SNAP Review – Fry Thief: A Deliciously Good Time

Fry Thief is a two player game designed by Patrick Rauland, published by Laid Back games. It plays in under 10 minutes, for hungry people ages 8 and up. Listen to our thoughts in 5 minutes, or read on below.

Are you the type to order french fries at a restaurant or try to be healthy with a salad? If your friend orders fries, you experience instant regret. But what if you stole some fries from your friend? They won’t notice, right?

This is a preview. Fry Thief comes to Kickstarter on February 5th, 2019.

Setup

The Fry player is the person who most recently ate french fries. Set out the a placemat in front of each player. The fry player takes all the French fry tokens and puts them on their plate.

Shuffle the deck and deal each player 3 cards. Place the remaining cards within reach along with the ketchup tokens. The Salad player goes first.

Gameplay

First, let’s talk about the cards. They have differing roles, indicated by colors. The Fry player would play the action on the yellow half, while the Salad player would play the green half. Red cards can be played by anyone.

Cards with a lightning bolt can be played at any time for an immediate effect, but cards with a table icon get played onto the table and stay there until instructed otherwise.

Start a turn by drawing a card, then play a card. Use your play to move fries onto your plate, or eat them for points at the end of the game. Or choose not to play a card and use your turn to draw an extra card instead.

If you eat a fry, take it off your plate and add it to your scoring pile.

End your turn by discarding down to a hand of 4 cards, cleaning up any cards in play.

Keep taking turns until all the fries have been eaten. Then players tally up their count. Plain fries are worth 1 point, and fries with ketchup are worth 2 points. Will you be the best fry thief?

Impressions

Izzy thought she wouldn’t like the game (she doesn’t like fries?!) but it was fun “and it made me hungry.”

We love how the fry tokens look like fries.

It’s a great game for 2 players. With only 18 cards, 18 tokens, and 2 placemats, it’s extremely portable.

It literally should be a crime if you don’t take this to a restaurant with you and play with your friends…

Nick Martinelli

There’s a lot of strategy here. It’s all about player interaction, whether you’re stealing fries, blocking your opponent with a Swat, or digging through the trash to pull out a better combo.

Play your cards (or don’t play and draw an extra) at just the right time and read your opponent while eating fries as quickly as possible.

The cards combo with each other well. Salad player can table “Distraction” and later play “Look Over There” to steal 4 fries. That’s a killer combo meal!

Red cards are all about timing. Swat cards let you block your opponent, and digging through the trash lets you grab a previously played card and play it again immediately. “Om Nom Nom” lets you eat a fry, then eat additional fries for every red card you discard.

I wish the game had more opportunities to get ketchup on my fries – this should be coming in the final version.

We liked the cartoony, stylized artwork. And some card names are really funny, like “Om Nom Nom” or “Someone Touched These”.

If defending your fries sounds like your idea of fun, check out the Kickstarter and get your own copy!

The Family Gamers received a prototype version of Fry Thief from Patrick Rauland for this preview.