Mamma Mia! What a delicious game of rolling dice! Perfect to whet the appetite for a larger game night!
How to Play
In Pizza Party, two players are competing to completely finish their pizzas by making sure that every slice has every topping it needs. How do you put toppings on your pizza? Roll for them! Each player is given 5 pizza topping dice and you have to keep rolling and rolling until you successfully roll matching toppings for all the symbols on your current slice. When you roll a correct topping, you place the die on your slice, on top of the matching symbol, and once your slice is full, you yell “Mamma Mia!” to signal to everyone else your mastery of the pizza. The slice then gets added to your completed pizza and you pick a new slice from the draw pile. Play continues like this until one player has successfully created a full circular pizza. The chaos can be increased by getting multiple editions of the game to add more players.
Pizza Part-yay!
Pizza Party is an elegantly simple little ice-breaker. Simply roll and bake! I can never have enough dice-rolling games and the unique pizza topping dice are really fun, it’s not just rolling numbers 1-6, but rolling mushrooms, or sausages or shrimp even! I’ve previously reviewed the game Gelatinous, which has a very similar vibe, but is more chaotic. I’d say Pizza Party is like a children’s version of that as there is no direct player interaction. I also like that different slices have different numbers of toppings, something which adds to the chance element of it and reduces the likelihood of one person necessarily just winning every time and being difficult to catch up with. If the player that seems to be winning gets a 5 topping slice when you get a 2 topping slice, you’ve got a much higher chance of catching up, making everything still all to play for, right up until the last moment. The box being a pizza slice is also a very cute design choice and makes the game perfectly travel-sized.
Pizza Part-nay.
Unfortunately, there is little “Party” in Pizza Party. One copy of the game only allows for two players. I know two people can have a good time together, but it’s not even a crowd until it’s three! I understand that the compact nature of the box would be compromised if more dice were added, but it seems like a game that gets more fun with more people. The demographic that this is primarily aimed for, families, would need to buy multiple editions, but this isn’t mentioned on the outside of the box so you wouldn’t necessarily be able to tell that the game can be expanded to accommodate more people. Also, there is no player interaction at all, it’s just a straight up race to be the first, and your actions have no impact on anyone else (apart from psychologically). This makes it easier for kids to learn and play, but equally, screwing each other over is one of the most fun aspects of playing a game, and what I would suggest makes it truly a party!
A Good Appetiser but a Little Bland
I will always be biased towards enjoying a dice-rolling game, I can’t lie, and I do especially enjoy the uniqueness of the topping dice in this game. It is a very un-complex game and is perfect for all ages (well maybe not all, we don’t want babies swallowing the dice, they may have food on them, but they’re not very digestible). However, with less complexity, I find, sometimes, comes less fun. Whilst a race is still enjoyable, the lack of player interaction really reduces the excitement and makes it completely just a game of chance. It would have been nice to see even just one rule where you interact with one another. Kids can cope! From the kids I’ve met, they crave it!
