Players: 3-9
Playing Time: 30 minutes

Summary of the Components

Hot Potato comes in a plastic clamshell with 3+ decks of cards, plastic pawns, and large plastic chips.

Quality: Though a small publisher, CGF has always done an excellent job of figuring out how to produce their games with great quality components. As with other releases, this one is built around very sturdy high-gloss cards. The plastic bits are also very good quality. 5 out of 5.

Beauty: The cards have cartoonish art featuring arrows, potatoes, or both. It's fair. 3 out of 5.

Usability: I found the rulebook a little hard to follow, though it did have illustrations to help out. To improve usability, many of those rules are printed on the cards, though without icons. I also felt the game as a whole a bit fiddly, because you were trying to pass around piles of cards, keeping everything straight. Overall, there was slightly more that annoyed me than stood out. 3- out of 5.

Theming: There's kind of funny theming here, with potatoes not just being hot, but also flaming, popping, and who knows what else. 4 out of 5.

Overall, the components of Hot Potato are OK and what you need to play the game. I've thus give it an high "3" out of "5" for Style: slightly above average.

Summary of the Gameplay

The object of Hot Potato is to survive the game with the least damage from hot, burning, and even exploding potatoes.

Setup: One player is given a hot potato. All players are given a hand of 5 action cards, which includes seasonings and various cards that move potatoes around.

Playing Cards: At the start of turn, all players with potatoes simultaneously play 1 or 2 cards per potato. They can always play a movement (or chop/split) card and if they do they can also play a seasoning card.

Players then reveal their seasonings, then their chop/split cards, then their movement cards.

Revealing Seasoning: The seasoning cards just get added to potatoes. They can make potatoes burn when taken, do extra damage when exploding, or do damage to nearby players when exploding.

Revealing Chopping: Some movement cards split a potato in two, then move both of those parts. They might move in opposite directions or in the same direction, depending on the precise card. This makes the game that much more chaotic because there are now more potatoes circling the table.

Revealing Movement: Finally, normal movement cards are revealed and executed. These might move a potato left or right by 1 space or by more.

Exploding Potatoes! If a player had a potato and was unable to move it this turn, it now explodes, doing 1 damage (or, usually, more due to seasonings).

Ending a Round: A round ends after all the potatoes in play have exploded. A new round of play begins with one more potato out than in the previous round.

Ending the Game: The game ends after 3 rounds of play. The player with the least burns wins. Unless there's a tie, then the player with the most burns wins.

The Game Design

Overall, Hot Potato is a pretty simple game. There is a small bit of strategy, as you can hoard certain types of cards (say, ones that move a potato far from you) until late in a round. You can also try to analyze other players' moves to figure out if they'd be particular unable to move a potato back to you.

The most clever element of the design is probably the simultaneous play, which speeds things up a bit. However, you have to then resolve things in turn order, so the effect is somewhat limited.

Generally, I think that Hot Potato will generate some enjoyment for families and for people looking for a very casual play. I've given it "3" out of "5" for Substance.

Conclusion

Hot Potato is a very light game of trying to pass a potato so that you don't end up with it. There's a tiny bit of strategy and card management, but mostly it's fluffy family fun.