‘The Contest’

The first three weeks of BCM300 involved everyone in the class playtesting a range of board games. Throughout this time, I played a variety of games varying in theme, complexity and playing mechanisms. I’ve decided to analyse the game Throw Throw Burrito because this game was a very memorable playing experience.

 

Source: Kickstarter

 

Throw Throw Burrito was designed and illustrated by Matthew Inman, Elan Lee and published by Asmodee Italia in 2019. It falls under the category of Party Game, catering for 2-6 players, with a rating of 7/10 on BoardGameGeek.

 

The goal of the game is to earn as many points as you can by creating 3-of-a-kind sets. Amongst the playing cards there are also battle cards:

• Burrito Brawls: When you play this card, the players to your left and right grab a burrito as fast as possible and throw it at each other.
• Burrito Wars: Involve everyone on the table (apart from the person who played the set) to participate in the battle and throw the Burrito at another player.
• Burrito Duels: Involves picking any 2 players (including yourself if you choose) to stand back to back and step away from each other as everyone counts down from 3. On “Burrito” the two players with turn and throw and try and hit the other player.

 

As for the game mechanics, Throw Throw Burrito includes real time, set collection and take that. The mechanic I enjoyed the most in the game was take that as I love the high levels of competition and how you can directly attack an opposing player and destroy their chances of victory.

In terms of complexity this was an easy game to learn and play with very simple rules to follow. I think BoardGameGeek accurately represented the complexity rating in giving it a 1.06/5.

 

 

What I really enjoyed about the game was that it reminded me of 2 games from my childhood – Spoons and Dodgeball. Set collection was the mechanic taken from Spoons as players would try and make a set of cards, whilst discarding ones they didn’t need which would continue around the circle. The dodgeball element was clear in the game as players had to throw the burrito at opposing players in order to win. I believe bringing these two well-known and much-loved games together was a great move and created a very fun and fast-paced game that would not only be suitable for a family at home but even a bunch of Uni students.

 

 

During the game, after the first Burrito Brawl set was played, a natural shift was taken in the game and it was decided amongst all 4 players that we would leave the burritos where they landed in the room and come back to the board. This added a whole new element to the game as it then extended outside the classroom and into the hallway – then around the whole building.

 

 

Although it wasn’t in the rule book, it was something we felt would elevate the game and it turns out it got a whole lot more fun. I found the game to be more intense and much more enjoyable as there was more competition and a hide and seek element added to the game.

One aspect of the game that BoardGameGeek looks at is the playing time, giving an average play time of 15 minutes per game. This proved to be very inaccurate in our case as we were playing for over 40 minutes, however, I don’t believe 15 minutes would be an accurate playing time in any case for the game, especially playing with 4 or more players.

 

 

References

boardgamegeek.com, n.d., ‘Throw Throw Burrito Original Edition’, Board Game Geek, date accessed 15/3/20, https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/274533/throw-throw-burrito-original-edition

kickstarter.com, n.d., ‘Throw Throw Burrito’, Kickstarter, date accessed 16/3/20, https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/elanlee/throw-throw-burrito

 

 

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