On February 1, 2009, the Arizona Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers will meet in Super Bowl XLIII.  It will be a great time to get together with friends, eat lots of snacks, watch some commercials, and maybe enjoy a football game.  The Cardinals have been surprising me this post season, so they might make a game of it.  But, if they don't, it would be a good time to play some games.  So, allow me to suggest an appropriate game for the setting: Pizza Box Football.


(BGG image by user DrChek)

Pizza Box Football came out in 2005, from designers Erik and Scott Smith and published by On The Line Game Company.  The theme is fairly obvious - play a game of football in a pizza box.  This game is different from most other games I've talked about so far in that it is heavily dependent on dice.  So far, only The Settlers of Catan has utilized dice, but I wouldn't say that was the main mechanic.  For PBF (as this game will be called), dice are extremely important.


(BGG image by user eriksmith)

As you can see, the board actually fits in the pizza box it comes in.  You'll also get some reference cards to help you know what happens on each play.  There's a bunch of dice to use, some for offense, some for defense, and some multi purpose dice.  There's thirteen pegs in different colors, three for your team, three for your opponent's team, a yellow first down marker, and six green pegs for various other purposes.


(BGG image by user ronster0)

Here you see a closeup of the various components.  The home player can be red or blue.  You also see that there's a series of holes in the board.  In fact, there's one hole for every yard line.  No fourth and inches in this game.  The dice come in five colors - black, white, yellow, red, and green.  You'll notice that there's only one each of the colored dice.  You'll also notice that there's a small die with the white and black dice.  The small white die is used in defense, and the small black die is used when punting.

Also, behind the big stack of white dice, you see the game clock, which is a series of thirty holes.  There are four different ways of playing the game, but only two use the game clock.  In the smashmouth version, you get thirty plays per quarter, which you can track on the clock.  In the full game, each play you run has a set number of holes you need to advance the clock, and you'll go through the thirty game clock holes three times per quarter.  All this, and the plays you can run, is explained on a series of charts.


(BGG image by user MUGal)

Each player gets one of these play sequence charts, which shows you what happens for each dice roll during a regular offensive play.  There's another chart that shows what happens on kickoffs, another for punts, another for field goals and extra points, and another that explains what all the symbols mean.  When you first play the game, this will be very confusing.  However, once you figure out where everything is, it'll fly.  I promise.

The game does assume that you know the game of football, and that's a good distinction to make.  You may be able to use this to teach football, but I think you'd have better success showing someone on TV.

To begin the game, the rules say to roll dice.  I say no.  This is football.  Find a quarter and flip it.  I put one right in the box so I'll always have it.  The winner can decide whether to take the ball first in which half, and the loser can decide which end zone belongs to whom.

For the kickoff, the kicking team will roll three black dice, and subtract the result from 15 to determine the receiving team's starting position.  This means if a twelve is rolled, the receiving team catches the ball on the three and tries to run it back.  If you roll a 15 or higher, the receiving team catches the ball in the end zone and can decide whether or not to take a touchback, in other words, starting the game on the twenty.  If they decide to run, they roll five white dice and advance the total number.  Now, these white dice are considered Bonus dice, which means that you can run further than the thirty possible yards from rolling five sixes.  If any of the dice come up as a six, add them up, and then roll all dice that came up as a six again.  Keep rolling until you have no more sixes.  If you get a total of five in the runback, it's an automatic touchdown.  Otherwise, just add your total to the yard line you started from, and that's where you get the ball.

Now, for the offense.  The defensive player will choose whether they will defend against the run, the short pass, or the long pass.  Each of these choices is represented by a different colored die - red is run, yellow is short pass, and green is long pass.  The defensive player hides that die in their hand.  The offensive player now announces what they will do.  The defensive player reveals what they're defending against, then roll that die and the small white die to determine the defensive effect.  Now, if the defense matches the offense, the defense will have an advantage, but it really depends on the roll.  Look on the first page of the play sequence card.  If the defense is defending the run, and that is what the offense is doing, and the defense rolls a nine, you'll look under the "vs. offense run play" box, in the column "run", and go down to nine.  You'll see that the defense has a negative one effect.  This means that the offensive run roll will be reduced by one.  Now, if the defense rolled a five, you'll see that the defense has no effect, and if the defense rolled a two, the offense will actually get a +1 effect.

If the defense decided to defend against the run, but the offense decided to throw a long pass, you'll find that the offense has an advantage.  The defense would have to roll a 12 to have any effect, and a six or lower would benefit the offense.

Now that the defense has rolled, it's the offense's turn.  The offense rolls three black dice, then finds the total on the offense plays side of the play sequence card.  This is where any defensive effects get applied.  If the offense rolls a twelve, and the defense scored a -1 effect, the offense must look at 11 to see what happend.  Likewise, a +1 would take it up to a 13.  They look under the offensive play they ran, and crosses it with a number.  An 11 under run would gain the total of one white die, whereas an 11 under long pass means that the pass was incomplete.

You've got four downs to get ten yards, just like real football.  If you don't make it, you can punt on fourth down, and there's a chart for that.  If you're close enough, you can kick a field goal, and there's a chart for that.  I won't go into all of it, because it has a tendency to cross your eyes.  I'll refer you to Board Games with Scott for his overview of PBF so you can see it in action.  Also, as always, you can go check out what other people have to say on BGG.  And, you're ready to buy, expect to pay $30 in an FLGS, or see the online pricing here.

There are expansions to this game that feature NFL teams, and are specifically geared to particular seasons (every season since 2005, in fact).  Also, On The Line releases free teams for the Super Bowl so you can run your own simulations and try to predict the outcome of the big game.  I intend to try it out soon.  Also, the company just released Pizza Box Baseball last year, and I'm interested to try it out.

Next time, my favorite game, which just happens to be for two players.  Happy gaming!
-Jesse