Cookie Fu
A Collectible Kung Fu Dice Game
What’s the biggest problem with any role-playing game or card game trying to replicate martial arts? Lack of action! It’s fairly dry and mechanical and often times slow-the exact opposite of every Kung Fu fight you have ever seen in a movie. Now comes a game to change all of that: Cookie Fu, Fortune Cookie Fighter! A quick playing, easy to learn, fun game that’s far more like Fists of Fury than any other game I’ve played!! Yes I know you see “collectible” and “dice” in the same sentence-put away your jaded pre-conceived notions, because this game kicks butt!
A GOOD Collectible Dice Game
Cookie Fu is a collectible dice game that comes packaged in a small take-out pail. The pails are like the kind you get at Chinese food restaurants. In each starter set you get five dice, the rules of play, and a fortune cookie. Inside each booster you get 3 fu fight dice and a fortune cookie. Inside each cookie you get a secret Chi maneuver! These secret maneuvers are collectable and add the really cool moves from your favorite kung Fu movie into the game!
The Basics
There are two different dice that are included with the starter. You get 1 fortune die, and 4 fu fighting dice. The fortune die is used to determine initiative. There are three icons which act like a rock paper scissors mechanic to determine who goes first each round. The fortune die is not collectible and comes with each starter. The fu fight dice are collectible and are used to execute your favorite kung fu moves on your friend-minus the usual bruises and medical bills that come from doing them for real. A starter comes with three common fight dice and one random “learned” fight die. Boosters come with 1 common, 1 random learned die and 1 random master level fight die. Every player starts at novice level-with 3 common fight dice. As you win matches you level up your fighter adding learned and master dice as well as increasing your hit points from a base of 10. The various level dice allow you to customize your fighter and create whole fight styles base upon the dice you choose to build your fighter with. Combine this with the random Chi moves that come in every starter or booster-and no two fighters will fight the same way!
The Dice
Unlike Dragon Dice or Star trek Dice-these dice do not have vague symbols etched into them. Instead they have actual art drawings of a hand, foot, a grab, a throw, a fan, and a Chi symbol on the die. The background on each die is a colored (red for fu dice, yellow for fortune die) field of fortune cookies! The images do not scratch off and are not stickers! They are unique, clear symbols, and terrific production quality. The levels of dice are based upon the number of a specific icon, which appears on the die. So, a basic die has one of each icon, a learned die has 2 of a specific icon and a mix of others. The master die has 3 of one icon with a mix of others, and a grand master die has 3 of one icon-and all the icons GLOW IN THE DARK! The icons are:
1. Fist-for hand strike
2. Foot-for a kick
3. Fan- to block hand strikes
4. Grab-to block a foot strike-or to use with a throw icon to toss your opponent
5. Throw-can only be used with a grab icon, no good without it
6. Chi-martial energy to heal or perform spectacular attacks
The only icon on every die, and never more than once on any die, is Chi!
Chi allows you to pull of the incredible spin kicks, energy blasts, mystic healing and super moves you see in the movies. The more chi you roll the cooler and deadlier the maneuver you can do! There are 3 levels of Chi moves-basic, requires 1 chi, learned requires 2 chi and master requires 3 chi to perform. This is the Dragon Ball Z, Bruce Lee, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon aspect of the game that makes it over the top fun!
Gameplay
Each round begins with both players rolling their fu fight dice and their Fortune (initiative) die. Whoever won the initiative may elect to strike first, or pass to their opponent. The fu fight dice are kept hidden behind each player’s hands so that neither player knows what the other rolled. (Side note: I bought my copies at Wizards of the Coast in Everett and they gave me a special game shield Wizards of the Coast made for the game. They said their stores are giving away a game shield with every starter you buy-they are full color, show the major rules and chi moves, and are great to hide the dice behind!).
Play starts then with the attacker taking dice from behind her hand to attack her opponent. There is no limit to the dice you can use at one time-except you can only use each die once in a round! After player one shows what she is attacking with, player 2 may then block-if he rolled appropriate blocks-or elect to take the damage. Then player 2 gets to attack and player one can defend if she rolled the right blocks.
Example: Player 1 rolls three dice and gets punch, punch, and chi. Player two rolls three dice and gets hand block, grab, and throw.
Player 1 attacks first and plays both punch dice
Player 2 plays the one hand block die he rolled, and takes 1 point damage from the punch he couldn’t block
Now Player 2 uses a grab die and a throw die as a combo maneuver and does 2 points to Player 1
Player 1 uses the 1 chi symbol die to heal-thus taking only 1 pt of damage.
Now both players, having used all 3 of their fu fight dice, would re-roll all dice, including the fortune dice for the next round of combat!
Players fight back and forth until one of them is down to zero hit points and thus knocked out! Each round plays quickly and an average fight with 2 novice level fighters is about 10-15 minutes. A match is the best 2 out of three like your favorite video game. Win ten matches and your fighter moves up a level adding more dice and more hit points.
Mutli-Player Mayhem!
Another great aspect of the games is multi player. How many Kung Fu movies have had 1 fighter battle 3 or 6 or 10 other fighters? Cookie Fu lets you do this painlessly! Simply roll a d6 to determine who goes first and then start letting the punches and kicks fly! You simply target your dice to any other player-and they can block or not depending on how they rolled! We played a 4 player battle-it took 30 minutes and we were all laughing and having a great time! Easy and fun!!
Summary
Cookie Fu takes all the best parts of every Kung Fu video game, movie and cartoon-then packs it into a quick, playable, and fun game. The unique Chinese take out boxes and free fortune cookie in every box make it not only unique-but memorable! In an age when everyone else is doing a d20 or TCG knock-off its terrific to see an original and fun game! Heck even my girlfriend likes to play it!! There are at least two expansions planned which will add weapons and sorcery into the game allowing a greater range of variance in fighters!! My only complaint-and really it is a minor one-is the rules themselves. They are folded over four times. It is a brochure-sized document that is folded down to fit into the unique Chinese take out packaging. It does not hurt the game at all-just annoying considering they are full color and look like a take out menu! Really, that is my only complaint for the game. This is a unique game that deserves to be big!! Here’s hoping it does as well as it deserves!
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(Due to spamming, old forum discussions are no linked.)