Board Game Review: Food Fight (1980)

Food Fight (1980)
Design by Bryce Knorr
Development and Production by Bryce Knorr and Kim Mohan
Counter art by Jeff Dee
Art by Bill 'Willie' Willingham
Published by Dragon Publishing

Back when I had far fewer responsibilities, mowing the lawn and cleaning my bedroom were about it, I didn't have much money. The lack of funds is probably what attracted my friends and myself to magazines that also included a game alongside the articles about half-orcs, the latest play by mail game and rules explanations. The components weren't great, the rules might have needed a bit more polish but we didn't care. We had a game to play and a magazine to read over and over again. Games like Globbo! and Planet Busters; magazines such as Space Gamer and Dragon. And the game we are currently looking at, Food Fight, first published in Dragon magazine #44.

'In (Food Fight), students vie for valor in a contest of cafeteria conflict, battling other students, teachers and cafeteria personnel in a showdown of strategy, waging war with tossed tea, peppering their prey with pizza, until all students are either apprehended by faculty and staff and taken to the principal's office, or until one student emerges victorious: The Champion Food Fighter!'

Components

It's a magazine game from 1980. The component's ain't great. The black text on white rules are easy to read even with my old eyes. Illustrations by Bill Willingham are peppered throughout as are example figures to help explain the rules. The game board depicting the lunch room with squares dedicated to tables, the food line and entrances for the teachers is printed on cardstock. The design and look are very plain. While it doesn't evoke a school lunch room it is practical for pushing paper counters around. A very useful cheat sheet is also included.

The counters representing students, faculty and the five food groups are terrible. Printed on thin cardstock with minimal artwork (by Jeff Dee) and details I found them to be very difficult to pick up. The food chits are kept face down in a stack on their square on the board until needed. Every time I went to pick up one food chit from a stack I'd either pick up multiple chits or knock the pile into the next stack. It may be my lack of manual dexterity but I'm thinking younger me had the same issues picking up and shuffling the food counters. I wouldn't have had these issues today if I had glued the counters to a piece of heavier cardboard but I was a daftie back then and now pay the price.

The components look to be vastly improved for the version printed in the Best of the Dragon Magazine Games (1990).

Rules

The twelve page, double sided rule book contains the basic food fight rules as well as the advanced food fight variants which can be mixed and matched to create a game of the players' choice. I've mostly played the basic rules with a smattering of advanced rules thrown in from time to time so I'll concentrate on the basic game.

Each player picks a student to play. The students have an action allowance and appearance rating based on their hierarchy in the school. The Jock is fleet of foot and so can move around the lunch room faster and perform more actions such as picking up food, throwing food and so forth. However, he cares more for his appearance and will take less damage from food messing up his Polo t-shirt before retiring from the battlefield. The nerd of the group is slow but cares little of his appearance so a bowl of spaghetti dumped on his head will affect him less than it would the other students.

On their turn the players move their character around the board representing the school lunchroom flinging food at targets of opportunity, picking up choice gooey and messy food from tables, dodging the irate faculty and trying to be the last student standing. The characters do play differently from one another. Playing the Jock I found myself relying on hit and run tactics to whittle down my opponents while avoiding their food assaults. The Nerd can't manuever as well as the Jock but isn't as worried about getting covered in creamed corn or turkey and so can go toe to toe with another student and come out on top. The character roster is rounded out with a cheerleader and science nerd.

Meanwhile the faculty enter the lunchroom in order to stop the chaos by grabbing the brats and dragging them off to the principal's office where it's game over for that player. The Faculty have a simple A.I. mechanism: move towards the closest student and try to apprehend them.

The rules are decent taking into account they were written some forty odd years ago for a magazine. They aren't going to stand up to more modern rule books when it comes to ease of use or compactness. Food Fight's rules are verbose, partly because of the humorous asides sprinkled throughout but also due to the repetition of rules that apply to multiple scenarios. A player aide, created for the Best of the Dragon magazine release, is available on BoardGameGeek. It points out a number of missing rules (action allowance cost to attack with garbage can, throwing rules while carrying a tray and so on) and has a nice, streamlined list of the rules.

Is the game any fun?

Yes. I grew up with rule systems half in the wargaming world and cheap components so I can usually look past those short comings. Food Fight is meant to be a fast paced, fun romp of a game (despite eleven pages of basic rules) and that holds true. With like minded players a group can have an hour or two of enjoyment playing a game some would call vintage or dated. Those that look a bit closer or play a few more games will discover tactics that give them an edge over the player who just runs around dumping trays of food on their opponents.