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| 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.
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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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
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!
ReplyDeleteagreed 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.
ReplyDelete