Ninja Burger is a game that has been out for quite some time. It’s aged, but is still a very fun game that can be enjoyed! Our group had never played Ninja Burger before, so we took a swing at this three to six player dice rolling card game to see what we made of it! This game is on the faster side when it comes to turns, making it pretty easy to learn and play as a group.
The concept behind Ninja Burger is an interesting one. You and your friends are all a food delivery team. Each of you will pick a character that has different stats for things like your ability to use computers, customer service, driving, swimming and Ninja Stuff, which is a sort of default in case you do not have a listed stat on your card.
Each round, you get a mission, which is something you need to complete during that round, to help the restaurant have more prestige and to help you have more honor. You can also lose honor if you fail missions, and if everyone happens to pass their mission then you do all get a bonus honor! Honor is actually how you win the game; if a player has five honor more than any other player, they then take over the business and win the whole game, so it’s worth watching players carefully. Other ways to win include there being a total of 10X the players in honor, in play, or the collective honor crashing below the player count — in both these cases the player with the most honor wins.
There are lots of ways to edit and improve your skills; cards allow for training which maxes out a skill while others can be purchased, as equpment that affect your various skills as well. It all depends on what cards you get and how you can barter with others. You see, you can trade with other players, purchase items from them, offer them cards for things they have; It’s up to you! There is even a daily meeting that players can choose to attend, which will allow them to trade mission cards and draw a card into their hand. If you do not attend, however, you will get a very valuable re-roll. There are also errand cards that you can draw, instead of mission cards, which give quite low rewards. These cards can be traded to the person with the lowest honor at the meeting if you go to the meeting, which can be handy!
When it comes to cards, there are some that help people, some that hurt people, and some that have goals. Goal cards are interesting as they want you to complete a variety of tasks to then earn, you guessed it, more honor. I had a goal to put 750$ onto the goal card, for a Ninja who could not afford training. Another wanted me to succeed at climbing three times, without the use of other cards, to gain an honor.
Ninja Burger also does a great job of having little story aspects in the game. Each card has little italic writing, which adds a bit of story to the game, giving it real personality. Our group read out our mission story before starting our mission most turns, which was cute.
When it comes to completing missions in Ninja Burger, it’s all about rolling dice. On your mission card, you get a few different, numbered, steps which need to be done in that order. You will then roll three dice, hoping to get lower than the amount on your character card for that category. If your first step is to use a computer, and you have a twelve in your computer score for your card, you need to roll a twelve or less to pass it. Then you move onto the next step in that mission. If you complete it all, you get the reward, if you fail you get the fail condition. Cards can be played to help or hinder you, depending on the card too.
And that’s essentially Ninja Burger. It’s an easy to play, funny, fun game that has aged a bit, but still works well with a group of players. There is a lot of opportunity for helping or backstabbing, depending on who you are playing with, which is always good to keep in mind in these sorts of games!
You can find Ninja Burger on the Ninja Burger Website.
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