"Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting, their fists were fast as…" - okay, I guess I should just stop now. But I challenge you to find a game of Kung Fu Fighting (Slugfest Games, 2004 - Geoff Bottone, Colleen Skadl, and Cliff Bohm) that doesn't have that song sung at some point during the game - probably when the title is first mentioned. Living in Korea, I've seen quite a few martial arts Hong Kong movies, and Kung Fu Fighting (KFF) seems to be based on those movies.
I enjoyed the theme of KFF more than anything else. Mechanic-wise, it's a decent game, rather similar to other "take-that" games of the genre (Family Business, etc.) What raises it above the other games is the silly fighting style. When players get into it, cracking jokes and laughing at the humorous combinations that come occur, then the game can provide a riotous fun time. Make no mistake, it's a harebrained game but can be fun with the correct crowd.
Each player takes a player template card and places a marker on a Chi track at "20". (Chi is basically hit points). Each player template also has two spaces on it - one for a weapon, the other for a "stance." A deck of ninety-nine cards is shuffled with seven dealt to each player, and the remainder forming a draw deck. One player is chosen to go first, and then play proceeds clockwise.
On a player's turn, the first thing they may do is discard any or all cards from their hand, drawing replacements from the deck. After this, the player may play as many cards as they wish on their turn. The cards are thus:
- Attacks: A player can play either a punch, kick, trip, or throw card as an attack against any other player. Each attack can be blocked by different cards (i.e. Blocking Punch! blocks a punch attack, while Your Kung Fu is Weak! blocks any attack). A player takes damage, reducing their Chi, equal to the amount of the attacking card. A player may make only one attack per turn.
- Weapons: A player may play a weapon into their weapons slot on the player template and use that weapon to make attacks (and sometimes defense) against players rather than an attack card. For example, a chair does 3 damage to someone, while at the same time adds 1 defense (subtracts from damage against the player). Weapons also have special characteristics, such as the chair being discarded when used.
- Enhance: Attack Enhancement cards add to an attack. You can play as many of these cards on one attack, provided all of them are different. For example, if I throw a fast, spinning, invincible punch, the three attack enhancement cards add a total of three to the damage of the punch.
- Stances: A player may play a stance card into their stance slot on the player template. That stance affects their damage with certain attacks and gives them extra damage against specific other stances. For example, the Tiger Stance does an additional two damage to a player using the Drunken stance, while it takes two additional damage from the Monkey stance. The Tiger stance also gives a player a bonus damage to all attacks, an additional damage to invincible and magnificent attacks, and a +1 to defense. There are six different stances a player may have.
- Other cards: Some cards restore chi, others allow for combination attacks, still others allow a player to do a counterattack.
There are a few other rules, such as the fact that trips and throws cause a stance or weapon to be discarded, but that's basically it. Play continues until only one player is left with Chi - at which point they are declared the winner!
Some comments on the game…
1.) Components: The cards are of good quality and are the color of parchment, with hand drawn, non-colored pictures that look like they were ripped from the latest Hong Kong kung fu movie. The artwork is well done, and the whole game, including box, player templates, and cards, has a very Oriental look. The counters used to mark "Chi" are simply red glass stones, but function well for what they do. There is very little text on most of the cards, so the game proceeds pretty smoothly. Everything fits well inside a small box with a lid. No stellar components here, but perfectly fine, functional ones are included.
2.) Rules: The rules are printed in a four page, black and white rulebook, with nice formatting, and clear directions. I did have some faults with them, as the game did not clearly state what happened to a player who lost all their Chi (I assume they are out of the game). Also, the game doesn't state a clear ending; although at the beginning of the rules, the "object of the game is to be the last player with Chi", so I deduced the rest from that. The cards are so simplistic that no FAQ is needed (like some games) - this is simply a bang 'em up style game. I taught the game easily both to adults and teenagers.
3.) Theme: This game is all about the theme. Take the kung fu theme away, and you would really have a lackluster game here. But start talking in bad accents and clichés from movies, and the game becomes a lot better. Making noise effects and shouting out what attack is coming next also make the game more enjoyable.
4.) Mechanics: I will grant that there are some new mechanics in KFF that I haven't seen in this genre before - namely the stance and weapon cards. The stance cards have almost a six-way rock/scissors/paper thing going, and it does make a player pause for a microsecond before playing a stance down, to see what other cards are in their hand, and the stances of their opponents.
5.) Gang up!: This game has one problem that I'm not too fond of, although I tolerate it in this genre, and that is the ability for all the players to gang up on one player and quickly eliminate that player from the game. If you use your block cards to stop one attack, that leaves you open for the next players - and why not kick a man while he's down? This type of game encourages this "beat up one guy" mentality, and your enjoyment of the game may depend on how much you like that.
6.) Fun Factor: The game is fun - more fun than I thought it would be. And the reason for that is simple - it's the kung fu theme. As much as we laugh and scoff at the impossible stunts in Hong Kong fighting movies, we still enjoy watching them (Matrix, etc.) Who hasn't wanted to do that, and now here's a game that allows it! And for others, this is the perfect opportunity to mock the Kung Fu genre of movies; because cards like "Bring it!", "Your Kung Fu is No Match for Mine", and "Running up the Wall" just really hammer the theme home. It's almost reminiscent of the endless Street Fighter II we played as kids.
There isn't much more to say about Kung Fu Fighting; it's a simple game with a funny theme. How much you enjoy that theme is going to determine your enjoyment of the game. While the stance cards are neat, and the weapon cards add a smidgen of strategy, it's simply another game in which players attack and defend against one another with cards. With the theme added, KFF is a hoot!, as long as you have a soft spot for Jackie Chan and clan.
Tom Vasel
"Real men play board games."
www.tomvasel.com
