Coming from the same minds that brought you the weird insanity of exploding kitchens, Anarchy Pancakes is a frantic and fun mix of reaction and visual recognition gaming.
Toppings (Components)
Anarchy Pancakes comes in a small clutch box with an appropriately crazy design on the front. It cries out to you to be played with an almost neon coloured, happy pancake stack staringly longingly out. All this set against the sleek black background with simple designs around the edges hinting at the craziness to come. Indeed, there are few other places that a skull, strawberry, asteroid and a smiling tooth can co-exist in such harmony.
Once you open the box, the components are of an equal tone and wackiness. What you get is a selection of circular pancake cards with various things on them. The cards are of a solid quality (which is helpful as they about to be smacked around a fair bit). Cards either have black or red backgrounds and contain a single image or multiple things ranging from a unicorn to an axe. Designs are of different sizes and shapes, but always clear which is key to how the game plays out as they need to be easily and quickly identifiable.
Even Anarchy Needs Rules
Playing the game is simple. Five black cards are dealt to each player and two red cards, all face down. A community card is then taken from the stack of black cards in the middle of the play area and placed face up. When everyone is ready all the cards need to be flipped over simultaneously and then the chaos begins. The aim of Anarchy Pancakes is to match your cards with your opponents or the community card in the middle. The size of your item doesn’t matter, so a small skull can match with a big one for instance.
If you spot a match, you put your card on top of the other pancake, effectively making a ‘stack’. If your cards get messy you need to stop and organise them again, so they are perfectly on top. If there is no match available, then you draw another card from the middle. It’s important to note that you can’t match your own cards, so you need to be scanning your opponents constantly. If you get rid of all your cards, you win the round and take a block of butter. The first player to get two blocks of butter wins the game.
Anarchy Playing Out
The Anarchy of the game comes in because all players play the game at the same time. This means while you are smacking down your pancakes on your opponents they are doing the same to you. You must be quick as if someone adds to your stack before you move then you must start looking again. You can also really torpedo your opponent if you put down one of the single item cards on their stack as they then really have limited options to match with, especially when there are only a few cards left.
It’s important here that everyone plays properly, as it can be easy to fall into picking up a card or semi-shielding your pancakes while you look for your own match. That is against the rules of the game, it’s best to let the anarchy fully flow. It does of course mean games are short and intense, often completing in five to ten minutes. But chances are you’ll be wanting another go, especially if you lose.
Luck Versus Skill
Despite the chaos when playing Anarchy Pancakes, the game is mainly skill based. Of course, there is a certain element of luck regarding what cards you get. But there is nearly always a match somewhere especially when playing with higher player counts. It really is about quickly identifying and reacting to what is active in the play area to succeed.
Hold The Butter
The only thing I found which stalled this momentum at times was if all the players didn’t have a match (more common in two player games), as this led to a sort of awkward standoff where players would wait for the other person to draw something. Clearer rules in this area would be appreciated as it could leave to stalemates with particularly stubborn family and friends.
Final Bites
Overall, Anarchy Pancakes is highly successful at what it sets out to do. There are certainly pancakes and the general game feel is anarchic. It’s a simple game to grasp so everyone will be able to get going with very quickly and games aren’t long enough to become dull or frustrating. It situates itself as a great way to start a board game meeting or integrate new people before moving on to something more complex. It also works really well as a quick and fun family game which doesn’t outstay it’s welcome. There are a lot of this type of game out there (just search on boardgamegeek) , but Anarchy Pancakes can hold its own against any of them.
