How to Play
Each player takes a pizza slice to begin the game. If only 2 or 3 people are playing, the other slices are set to the side but are still used in the game. All of the topping discs are placed upside down on the table and are mixed up.
On a player’s turn they choose one of the face down topping discs. The disc they choose will fit one of the following three scenarios:
- If you picked the topping that matches the topping on your slice of pizza, you get to put the topping on your slice and your turn ends. If you don’t have any toppings on your pizza yet and no other players have already taken that topping, you put the topping on your slice of pizza and that becomes the topping for that slice of pizza for the rest of the game.
- If you pick a topping that has been claimed by another player or does not match the topping of your slice of pizza, you place the topping back where you got it face down. Your turn is then over.
- If you pick up a switch disc you will switch your slice of pizza. If you pick a switch disc different than the color on the handle of your pizza slice, you must switch your slice of pizza with the slice of the color disc you chose. If the switch disc is of a color not held by a player, you still need to switch with that slice of pizza. If you pick a switch disc of your color, you must switch your slice with another player but you get to pick who you would like to switch with. After the slices are switched, your turn is over and the switch disc is removed from the game.
When one player successfully fills their entire slice of pizza with the same topping, they are declared the winner.
My Thoughts
When I was a young child I loved the game Pizza Party. I remember playing the game a lot and having a lot of fun. Pizza Party was actually probably one of my favorite games as a child. As you grow up though, you tend to quickly learn that a lot of the games you played as a child were not nearly as good as you remember and are actually usually pretty stupid. I decided to give Pizza Party a try due to nostalgia, and unfortunately Pizza Party fell short like so many other favorite children’s games.
In the simplest terms, Pizza Party is your typical memory game. You pick a face down disc trying to match the topping of your slice of pizza. The theme of building a pizza is pretty much just tacked on. You could have applied any theme you wanted and the game would not have played any differently. While the theme is tacked on, there really isn’t much more you can do with a memory game. I give the creators some credit for trying to add a theme to a genre of games that essentially never have any.
I would not consider myself a fan of memory games. I don’t think a game can be very entertaining, relying entirely on the memory mechanic. The memory mechanic can work in games but not as the sole gameplay mechanic. Most memory games also tend to be easy and rely pretty heavily on luck. Pizza Party is very easy and the outcome of the game relies heavily on luck.
Pizza Party has a total of only 32 discs. Each topping has six discs so at the beginning of the game you actually have solid odds of randomly picking one of your toppings. That is where the luck factor really comes into play. Unless someone has a terrible memory or small children are playing the game, the winner of the game will be determined by luck. Adults and even older children should not have difficulty remembering where the toppings that they need are located. It is easy to remember where specific toppings are since the toppings have to be placed in the exact same spot that they were taken from. This made the game so easy that my group quickly decided that after each time someone drew a topping that we would mix them all up. This essentially made the game a guessing game but it was far too easy otherwise.
With the memory aspect barely present, the game adds additional luck to the equation with the switch discs. I am assuming the switch discs were added in order to add some variety to the game and were also a way to help out players that were struggling with the game. The switch discs are not fair in my opinion though and ruin the game. I can see adding a small catch up mechanic so players that fall behind can still be in the game, but the switch discs take it way too far. One player could be playing much better than all of the other players and with one wrong random choice they could lose most of the progress they made and a player could be rewarded for doing nothing. In an extreme case a player could be one topping away from winning and might have to switch with a player that has no toppings.
Overall the contents are of solid quality. All of the pieces are made of thick cardboard but due to it being older as well as a children’s game, the pieces could end up having some moderate to heavy wear though. The artwork is pretty good and brings some charm to the game.
For adults and even older children, Pizza Party is not a good game. It is far too easy and thus is not really any fun. If the game wasn’t so easy, I could see it being quite a bit funner. I could see Pizza Party being fun for children though since I know I liked the game when I was young. The game will also help children work on memory skills and since the game is pretty easy it will be less frustrating than other memory games. Pizza Party would work better as the type of game you would let small children play by themselves since adults are probably going to get bored easily and due to the very easy difficulty adults will have to pretend to mess up in order to keep the game close.
Final Verdict
When I was a child I loved Pizza Party. Unfortunately nostalgia does not make up for a flawed and very easy game. If you are like me and enjoyed Pizza Party when you were a child, its’ nostalgia will most likely not hold up. The game is way too easy for adults and even older children and you will tire of it quickly. When I rated the game I based the rating on how an adult would perceive the game and that is why the rating is so low. You may want to consider the game though if you have small children. I know I liked the game when I was a child and I think young children would still enjoy it today.
