SNAP Review – Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts Game

Pop-Tarts in the freezer? Who does that? A lot of people, apparently. Toasted or frozen – no matter how you like to eat Pop-Tarts, this game represents both. Listen to our five minute audio review, or read on below.

Game

Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts Game is a set collection and card-line manipulation game for 2-6 players, designed by Prospero Hall and published by Funko Games. The box says ages 13+ but we’d say it plays well down to age 7 or 8.

Art

This game looks yummy! There are three kinds of cards.The Pop-Tart cards have photo-realistic depictions of five different varieties of Pop-Tarts, each with a different colored background (in case you can’t remember the difference between Cherry Frosted and Wild Berry). The back side of these cards looks like a foil packet of Pop-Tarts.

The Action cards are a light brown with large, clear iconography. Each one has text indicating what action that card allows, but you barely need it. The pictures are so clear that it’s pretty obvious.

Cards with a generic toaster and a chilly blue freezer indicate the two ends of the main play area, and the toaster and freezer also appear on each player’s “plate” card and many of the bonus cards.

Even the game box looks kind of like a Pop-Tarts box in blue and white – with a shiny foil inside!

Mechanics

The main play area of the Pop-Tarts Game is the Pop-Tarts card line. This runs from the freezer card to the toaster card, with a directional arrow to show which end is currently the “front” of the line.

On your turn, you may play up to three Action cards to move cards around within the line or change the arrow direction. Then take the Pop-Tart card at the “front” of the line (where the arrow is pointing) and place it on your plate card: on the freezer side of the card if it came from the freezer side of the line, or the toaster side of the plate card if you took it from the toaster side. Shift the other cards in the line to make room at the center for a new card to come out.

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Lastly you may choose to “eat” cards from your plate area, putting them in your score pile. If you eat the right combination to match one of the face-up Bonus cards, you’ll get 5 more points!

Eventually, you’ll be forced to eat Pop-Tarts off your plate – no one likes a Pop-Tart hoarder!

Expectations

Like other licensed games we’ve seen from Prospero Hall and Funko Games, we hoped that the Pop-Tarts Game would find a way to lean into the theme in a fun way. How do you make a game out of a packaged food?

Surprises

Both Andrew and Anitra occasionally ate Pop-Tarts growing up, but didn’t know there was so much background lore. Neither of us knew that people ate Pop-Tarts frozen. (By the way, it’s delicious!)

Manipulating the line of cards isn’t quite as interesting as we’d hope, but it does work with the freezer-to-toaster Pop-Tarts idea. More than 3 players can make the game feel very chaotic, with no way to plan ahead for your turn.

Because of the nature of this card game, you are at the mercy of the luck of the draw. Sometimes you’ll never get a chance for the cards you really want, and that can be very frustrating for players who expect to be able to use strategy to win.

We also definitely didn’t anticipate doing a taste test “For Science!” with all the different flavors represented in the game…. but you’ll see that on our Facebook page.

The Pop-Tarts Game is adorable, and the gameplay fits the theme, but there’s not much here to keep us coming back (like most flavors of Pop-Tarts). We rate it 2 1/2 out of 5 Pop-Tarts. It’s not our favorite game, but much like Pop-Tarts, it will do in a pinch.

Find Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts Game for about $10 on Amazon or wherever you buy games.

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The Family Gamers received a copy of Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts Game from Funko Games 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?