The Lunch Room Game and You Who?! Game Review

Who says you can’t play with your food? Go back to the good old days of lunchtime in the school cafeteria with The Lunch Room Game. In this party game, for three to six players ages 8 and up, you’ve got to be the first player to fill each category on your lunch tray to win. The game comes with six lunch trays, 66 game cards, and six foam tater tots. 

To start, each player gets a lunch tray and one Main Course card to place in the “main” section of the tray. These can be nachos, meatloaf, burger, or pizza. The remaining cards get shuffled and placed facedown in the middle of the playing space. Flip over the top card to start the discard pile. Then, place the number of tater tots per player minus one, in the middle of the playing space. So if you have four players, there will be three tots. 

On your turn, you’ll choose to take the top card from the discard pile or draw a new card from the top of the draw pile. If you get a food item, you’ll put that food in the appropriate spot on your tray. You need a dessert, fruit, milk, and veggie. You can only have five cards on your tray at a time, and you are allowed to have more than one of the same item on your tray, which could be to your advantage later on. But in order to win the game, you need to finish with one of each item.

You might also draw an Action Card that might require players to pass their trays and cards, trade cards, steal cards, draw two extra cards, lose your cards, or lose your turn. Once played, Action Cards get placed off to the side, not in the discard pile. (We love the illustrations and titles of these cards: Lunch Aid, Janitor, The Lunch Lady, Mean Girls, School Bully, Passing Notes, and Time to Get What You Want.)

There are also Food Fight cards. The player who draws it yells “food fight” and all players must quickly try to grab one of the tater tots. If you don’t get a tot, you must dump your tray cards at the bottom of the discard pile. Put the tots back and keep playing.

Once you have one of each item on your tray, yell “I’m full!”, and now you are the leader of the lunch room.

You’ve got questions, the other players have answers. But they might be full of baloney. In the game You Who?!, you earn points by correctly answering revealing questions about the other players. After five rounds of play, the player with the most points wins.

The game comes with 250 question cards, a baloney squishy, and a score pad. You’ll need two players ages 8 and up to play, and each player gets a score sheet and something to write with, which is not included. Write your name at the top and list all the other players in the indicated spaces. Separate the cards by rounds and place the decks face down in numerical order. Starting with the round one pile, the first player draws the top card, reads it aloud, and waits to reveal her answer. Questions could be “Am I an early riser or a night owl?” or “Do I prefer to wear shorts or pants?” All other players predict the answer and write it next to the asking player’s name under round one on their score sheets. Once all answers have been written, the asking player reveals her answer, and whoever got it right earns a point. If there is debate about an answer, throw the baloney squishy and state your case. And if a card says “Prove It”, once you reveal your answer, you have to prove it by doing or trying what the card says. 

Once all players have asked a question, move on to round two, continuing the process through round five. As the rounds progress, questions go from “Which season do I like best?” and “How many times a day do I check my email?” to “If I could live in any other decade, which one would I choose?” and “What is my biggest pet peeve?” If you really don’t know the answer to someone’s question, make one up!