The Daily Worker Placement

Friday, March 29, 2024

New York Slice – Get it while it’s hot!

by | published Wednesday, February 22, 2017

As a little background to this fresh menu item: Piece o’ Cake by designer Jeffrey D. Allers was delivered to the table in the late 2000s, and is a classic example of the “I cut, you choose” game mechanism. Players are aiming to gain points by collecting the majority of a type of cake, or by eating slices of cake with giant dollops of whipped cream on them. Needless to say, I always end up with sweet cravings after a game of Piece o’ Cake! Now I can round that out with some savoury carby cravings, because Bezier Games have reimplemented this game as New York Slice, a pizza-flavoured “I cut, you choose”!

 

Played out in much the same way, you’re looking to collect sets of particular slices of pizza in order to have the majority and gain game end points. Bezier Games and Jeffrey D. Allers have added some extra flavour here with the addition of a number of gameplay aspects, as well as bumping up the player count to a maximum of 6 (rather than 5). My favourite addition are the “Today’s Specials”, cards that look like little chalkboards and are included in the cut/choose phase and provide bonuses or penalties. They’ll let you earn some extra game-end points, or even take advantage of special moves like nabbing a slice of pizza before it’s divided up, winning all ties for eaten slices or letting you eat as many slices as you like right before scoring (nice way to get points out of the slices you’ve not got majority in!). Or you may end up with day-old pizza (losing 2 points at the end of the game) or having someone cut in line to select their pizza portions before you. Curses!

There have been some tweaks to the slices themselves, too – nothing too wild, but it does add a nice bit of strategy. First up, the pepperoni on slices is akin to the whipped cream in Piece o’ Cake – a point per pepperoni. However in New York Slice, you have to watch out for anchovies on your uneaten slices that will deduct points from eaten slices. Pesky little fishes. 

There’s a couple of new additions to the types of slices in New York Slice, too: combo slices allow you to choose which side of the slice is best for you, and allocate it to a set, adding a half point to your total to perhaps let you edge out a majority; the “Supreme” slice is wild – you can allocate it to whichever set you like – which means you can really mess with someone who thinks they’ve won a type of slice!

While the quality of the game is really nice – no flimsy cardboard, colourful art and that snazzy pizza box – by gosh does the lack of a decent insert bug me! As soon as I pile everything up and shelve this game, everything ends up a mess and can sometimes even pop the box lid ajar slightly. I’m gonna have to bag stuff up I think – and if that’s my only complaint here, then I’m happy! This reimplementation is done fantastically, and I love that the theme got changed up to pizza because it allowed for some creative changes. It’s still easy to learn and a quick one to teach, and has the fun and layer interaction that makes this a worthwhile light game. Time to go back for seconds.. And thirds!

Thanks to Bezier Games for the home delivery of this pie for us to review! You can grab your own copy today from your FLGS. New York Slice plays 2 – 5 people in approximately 30 minutes.

Author

  • Nicole H.

    Nicole had played a lot of backgammon, Life and Monopoly when younger. She started playing hobby games in University after trying out D&D 3rd edition, and then joining her University game club. After a while she gravitated towards board games as a casual gamer. After moving to Toronto in 2009 she started gaming more and met her (former) partner Adam through the hobby and hasn't turned back. It's hard for her to pick a favourite game, but if you really stared her down she might pick Castles of Burgundy. When not gaming, Nicole enjoys cooking/baking, reading comics, watching tv/movies and visiting museums! And cuddling every dog she can.

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2 thoughts on “New York Slice – Get it while it’s hot!

  1. Willie says:

    While I’m mostly a solo player, I’m gradually getting my family into board games. And we have a favorite pizza joint near our place. I’ve been keeping a keen eye on this game for some time, and I may just bite. Its components are the least intimidating (no meeples, complex cardboard cutouts, etc), and looks ABSOLUTELY inviting. I think my wife would love this game, and I think it’d be a riot if we played this at our pizza joint! 😀

    • admin@dailyworkerplacement.com says:

      It is definitely just as inviting as Piece o’ Cake, which I’ve always found a good gateway game 🙂 -N

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