Snack Wars
Snack Wars Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
The game contains 60 cards, divided as follows:
- 45 Food cards
- 10 Raccoon cards (Raton Laveur)
- 5 Bonus cards
Goal of the Game
The players are globe-trotting, greedy and slightly thieving raccoons. On their turn, the players draw a number of cards and choose the ones they want to keep and add to their collection of 9 cards. The right choices must be made in order to gather the culinary specialties that will let them score as many points as possible at the end of the game.
But beware: an opponent may come to raid your stash!
Setup
Shuffle the 60 cards and form a draw pile in the centre of the table, face down.
Playing the Game
The player who is the greediest starts the game.
Players take turns in clockwise order.
A player's turn is made up of the following steps:
- Draw cards to complete the collection of 9 cards.
- Choose and place one type of card into the Collection.
- Discard the excess cards.
1. Draw
On the first turn, the players draw 9 cards to start their collection. On later turns, players draw cards until they have 9, counting the cards already present in their collection. The drawn cards are placed face up on the table. If a player already has 9 cards in their collection, they must pass their turn.
Example: Delphine has 3 cards in her collection, so she must draw 6 cards (6 + 3 = 9).
Note: it is possible to steal cards from your opponents (see page 5, c: Take all the Raccoon cards). In that case, the player who was robbed draws cards again to complete their collection of 9 cards.
Tip: arranging the cards in a 3 x 3 square helps you see how many cards you still need to draw to complete your collection.
2. Choose and Place
The player then chooses one of the following options:
a. Take all the Food cards of the same value. b. Take one and only one Bonus card. c. Take all the Raccoon cards.
a. Take all the Food cards of the same value
The player chooses one Food card value and adds to their collection, face up, all the cards of that value they have just drawn.
Example: Delphine chooses the cards of value 7 and so adds the 3 Donut cards to her collection. Her collection now contains 6 cards.
Warning: you cannot have more than 9 cards in your collection! If you have more Food cards than there is room for in your collection, the excess cards are discarded.
The Food cards
There are 9 different types of Food card: macaron, croissant, cheese, sushi, ramen, shrimp tempura (beignet de crevettes), milk-shake, donut and burger.
Note: each type of Food card is associated with a value from 1 to 9 and with a culinary family: French, Japanese or American.
The value of a card is the number of victory points the player earns at the end of the game if they are the majority in that value. The culinary family lets the player earn additional victory points depending on the Bonus cards (see below).
b. Take one and only one Bonus card
The player chooses one Bonus card and adds it to their collection, face up.
Example: Alain wants to take 1 Bonus card and must therefore choose 1 from the 2 available. He chooses the Japan Bonus card and adds it to his collection.
Bonus cards
There are 5 different Bonus cards, which award additional victory points at the end of the game:
- French Bonus (Eiffel Tower): 1 victory point for each card of the French culinary family in the player's collection.
- Japanese Bonus (torii gate): 1 victory point for each card of the Japanese culinary family in the player's collection.
- American Bonus (Statue of Liberty): 1 victory point for each card of the American culinary family in the player's collection.
- Multicolour Bonus (the card showing all three culinary family symbols, "+5"): 5 victory points if the player has at least one card of each culinary family.
- Raccoon Bonus (green card, "+1"): 1 victory point for each Raccoon card harvested during the game.
Translator's note: the printed text of the Raccoon Bonus marks the harvested card with a leaf-type symbol, which matches the corner symbol on the Raccoon cards. The transcriber has read this as "Raccoon card"; check against the English edition if one becomes available.
c. Take all the Raccoon cards
The player takes all the Raccoon cards they have drawn and places them face down next to their collection. Raccoon cards do not count in a player's collection.
Each raccoon collected this way allows the player to steal one card of their choice from one of their opponents, and add it to their own collection.
Note: if the player takes several raccoons, they may choose to steal from one opponent or from several opponents.
Example: on her turn, Mathilde has drawn 3 Raccoon cards. She chooses them and places them face down next to her collection. She then steals 1 Donut card from Delphine and 2 Donut cards from Joseph, and adds them to her own collection.
Reminder: a player can never have more than 9 cards in their collection. If, after playing the Raccoon cards, a player ends up with more than 9 cards, they must discard the excess cards from among those they have stolen.
3. Discard
The player discards the drawn cards that were not used. If the draw pile is empty, shuffle the discard pile to form a new draw pile.
Then the turn passes to the next player, clockwise.
End of the Game
The game ends as soon as all players have completed their collection of 9 cards. Points are then counted.
Note: if a player has not finished their collection, they continue to play until they, too, have 9 cards laid out in front of them.
Scoring
Players add up the values of the Food cards for which they are the majority, together with the points from their Bonus cards.
Majority in each type of Food card
For each of the 9 types of Food card, only the majority player scores the associated value (shown in the corner of the cards): between 1 and 9 points in total depending on the category.
If two players are tied, no points are scored for that type.
Bonus cards
Each Bonus card scores additional points (see section 2b, "Take one and only one Bonus card", above).
Example: Delphine is the majority in Donut cards, so she scores 7 points, plus 3 points for her Japan Bonus card, for a total of 10 victory points. Mathilde scores 5 points because she is the majority in Croissant cards, 3 extra points for her France Bonus card and 5 points for her Multicolour Bonus card, for a total of 13 victory points. No points are scored for the Sushi cards because no player is the majority.
Winning the Game
The player with the most points wins the game. In case of a tie, the victory is shared.