The anime to board game pipeline is real and I for one am quite enjoying it. If you like SPY x FAMILY and card games, then Mission for Peanuts is for you! A simple hand management game, SPY x FAMILY Mission for Peanuts sees players trying to outmaneuver one another to build the best two card team for the mission. The player who brings the Forger family together first, wins the round. Get three peanuts, and you’ve won the game!
If you don’t know why peanuts, in SPY x FAMILY, Anya the adorable telepath who knows her ‘dad’ is an undercover spy for Westalis and her ‘mom’ Yor is an assassin with the code name ‘Thorn Princess’ loves peanuts! While short, the game is fun and small enough to take with you to wherever you might want to play.
What’s In The Box?
Mission for Peanuts comes with 24 game cards, 5 reference cards, and 12 peanut point tokens. The rulebook is actually the largest thing in the box and I wonder if it would have been possible to make it smaller. If so the box could have been half the size and even easier for transport.
The rulebook has ages explaining who the characters are and how their cards work, which I appreciated. The information is also nice for people who might not know as much about the anime and who the eight characters actually are. Kess Co.’s manufacturing was great with very sleek cards and the peanuts don’t feel flimsy at all. Important because they are small and can easily get lost if you’re not paying attention…Maybe that was just me and my friend in our excitement to play.
How’s It Play?
Gameplay for Mission for Peanuts is pretty straightforward. Each player gets two cards, one of which is their ‘hand’, and the other is their Role (who they are ‘playing’ as). Each player draws a card from the deck and must take one of the following actions. They can either discard a card from their hand face up and then take the action in the ASSIS textbox on that card. Or they must DEPLOY a new role by discarding their current Role faceup in front of them and then take the action in the DEPLOY textbox of their new role card.
Some cards have deploy effects that protect the player as long as they keep that role, while other cards have assist actions that help the player win the round. Anya can obviously see the hands of other players. You’re eliminated for the round if you receive Yor from another player. There’s also the seer who can look at the top 2 cards, and then discard 1. The Handler can rotate Roles, while a player can use the Agent to get a card from another one. So on and so forth.
If you manage to get the Forger family (one as a role, two in hand), then you’ve won the round. Otherwise the player with the best pair wins the round. The highest ranked is the spy x telepath or spy x assassin, followed by telepath x assassin, spy x informant, telepath x seer, handler x agent, and assassin x secret police. If there are no pairs, the player with the least X notches (signifying how many of that card are in the deck) wins.
The player who gets to 3 peanut points for three players wins, or 2 peanut points with four to five players. These are recommended amounts, so you can really do whatever you want while playing which is fun!
The Verdict?
Overall my friends and I enjoyed playing the game. Having more players makes it more entertaining, because everyone is trying to psych each other out and pretend like they don’t have one of the Forger family. Or if you’re really good at bluffing, playing with a smaller group works too. Having the reference cards makes playing really easy too so you can quickly figure out what your character cards can do, or what you might have to expect from others without needing to have all the cards in front of you. SPY x FAMILY Mission for Peanuts is definitely one of the games that I’ll be replaying again and again!
You can sign up to be notified for when the game releases in September at Kess Co.
Images and review copy courtesy of Kess Co.
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