Ramen Fury – The Unboxinating!

Hello!  Today’s Unboxinating looks at Mixlore’s Ramen Fury card game. I’d link to Mixlore but…it seems they do not have a web presence. So I will link to my local brick and mortar game store Fun4All where I purchased Ramen Fury (I endorse throwing some love to your local indie game stores because not everything has to be bought through Amazon). I stopped by to look at some games  when I swear I saw a packet of ramen hanging out in their small games cabinet. It was not, in fact, ramen but as my local gaming store also stocks snacks it very well could have been. So this is where we will start the Unboxinating Review.

Number One: The packaging. It’s gimmicky, yes. I mean, not only does the outer packaging look enough like ramen that I did a double take, check out the insides:

That is kinda bonkers but also hee. I literally LOLd when I got the thing open. That is some epic level sticking to your gimmicky packaging guns, I salute you Mixlore.

Number 2: Once I opened the Ramen up, I discovered that there are a passel of cards, some cardboard spoons and instructions. The cards are your standard playing deck sized and are a bit stiff and a little slick. They count nicely and they shuffle alright but I could not get them to properly bridge. Maybe they will loosen up with play.

Number 3: The artwork isn’t anything to write home about but it is simple and clean and there’s no question as to what the pictures represent. I’m not even sure what Naruto is but I know from the artwork that I’ve eaten it.

Number 4: I really like the design. This game is pretty much 2 different decks of cards and some spoons. The card designs are really different from each other depending on what the card is doing so you aren’t going to get your veg (green) confused with your flavor (goldish orange) and those pesky peppers are entirely black like nothing else is. I’m not going to accidentally drop an egg on your ramen when I meant to drop a pepper. 

Check out the two different decks as well; you know immediately which are the ingredients and which are the bowls so sorting them is going to be a snap.

Number 5: Is there anything I didn’t like about this game? Oh sit back and make yourself comfortable, we are going to talk about that packaging. While I am amused at Mixlore’s commitment to the ramen theme, I hate the fact that the outer plastic is an integral part of the game packaging.  Ramen Fury is going to be slipping all over my game shelves and because it’s got those flappy end bits it’s not going to stack right with my Fluxxes and Z-Man movie card games. Add to that the fact that the tolerance to get the ramen block of packaged cards out is really tight and where do you put the spoons? Keep the cardboard jig and slide them on top of the ramen block of packaged cards? Can you fit a baggy of spoons in the package with the ramen block of cards? 

My cats were super interested in this game because I guess they either really like ramen and were confused or they think it’s some wonderful kitty treat. They were disappointed every time it wasn’t. 

Lastly :