Customer Reviews

Killer Bunnies And The Quest for The Magic Carrot Blue Starter

5 star:		(67)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Hi. My name is CJ, and I'm a Bunnyholic. I'm also an enabler, having induced Bunnyholism in at least five adults, including my boyfriend. I even succeeded in turning two children into Bunnyholics. I might succeed with you, too.

Bunnyholism came to me at a late, lamented board game shop in lower Manhattan. I was innocently -- innocently! -- buying stocking-stuffers one Christmas when a breathless man rushed in, huffing and puffing at the clerk about "booster decks." Two minutes later he rushed out again, package in hand, and I wandered over to the clerk: "What was that all about?" "Oh, we just got in the latest booster deck for Killer Bunnies. It's this card game, we rated it in our Top Ten Games for 2003."

I bought it.

I now own all of the booster decks, and came here in hopes that Perfectly Pink might be out (as of this date, not yet). My boyfriend and I spent almost all of yesterday playing it with friends. It's a good way to lose a day.

It's not an addiction for everyone, though. Happily, the makers have addressed some of the criticisms earlier reviewers made - rewriting the instructions, for example. But fundamentally, the game is all about luck. Rather like life, you can do everything right and have everything go your way and still lose. (Which some folks just cannot accept.) It also requires a fair amount of reading, which initially can slow play down as players familiarize themselves with the cards. A key thing players should always remember: For every card, there is an equal and opposite card -- although it might not appear until a later deck.

House rules are also helpful to deal with the ambiguities, some of which are unavoidable but others of which are, sadly, the result of badly-written text on the cards. (We take a majority-rule approach when we run into a new issue.) We also adopted a house rule to deal with the no-bunnies problem: As in Scrabble, in lieu of a normal turn, a player can turn in his hand and get a new hand. A player can do this at the very beginning of the game by turning in all seven cards, or on any later turn by turning in the five kept in the hand.

A few very important points. First, acquire the booster decks in order -- visit the killerbunnies dot com website to find that out. I recommend against buying more than two boosters at once, as it takes time to assimilate the new cards. A hint for shuffling, an important issues as KB quickly builds up to a mammoth stack of cards: Somewhere along the way I found the suggestion that dealing the cards into 7 piles and reassembling the piles randomly was a numerical equivalent to a decent shuffle. Seems to work well for us. (We borrowed an electric card shuffler once, but it was overwhelmed; the KB cards are somewhat thicker and glossier than ordinary playing cards.)

I've found the game suitable for kids as young as 9 -- in fact, the 9-year-old understood the principles of game play better than his mom and dad. But as it does take some reading, that's probably about as young as is reasonable.

As in Monopoly, play can quickly turn pretty vicious, with players ganging up on each other, cutting deals, betraying their friends, all that kind of good stuff. But since it all comes down to luck, players really mustn't take it too seriously. Beware of including intense gamers in your KB parties.

So go ahead, buy the deck. Lose a few days of your life to slaughtering bunnies with Quite Irascible Diffractable Cheese Balls and discovering which of your friends will sell you a quick cabbage card to fend off bunny starvation. Honestly, what else would you be doing instead -- watching TV?

I just discovered this game about three weeks ago, and it has replaced Settlers of Katan as my favorite family game because it is just as fun and a lot easier for younger children to learn and a game can be as short as 45 minutes.

"Killer Bunnies" has that rare and wonderful balance between luck and skill. No one is ever completely out of the game, regardless of how well another player seems to be doing at any given time. Some of the weapons in the card deck can wipe out eight or nine bunnies at a time - allowing a player who has been behind in the game the entire time - the opportunity to take the lead if his opponents are unable to get bunnies for several rounds. Your two goals are to keep alive bunnies and collect carrots. When all carrots have been collected, the game ends and you'll find out which carrot is the "winning" carrot. You need at least one live bunny and at least one carrot to have a chance of winning. This game can be played with two to eight people, with kids as young as 7 years old to adults. It has a very twisted sense of humor that both the adults and kids love and has another nine expansion decks - each deck radically alters game play and keeps the game fresh. Highly recommended.

Killer Bunnies? The murderous fluffy white rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail comes to mind. However, you don't have a Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch to kill these guys - no. Instead, you must do in your opponents bunnies with an ice pick, a guillotine, a chainsaw, green gelatin (with evil pineapple chunks), a miniature black hole, or the much-feared Cyber Bunny. Verdict? Killer Bunnies is ripping good fun.
While the game is a little complex (especially when the expansion packs are thrown into the mix, adding Zodiac signs, a 20-sided die, and pawns that allow you to re-roll certain dice), it's easy to pick up. I found my mouth agape when they first described the rules, but once we got into the thick of it, I was happily forcing players to feed their bunnies and diabolically laughing when the Nuclear Warhead wiped out 5 innocent bunnies.
Killer Bunnies encourages challenging, boasting, begging, borrowing, stealing and dealing - an absolutely perfect game for forming alliances and temporarily ruining friendships through treachery. The juxtaposition of such cheery-looking colorful drawings on the cards with the macabre theme of trying to murder your opponents bunnies in order to secure yourself enough carrot cards to guarantee your success in finding the Magic Carrot is downright intoxicating. If that last sentence intrigued you, then you may ruddy well love this game.

"Killer Bunnies" is a card game supplemented with dice rolls. Your two goals are to keep alive bunnies and collect carrots. When all carrots have been collected, the game ends and you'll find out which carrot is the "winning" carrot. You need at least one live bunny and at least one carrot to have a chance of winning. One interesting facet in the game is that you have to commit your next two turns ahead of time -- events that happen in the meantime can wreck havock with your plans!

"Killer Bunnies" has that rare and wonderful ballance between luck and skill -- all skill means the same person will always win (e.g., chess); all luck means you can't influence who wins (e.g., chutes & ladders). What really makes this game fun, though, is that players are encouraged to negotiate -- for example, I'll give you a carrot if you don't launch an attack that will kill all of my bunnies. That is the educational value: if played conciensously, you can encourage interpersonal skills and negotiation. If you can't decide how a card works, negotiate!

"Killer Bunnies" does, however, have quite a bit of violence. It encourages people to harm each other's bunnies. Some players may get really upset about this, particularly younger players or when an opponent acts maliciously or treacherously. If you wouldn't willingly watch an action, adventure or horror movie, then "Killer Bunnies" is probably not your game. Also, bunnies sometimes die simply because you drew the wrong card, and this can be upsetting.

Another problem is that if you don't have a live bunny, there really isn't anything you can do. One player can get a huge number of bunnies and keep everyone else out of the game, leading to frustration.

Personally, I've found "Killer Bunnies" to be a lot of fun and easy to learn. Our young daughter enjoys it greatly. My two suggestions are that you (1) remember to negotiate, and (2) remember that having fun is a LOT more important than winning.

My friend got KBs for his birthday a couple years ago and it sat in their game cupboard for about a year. Then after that we took it out and tried to play it. No luck. But then two days ago we took it out and immediatly got the hang of it. I'd have to say that this is such a cool game! Seriously. Even thought the instructions are kind of hard to follow go to KillerBunnies.com and go to the fansite to learn how to play easier! Really great game. I want to get it now and the violet booster pack!

My friends and I were at the beach this weekend and we played untill 4am every night. This is by far the most enjoyable card game I have ever played. Full of fun, drama , and excitement. You never know what's gonna happen. The game could change in an instant. A real pleaser. I'm addicted! I've even thought of a handle(name) for myself if I ever go online to chat about it. Trust me, in no way am I a gamer, but this game is increadibly terrific! Try it. Try it now! :)
signed,
Bunny Boom Boom Love!

Killer Bunnies is perhaps one the most clever, silly, and exciting games to hit the adult game market in years and truthfully is geek heaven! But first just a warning...Killer Bunnies (KBs) can be extremely addicting and has the tendency to turn friends against one another. Yet KBs can become a passion and obsession amongst friends and Killer Bunnies has now amassed quite a following.
Similar to Magic, Killer Bunnies has cards battle one another, but unlike Magic, players are dealt cards and don't have to rely on collecting them. Killer Bunnies is a game of luck and strategy where players attempt to collect carrot cards in the hopes of finding the MAGIC CARROT which wins the game. During the Quest you must kill other players' bunnies with weapons of mass (such as the Black Hole or Nuclear Warhead) and not so massive destruction (such as the Green Jell-O with Evil Pineapple Chunks and the Kitchen Whisk). But be careful to read everything on the cards or less you kill your own bunnies by mistake. Dice are used to determine if players' bunnies die or live, but players may also collect or exchange "Special" and "Very Special" and "Dolla" (money) cards that may counteract or protect bunnies from ensuing death and disfigurement. And since bunnies need to eat and drink there are "Water" and "Cabbage" cards that players may buy or collect. There are also several expansion decks (Violet, Red, Green, and Orange, to date) which players can buy and that add curious twists to the game.
This game is complicated! It is difficult to learn and many of the rules are confusing and sometimes outright nonsensical. My advice is to read the directions several times and then just start playing to see how it works. If you get confused just make up your own rules and stick to them. You can also go to their website and read the rules online. Never-the-less, once you learn the game it is entertaining and really enjoyable. I wouldn't recommend this game to children younger than 13 because while comical it is violent and many of the jokes will not make sense. To relay how odd and wacky this game is, I'll tell you my favorite rule, "Cheating is encouraged."

My family is a game family, and I stumbled across this while trying to find a Christmas present for my dad. The title alone was enough to intrigue me, so I purchased it and hoped for the best. We broke it out the weekend after Christmas, and had an elaborate rule-reading ceremony. Then the hilarity ensued!

Killer Bunnies is a great game, full of surprises. It is NOT for highly competitive people; a lot of this game is based on luck and there is not a lot of control over it. In order to thoroughly enjoy this game, I recommend the following:

1. Have the primary players read all the cards OUT LOUD the first time you play- look up any ambiguous cards (and there are a lot of them) to make sure everyone understands their use.

2. Don't have new players just jump in (unless there are less than four people playing); it frustrates the experienced players and overwhelms the novices.

3. Write all over the instructions- you will clarify and make up rules as you play the game, and it helps avoid confusion (and animosity) in later games. For example, we play with a purchasing limit (one pawn or two cards per turn) to get around the starting date rule.

Don't be afraid! Don't feel remorse! The name of the game is Killer Bunnies, after all... and in this game, there are no friends. Only bunnies who must die!

When I went up to camp last year, I heard about Killer Bunnies. At first I thought, "What kind of a game is that?". But when I began the play, I got the hang of it and just got addicted. I bought the blue booster deck and began to play the game with my friends. From there I bought the red, violet, and orange booster decks. With each booster deck the game just gets better, more strategic, and all around wackier. Whether you are up against the kitchen whisk, stray asteroid, or plutonium, it is always exciting and nerve-racking. If you are looking for a strategic game with luck of the draw action, this is the game for you.

First off, this review is _only_ for the starter Set. Adding in the extra card packs looks like it could significantly alter the game. So onto the review.

This is a fun game. Emphasis on the words "fun" and "game". There is no strategy to this game. None. Nada. Zilch. At least when it comes to playing cards, that is.
One of the people we played with said of "Next time, I'm not even going to look at my cards; I'll play them blind". And he won. It's entirely random and frenetic.

It's a game best played with many people, as the social aspect of the game is where all the strategy is. Four is the _minimum_, and I think it would be great with 8-10. Trading cards, building alliances, backstabbing, etc. are huge parts of the game. If you're looking for a 'card game' for serious, thinking players who need to have strategies and clear cut winners, this isn't the game for you. If you're looking for a game that's lighthearted fun that you _can't_ take seriously, then this would fit the bill nicely.

PS: This is almost a must, and I'm sort of shocked they don't include it with the game. Explains all the various cards, their interactions and some of the inevitable "house rules": Quest Card Companion 3.0.pdf

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