weapon attacks may be countered with Block or Dodge. They can also be countered by the otherwise useless Disarm, which forces the attacker to discard the Weapon. Persons playing Disarm are not allowed to capture the weapon for their own use.
Drop it. Good boy.

Defense cards either negate Attacks, allowing the target to avoid taking damage, or repair damage already taken. Dodge may be used against any attack card: Block against any attack other than Grab. Freedom is useful only against Grab attacks, and may also be used to escape from Special Attacks that do ongoing damage, such as Headlock. First Aid "heals" two points of damage when played. Any number of First Aid cards may be played at the same time, either on a player's turn, or as a last-ditch defense if a player takes enough damage from an attack that he or she would otherwise be out of the game.

Yo Momma is a Crack Ho!

Humiliation, the trump card of the game, is usually used as a Defense since it immediately cancels the effect of any single card. However, since it can be played at any time and for any reason (without the player needing to wait for his or her turn), it can also be used offensively to, for example, cancel another player's successful Dodge or use of First Aid. Humiliation cannot be countered except with the use of another Humiliation.
As most of you can guess this winner takes all after kicking the Holy Christ out of everyone  type of game is right up my alley.
We played a round which took about a half hour and had a couple of laughs. The best combination was when Tuna, ahem I mean Tina, got Michelle in a head lock while Allison bashed Michelle's brains out with a chain.  The dark and twisted imagery of little girls going berserk makes the whole game. As a bonus, our evil game play seemed to make some of the other geeks in the game room nervous. We rolled through the deck at least once with four players so I have ordered the expansion "Sticks andStones" to build the deck up some.
Overall Lunch Money is a fast, fun, and modest game, the concept is dark but I tend to find that appealing. However those faint of heart should probably steer clear of it all together, and stick to playing Candyland, or My little Pony. I recommend this great little "filler" game for the in-betweens on game day or even as a light starter.

Cheers
AL


2 comments:

  1. I agree fully with your assessment. My only gripe was that adding some play text to the cards would have helped us learn their usage faster. I look forward to the expansion cards!

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  2. agreed Mike, the cards were of no help at all. I also think the artwork though interesting would be better in a cartoon format. I hope Sticks and Stones has something called "the Hippie" card which is supposed to be deadly.

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