Lunch Money game review

I had heard whispers in gaming groups of a game of childhood fights. Having been in a few schoolyard scraps I needed to find out how this translated to a game. Today I’m going to review the card game Lunch Money.

I gave this game a try back at GameALot this year. I have to admit the game did look intriguing. The artwork on the cards is darkly beautiful. Images of the creators own children coupled with odd quotes really sell the idea of a schoolyard fight.

Game play is supposed to be quick and dirty as a schoolyard fight should be. But new players all had an issue with knowing what their cards could do. Card type is determined by colour and you have to remember the colour scale to understand your cards. There are also no descriptions on the cards on what exactly the cards do. Players were constantly referring back to the rules in order to understand the special abilities or requirements of cards. For instance certain cards require you to play a “Grab” card first while others are specialized attacks. This kept bringing players out of the game causing play to grind to a halt. Gameplay would flow considerably faster if more information was included on the cards.

I managed to have some fun but the theme of the game won’t be fun for everyone. It’s a bit immature and people sensitive to bullying aren’t going to be happy with it.

To sum up I don’t recommend the game for two reasons. First is the theme isn’t fun for everyone and game night shouldn’t be about triggering childhood trauma memories. My other issue is with the lack of information on the cards causing players to repeatedly refer to the rules. I wouldn’t be playing the game often enough to memorize all of the cards and this completely ruins the flow of the game. If this issue was fixed in a future edition I could recommend this game to players who survived schoolyard scraps rather unscathed. I  definitely recommend keeping this game away from kids.

Until next time, save your Lunch Money… er that is game money, for a game with better card/rule design.