Isolation Day 64 Game: Lord of the Fries

In Lord of the Fries, players are employees at a chain of zombie-operated fast food restaurants.

One menu from a variety is selected for all players to play from, and players must use their dealt cards–a variety of simplified fast food components such as “Bun”, “Fries”, “Cow”, “Bird”, “Drink”, etc.–to piece together the food order that players choose to call or roll dice to determine. Play continues around the table as players pass on orders they can’t fill.

Each type of card has a point value, so the more orders you’re able to fill, the more points you’ll have at the end of the round. At the end of the fourth round, whoever has the most points is the winner.

There’s enough variety in menus and menu items plus strategy to keep the game interesting, including giving one of your cards to another player if you can’t fill an order; what card is up to you, so do you want to give them a card you have a lot of but that they may find useful and benefit from, or do you want to stick them with something they can’t use and are still holding at the end of the round, which will reduce their point total? A timer helps keep things from dragging too much as the “leader” decides to choose an item or roll for one.

The suggested age for the game is 12+, and while we thought our kid would be up for the challenge, I think it was slightly mature for her. Not only were the punny game title and item names lost on her (a quick explanation cleared them up, but like any joke, if you have to explain it…), but just physically, it was hard for her to hold onto the mitt full of cards that you’re initially dealt. Because she had to sift through them individually and so couldn’t see an overview of them that would help with the likes of choosing to call a menu item she knew she could fill if it came around to her chance to fill it, I suspect she wasn’t optimizing her chances to cash in on points as often as she could have.

Suffice to say it was still a fun game, and now that she has a feel for it, and has seen a glimpse of some of the other menu options to try out, I think she’ll be up for playing it again, although maybe in a while.

If you’ve got a taste for any combination of punny zombie food humour, give Lord of the Fries a try.