On day one of the 2014 New York Comic Con, Steve Jackson Games (creators of Munchkin and Ogre) teased on Twitter that they were demoing a brand-new, super secret game at their booth. How could we resist a temptation like that? We headed right over and soon were immersed in their very first Garbage Pail Kids game.
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This isn't the first time Steve Jackson Games has worked with Topps- they have released Munchkin Apocalypse Mars Attacks! and were also demoing a Mars Attacks!: The Dice Game at the Con (more on that soon), but this is their first game utilizing the Garbage Pail Kids license!
If you have somehow missed out on Topps' trading cards series (or the nightmare-inducing live-action movie), the Garbage Pail Kids were released in 1985 to parody the Cabbage Patch Kids, and offered all sorts of disturbing artwork that kids quickly ate up. Parents were of course concerned by their kids consuming such filth and many schools sought to ban them, but they couldn't be stopped. After popularity waned in the 90s the world went many years without their favorite trading cards, but Topps rebooted the franchise in 2012 with a new series.
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Super Snot Shots is the first creation to spawn out of this collaboration, and it’s just as mature and complicated as you’d expect from the license.
The game supports two to four players, and is a dexterity game that involves flicking dice (that represent snot) at a target. Each player chooses one of the four snot-covered Leaky Lindsay cards, a six-sided die of the same color, and takes their position around a target card. The cards in the game are all squares with rounded edges and there are 11 featured Garbage Pail kids, all featuring beautiful (or at least, colorful) classic art, everyone from Surf’s Up Chuck to Dead Ted to Mark Barf.
You’ll make a draw pile out of the cards and select one to be a target, placing it in the middle of everyone and placing your Leaky Lindsay card two card-lengths away. Set up complete, you’ll count down “3, 2, 1, SHOOT!” and then flick your die from your Lindsay card towards the target card, trying to aim it so that your die stops on top of it. If only one player gets their die on the target card, they claim it. If two or more dice make it then whoever has the highest number showing on his or her die wins the card. If no one made it then it’s a tie and everyone shoots again!
The game continues until there are no cards left, and whowever has the most wins.
And that’s it! Simple, fun, and playable in 10 minutes or less. It’s really the perfect game to demo at the NYCC, even with the threat of overambitious gamers sending dice flying onto the packed showroom floor, because it’s easily explained, quickly played, and most of all, fun.
It takes a couple of turns to figure out just how hard to flick your dice but there’s not much skill involved here. Most of the fun involves hitting your opponent’s dice out of the way and arguing over whether or not your die is on the card or just touching it.
The box says this is a game for kids 10 and up but really, kids much younger than this will get a kick out of this, as well as adults with appropriately juvenile senses of humor. Four players is definitely the sweet spot- with more players there’s more opportunities for dice to go smacking against each other. As with Steve Jackson Game's other lighter fare such as Zombie Dice this is the perfect kind of game to fill the gaps between longer titles, during set-up or while waiting for other players.
Garbage Pail Kids: Super Snot Shots is available right now as a limited edition release, so if you want your hands on it you better get down to the New York Comic Con and over to booth 2265 as soon as possible. If you can't make it there they will be selling the remainder on their Warehouse 23 online store afterwards.
This is just the first Garbage Pail Kids game they're working on- next year they will release Garbage Pail Kids: Disgusting Dice Game which will include custom dice and be timed to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the classic(ly disgusting) card series. Save up your boogers.
