The foxes are loose and want nothing more than a delicious chicken dinner. The coop is full of tasty birds but only one fox can leave as the winner. Winner Winner Chicken Dinner is a family dice game from 25th Century Games that is being funded through Kickstarter.
Players take on the role of different foxes that are beautifully illustrated by Shawna Tenney, the artist behind Bugs on Rugs. Each fox has a perk that no one else at the table has. On their turn, players roll 6 dice and have two additional opportunities for re-rolls. The dog icon locks in the die and cannot be rerolled. The Chicken icons allow you to steal chickens from the coop on the board. The fried drumstick icons allow the player to cook that number of chickens which are worth 2 points at the end of the game. The fox icon gives the player the ability to purchase cards from the board based on the number of icons they roll.
Farm to Bag to Table
Winner Winner Chicken Dinner has very straight forward mechanics for anyone familiar with “dice chuckers” like King of Tokyo or Zombie Dice. Players can resolve the dice in any order they would like which is where some of the strategy comes in. The other night my son had a great roll but chose to play a card before collecting his chickens from the coop. This card let him trade his empty bag with another player at the table. This was a huge move as he went from 0 chickens to more than a dozen in the bag at the end of his turn.
The chicken tokens are double-sided. When a player cooks the chicken, they flip it over to the red cooked side and places them face up in front of them. The uncooked chickens remain in the player’s bag. Players that pay close attention will know who is holding the most chickens which will make them a target during the game.
Toby the farm dog is represented on the dice and too many rolls of this pup means that the game is coming closer to the end. The dog token will be moved up the track each time the dog icon shows up on the dice. This is one of the two ways that the game can end. For us, it was much more common that the game ended because we emptied the chicken coop during the course of the game.
At the end of the game, players are awarded 2 points for each cooked chicken and 1 point for each live chicken in their bag.
Silly Chickens
Winner Winner Chicken Dinner is a great family game and will click with kids as young as 5. There are some really fun cards in the game that have players clucking like chickens, performing a chicken dance or just being mean by stealing chickens from other players.
The fox cards that everyone is given to start the game are hilarious and include lots of wordplay that parents will enjoy. One thing we have to get better at is remembering our individual bonuses. Sometimes we would forget about this until late in the game.
We really loved how quickly the game played because it meant that we could play back-to-back games with the kids after dinner. Winner Winner Chicken Dinner is simple, fun and has an art style that really stands out. I dare you to stare at these floppy necked chickens and not grin.
You can back Winner Winner Chicken Dinner on Kickstarter beginning on September 24, 2019.
25th Century Games provided us with a prototype copy of Winner Winner Chicken Dinner prior to the Kickstarter campaign. This in no way influenced our opinion of the game. Previews are a glimpse into an upcoming game with the pros and cons that we experienced prior to production of the game.
