Lunch Rush

A Friedey's Card Game by Jaffer Batica

Dear Mr. Ernest,

Thanks for designing such awesome games. Our Board Game Nights (Thursdays after dinner in our Dorm) would be lacking severely without them. My roommate, who is a big fan of board games in general and military simulations in specific, says that he really likes Cheapass Games because they're big on gaming concept, rather than on the other trappings of games. He says that while Avalon Hill Games may be complex and interesting, there's not much difference between one AH game and another. Our favorite Cheapass Games of late are Deadwood (Out of Print), Get Out! (Out of Print), and the Friedey's Series (although we're in something of an argument as to how to pronounce Friedey's).

[It rhymes with "fried cheese." -James]

Anyway, the reason I'm writing (other than to praise Cheapass Games to the sky) is because I have come up with a variant for Before I Kill You Mr. Bond. I like to call it the World-Wide Terrorism Rules. Basically, instead of just making your lair bigger and bigger, you can decide to build multiple lairs. That is, you could build one big lair or two slightly smaller lairs or whatever. This new rule makes it so that if a spy destroys your lair, you can have a back up one. Of course, this makes your lairs more vulnerable to spies. It's a fun little variant that we came up with.

The other reason why I'm writing is because we, in the Dork Basket Hardcore Crew (Boardgaming and Largely Vegetarian Society) enjoyed the Friedey's series so much that we decided to add to it. As such, I have designed a little game called Lunch Rush! that is sort of based in the Friedey's series. It actually only uses an ordinary deck of cards, but I liked the idea of the Fast Food Restaurant of the Damned so I based the concepts in it around it.

We've had fun with it here, and we hope you can have fun with it as well. Please keep designing more cool and cheap games - we've almost got everything you put out and we're still hungry for more!

[Maybe you're just hungry for some yummy delicious meat. -James]

Sincerely,

Jaffer Batica

loser1@rocketmail.com

& the Dork Basket

Lunch Rush:

What is Needed: A deck of ordinary playing cards (2-4 Jokers), one six-sided die, and a way of keeping score.

The Game: The players are competing fast-food franchises in a food court. Each player must first entice a customer to eat in her restaurant and then feed that customer to his particular satisfaction. If you can't feed a customer to his satisfaction, you lose points.

To Win: Be the player with the most points at the end of lunch, when the deck runs out.

On each turn:

Draw: up to six cards.

Roll: the player whose turn it is rolls for the value of the customer.

Bid: all players bid on that customer, the winner of the bid gets to feed that customer.

Feed: the player who has the customer attempts to feed that customer to his satisfaction.

Score: once a customer is fed, his value will be determined by his satisfaction, and he will be scored.

Pass: the die passes to the player to the left of the person who had the customer last and the turn starts over.

The Cards:

Ace - 6 are Food Cards. They are used to feed a customer once you've got him to come into your restaurant.

8 - King are Bid Cards. They are used to entice a customer into eating in your restaurant.

7s are Steal Cards. They can be used to steal a customer from a player who has already successfully bid on a customer.

Jokers are Re-Roll Cards. They can be used to re-roll a customer, whether it belongs to you or another player.

To Begin:

Deal each player a hand of six cards. Randomly choose who will go first. The player who goes first rolls the die to represent a customer. That player is then the first to bid on the customer . Each player then bids, starting with the player to the left. The player who plays the highest card wins the bid. If two players (for some reason) bid two cards of the same value, they bid against each other with a second round of bidding, until the highest card is played again. A player may choose not to bid. A player who has no bid cards may drop out from bidding that round, discard a card, and draw a new card.

Once a bid has been won, another player may play a 7 to steal that customer. Another player may (if he so desires) play another 7 to steal that customer again. There are only four 7s in a deck, and the deck is not reshuffled when it runs out, so this is generally inadvisable.

The player who finally ends up with the customer must now feed this customer. The customer is fed by playing food cards. The number on the die represents the relative hunger of that customer and he wants to be fed to his satisfaction. The player who has the customer plays a food card from his hand and tries to match the number on the die. A player can play multiple cards if they add up to the correct amount on the die.

At this point, any player may play a Joker to re-roll the customer. Any number of Jokers may be played to re-roll the customer, but again, the deck is not reshuffled so this is generally inadvisable.

Once a player plays a card or cards for a customer, compare their values. If the value of the card(s) played is equal to the value on the die, the player gets the full value of the die. If the card(s) is more or less than the value on the die, subtract the difference, and score that value. If the result is negative, that player loses points. Once a customer is scored, the die passes to the left and the turn sequence begins again. Play ends when the deck runs out. Whoever has the highest score wins.

Development Notes:

This is the pure Cheapass version of the game. It doesn't require anything special, and it's fairly fun, at a medium level of complexity. The game was, however, inspired by the Friedey's mythos (Give Me The Brain, Lord of the Fries, and Change!) and I think it could be expanded through it. Apart from the art (which would totally rock), adding in more foils to the game would definitely up the complexity. You could play from one deck or (and this is the best bit) you could create competitors for Friedey's in other decks. I'm thinking: Friedey's, Cthulu's House of Ribs and Agony, Papa Jim's VooDoo Chickin, Le Loup Garou: Fine Meat Cuisine, etc. This would create an opportunity for more art, but more interestingly, you could play-balance the different decks against each other and give them each advantages and disadvantages. For example: Friedey's has very cheap food (high bid cards), but an inefficient staff and bad food (different distribution of food cards), whereas Le Loup Garou has expensive food (low bid cards), but better food. Or something like that. It would need a lot more development to take it from pure Cheapass into the realms of collectible deck game (like BRAWL).

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