SNAP Review – Food Fighters

Food Fighters (or Foodfighters) is a food-themed battle game from Josh Cappel and Helaina Cappel, published by Kids Table Board Gaming. Two players age 8+ can duke it out for food supremacy in about 20 minutes.

We’ll tell you all about it with help from our boys, Asher and Elliot. Listen up or read on below.

Art

Josh has illustrated these foods to be fierce but cute. We love the attention to detail – wooden add-ons like spoon spears and cracker shields sit nicely on top of any character’s hands. Our boys’ favorites are the pans, which can cover up a thought bubble.

These “thought bubbles” are a very clear way to indicate a food’s specific foe, keeping all the information you need right in view.

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Food Fighter Mechanics

Each player starts with a nine-fighter team: either Meats or Veggies. Set up your team in a 3×3 grid, facing off with the other team.

On your turn, you may either roll for beans, roll to attack, or swap.

Roll for Beans: roll the dice and collect the number of beans showing.

Roll for Attack: Indicate (with your fingers) which of your fighters is attacking, and who is being attacked. Unless you use the spoon or frying pan, any fighter can only attack the type of food they are “thinking about” and only if it is in easy reach (directly in front of or diagonal to the attacker). Then roll the dice – if either one shows a splat, you’ve won the fight and eliminated that foe! If you didn’t roll any splats, you get the beans showing on the dice as a consolation prize.

Swap: Instead of rolling, choose to swap the positions of two of your own fighters (and get one free bean as a bonus).

After taking your action, you may buy one thing from the Pantry using your beans:

• A spoon lets you attack someone farther away
• A pan covers up a “thought bubble”, allowing that fighter to attack anyone
• Put a cracker shield on a fighter to absorb an extra hit
• You can also buy a turn with the red die, adding more beans and more chance of splats
• Special powers specific to your food faction.

Knock out three matching fighters to win! (For example, if the Veggie team eliminates all three Steaks.)

Expectations

We’ve heard a lot about Food Fighters, especially how much kids enjoy it, and how much parents enjoy playing it with their kids.

We recently interviewed Josh & Helaina. They told us that Food Fighters was the first game they published, trying to create a game that was fun for adults and fun for kids, and it’s still a convention favorite.

Surprises

We were surprised at how quickly our kids took to this game. Part of that is because Food Fighters allows for and even encourages emergent strategy – kids can have fun playing it more or less randomly (doing whatever is in front of them) but will gradually see how placing or swapping fighters will put them in a better position to attack and defend.

We love the special powers available to each faction. Some give an ongoing effect, some can be used and re-purchased over and over, and a few can only be used once before being removed from the game. Some powers have funny names (“Meat Shield”, “The Wurst”) and each one feels like it really fits its faction well.

We also discovered that you can make your own factions through drafting! (My favorite is bacon, onions, and broccoli.) There are re-usable stickers to change the “thought bubbles” so your food will always know who it is fighting.

Speaking of factions, more factions can be purchased individually to add variety> Find PB&J, Sweet, Salty, and a Problem Picnic faction (tying in to another Kids Table game) on the Kids Table Board Gaming webstore.

Rating

Overall, we’d recommend Food Fighters. It’s a great dueling battle game that’s accessible. There’s a lot of luck involved with die rolls, but not so much that an adult will get frustrated, since there are still meaningful decisions to be made.

The opportunities for emergent strategy and the minimal amount of reading required make this a great game for parents to play with early elementary kids. But don’t limit yourself to thinking of Food Fighters as a game only for kids! Adults can have a ton of fun with it too.

We rate Food Fighters 3.5 beans out of 5 (just enough to buy a spoon!) Find it on Amazon or buy directly from Kids Table Board Gaming.

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The Family Gamers received a copy of Food Fighters from Kids Table Board Gaming for this review.

This post contains affiliate links, which do not change your price, but help support The Family Gamers.

SNAP review music is Avalanche, provided courtesy of You Bred Raptors?