New York Slice

Today's review is of the 2017 release, New York Slice. For 2-6 players, it takes 30 minutes.

Overview

You run a pizza parlor and are charged with creating the best pizza. You'll collect your preferred types, eat others, and try to avoid the dreaded anchovies. Can you collect (and consume) your way to victory?

To start, each player gets 11 slices of pizza, randomly selected. The first player reveals their pie and slices it into a number of portions equal to the number of players. (The portions needn't be equal, of course.) Then, the next clockwise player selects one of the portions and chooses to keep and/or eat each slice in that portion. 

- Keeping means to keep it face-up it in front of you and save it for the end of the game. If you have the majority of that type of slice, you get points based on the total number of that kind in the game (this is printed on each slice, from 3-11). 

- Eating means to keep it face-down in front of you. At the end of the game, you get points based on the number of pepperoni on each slice you have eaten minus the number of anchovies. Eaten slices do not count in the majority decision for those slices kept. (Example: if there are 11 slices of a given type in the game, but 5 were eaten during the course of it, the person who has the majority of the 6 remaining 'kept' slices gets 11 points.)

A pie sliced for 4 players; image from here

Play proceeds in clockwise order until all portions are chosen. Then the next player reveals their pie, slices it, and portions are chosen. Turns continue until all players have sliced and distributed their pies. There are also special cards (one shown in the example above) that players may obtain to give them a boost. Most points wins!

Review

This set collection game with a twist is okay. A few more plays may improve my opinion, but I thought it only fair. The two meaningful decisions are 1) how to slice up your pie and 2) which portion to choose each round. 

- The first is often hard to do and feels like complete guessing. Any favorable portions will be immediately snapped up, so you don't want to make things obviously good for another player. Any terrible portions will be left for you (as you pick last on the turn your pie is sliced), so it's a balancing act that ultimately leads you to try to make things as equal as possible. 

- The second can be pretty obvious (or forced upon you, if you're picking towards the end), so this didn't enthrall me. You can (and should) track what other people have, and can decide to help yourself or hurt them, but it feels like you often don't have much control over either.

In this genre, I prefer Animals on Board.

Rating: C+