New York Slice

Everyone likes pizza right?

Well what about cardboard pizza? Its cheaper, less calories and looks just as appetizing.

New York Slice is a brilliant little game brought to us by Bezier Games wherein players draft and collects pizza slices to earn points. That may need clarifying for some of you: drafting refers to picking from a selection of items, in this case pizza slices, in order to utilise or combine them. New York Slice is a very simple game right out of the oven and makes for a great experience no matter what your exposure to board games is.

When setting up New York Slice first shuffle the pizza slices and place them face down, slices will have different toppings like peppers, anchovies, mushrooms, pepperoni etc, along with numbers at the bottom ranging from 3 to 11.Shuffle the specials and place them face down next to the face down slices.

The active player, known as the slicer, takes 11 pizza slices and makes a whole pizza with them, they also take one of the specials to place after slicing the pizza, the slicer then divides the pizza they have created into sections equal to the number of players there are - they cant rearrange any of the slices when placing or slicing the pizza. Lastly, the slicer puts the special on one of the sections of the sliced pizza. The player to the slicers left gets first choice at which section they would like to take, this continues clockwise with the rest of the players until making its way back to the slicer who chooses last.

(Player 1 in this scenario is the slicer, so player 2 gets first choice rotating clockwise.)

The aim of the game, as in any set collector, is to collect sets. This may sound easy but the challenge in New York Slice comes in how the slicer divides up the pizza: The created pizza will consist of varied and matching numbers, so if any matching numbers are close enough together you may think that you want to divide the pizza so that those matching numbers are in the same section. Remember though, you as the slicer will get whats left over after all other players have chosen, so that may end up being a bad idea as you would give another player a good chance of collecting the most of a certain number. The slicer will have placed a special onto one of the sections, whichever player chooses that section gets the special that can give you a bonus like additional points or tie breakers, be careful though as they can also be a detriment to you. 

After a player has chosen which section they would like to take they then have the option of eating any of those slices. If they choose to eat any those slices are places face down in a stack off to one side and aren't counted towards sets at the end of the game. The reason for eating slices comes in the points scoring at the end: The amount of pepperoni pieces on any pizzas you have eaten counteracts any points lost for any anchovies you have on your pizza. Whichever player has the most 3's at the end of the game gets 3 points, the same is true for numbers 4-11.

New York Slice is played over a number of round equal to the amount of full pizzas you can create and with 69 slices you're going to be playing at least 6 rounds. Because of that there is a substantial amount of gameplay involved in New York Slice and the simplistic style and rules will keep players coming back again and again. The thing that did it for me is the design of the smallest details, usually the focus is on the game, how it plays, the writing and setting, component detail. But the detail I'm talking about it the way New York Slice is presented: The game box is a pizza box with a flip lid which then reveals the game pieces and rule book, which is a menu with a triple flap opening. The score pad is a check and the specials are tiny little chalk boards like you would see in a real New York pizzeria, all of this really stands out for me the designers had an idea in mind and ran with it, really paying off in my opinion. Even down to the imagery on the pizza slices mattering (in other games it would've just been decoration), and the way its shown so realistically to the point of it making me genuinely hungry.

The main mechanic of drafting pizza gives players a lot of choice when they are trying to plan ahead, but slicing up the pizza is probably the hardest part: you may notice a player has multiple 6's but isn't going to win the race to the 10's, so you might want divide the pizza up in such a way that any 6's and 10's sit together to try and dissuade that player from picking that section. Or there might be some anchovies lying around so you might want to put any 6's and anchovies together so that when that section is picked that player will lose points at the end of the game. Dividing up the pizza is an art, one that could show up in other games (probably just lacking the pizza) and New York Slice is a good way of getting to grips with the nuances and subtleties of enticing a player one way when in actual fact its the worst choice they could make.

New York Slice is a nice game to have on your gaming shelf for players of all ages, the theme appeals to everyone - as everyone on earth likes pizza and if you don't then you're the weird one. It's a well designed and brilliantly presented 45 minutes that, after the taste of the first game, players will want to play a second and even a third time. New York Slice is one game that given a small taste i can guarantee players will enjoy every part of it both individually and as a whole, so get down to your local games store and ask for a demo and then maybe head to a pizzeria afterwards as you will have a certain meat, sauce and dough pie on the brain.

Keep checking back to Game Changers for more gaming new and updates, along with possible dinner plan ideas for the future.