WBG Score: 8.5
Player Count 2-10
You’ll like this if you like: Silly party game fun
Published by: Big Potato
Some games just instantly grab you. Perhaps it is a clever use of a new mechanic, or a cool component. Or maybe even a design team you love. In the case of Chicken vs Hotdog, it was the crowd of laughing people around the stand at UKGE 2022 that first attracted me. Everyone who walked by this stand seemed to want to try this game out. And I was no exception. But does it last beyond a few fleeting flips at a stand? Let's get it to the table and find out.
Set Up
Split your players into two equal groups. Each team must first decide if they are going to play with the Chicken, or the Hotdog. This may cause huge arguments, and rightly so. It's a big decision. But fight it out as best you can, mainly so the game can start. The pizza will be here soon. Then, divide the cards into the challenge cards, character cards, and bidding cards. Shuffle, then give each team four bidding cards of their colour, and their character cards so they can be laid out, grey side up on the table. Lay the challenge cards face down on the table. Stretch out a little. Death stare the oppositions star player. And you are ready to go.
How to Play
The first challenge card will now be revealed. Each team will then decide based on the challenge cards potential difficulty to their starting player, how high they want to bid to attempt this card. They will have bidding cards showing various numbers between one to four. The higher their bid, the more likely they are to win, and they will then have to attempt the challenge. When both teams are ready, they will reveal their bid, and the highest bidding team will then have to give it a go. If it is a draw, a Flipperrama ensures. Both teams must quickly grab their Sling'em (Chicken or Hotdog) and start flipping. The win will go to the first team to land two single flips successfully. The winning team gets to decide if they want to try the challenge or hand it to the other team.
The challenge will then be attempted. This could be a simple flip, or perhaps one under the legs, or maybe even with your eyes closed. There will be a certain amount of attempts that you can use to try and complete this challenge. If you are successful, you will be able to flip over the bottom gray character card. If you fail in the challenge, then the other team can flip their bottom gray character card over.
The bidding cards used that round are then removed from the game, and the next challenge card is revealed. You will now have one less bidding card to use. When all of your bidding cards are used up, you can draw four new ones. When playing in a team, you cannot choose who attempts the challenges, you have to simply take it in turns.
The first team to flip over all of their character cards to the coloured side is declared the winner. They will be lauded at the true champions by the other team, and will have first choice of what movie to watch that night.
You can even invent your own challenges using the blank challenge cards in the box. Or play a dueling game. Whereby two players stand six to eight feet apart. You must attempt to flip your sling'em trying to land it in front of your opponent on the floor. If it sticks, then they can try and flip one back. If their flip fails, you get a point. You can play this up to three, or however you so decide.
This game can even be played late into the evening after a few drinks. Not that WBG endorses that at all! But, from strict market research purposes, it has been proven to be a lot of fun.
Is this Fun?
Yes.
Any other questions?
Chicken vs Hotdog is nothing but fun. There is no strategy. Zero mechanics or rules to learn. Just throw the thing, try and make it do a thing, then celebrate wildly either way. It's just hilarious. My kids love it for quick bit of family fun. I love it for a game to play with friends when we are too "tired" for anything else. The game is just so accessible.
Everyone has tried to do a "flip" with a half full bottle of water. This game just takes that idea and adds a few extra challenges and a scoring mechanism so it is a "game." And it works so well.
I would strongly recommend that anyone who regularly plays in larger groups try this one out. It's the perfect game to get out at the end of a long day, that anyone can have a try at, that will almost certainly guarantee laughs. You will be up and running with new players within minutes, and people will be focusing on trying to do something relatively easy with a bit of plastic but that gives huge pleasure when you succeed right away. And I am all for that!
I have taken so much pleasure from playing this game. Even after many turns, I am hilariously still terrible at it. But the odd occasion I do land a flip, it feels great! But what feels better, is cheering on my team and laughing when the opposition team bids high and fails on their turn. This game brings a brilliant level of friendly competition to the room. Winning and loosing means absolutely nothing. But at the time, when the chicken is in your and, and one flip could guarantee you and your team victory, it means everything. EVERYTHING!
As such, I cannot recommend this game enough. It won't be for everyone. It really is very silly. But if you have got this far, I would wager it may well be something you and your friends could be talking about for a long time to come. I can see the twinkle in your eye now as you think about bringing this box out after a nice relaxing bottle of your favourite red, and you place it down in front of your friends ready to do battle, Chicken Vs Hotdog style.
From this point onwards, I feel the board game community will be split into people who have landed a reverse, double, wrong hand flip and those of us that haven't. BGG should probably create a badge for this. it's kind of a big deal.