P for Pizza Kids Menu is the perfect example of how to make a game approachable for all ages

One of the few, common complaints that we make against party and word-based games is that they sometimes don’t understand their target audience. Luckily, there’s a recent resurgence in board game designers releasing kids versions of their games, and P for Pizza Kids Menu is a perfect example of why that matter.

When it comes to playing board games with younger children there’s always a degree of ‘house rules’ and category purging that needs to take place. The original P for Pizza was actually pretty good in this regard — the fact that there were three categories to choose from at any given point in time meant that there were normally options. However, P for Pizza Kids Menu offers up even easier solutions, making sure that even younger players can comfortably play.

Not played P for Pizza?

Gameplay is simple. The box includes a deck of double-sided triangle-shaped cards. On one side there are categories, on the other side letters. You place the deck category up and then flip three cards to be on either side — players then answer the category with a word starting with the letter touching it.

Gone are challenges like ‘Olympic Sport’ or ‘Horror Movie’, instead it features categories like ‘Something Soft’ or fantastic, subjective ones like ‘Good Name for a Goldfish’. These are much better for younger players, however the counterpoint is that there is only one category showing at once, as all three sides of the slide are the same. This does remove any requirement to read upside down (we’d often read the categories aloud if the kids were struggling) however it also removes some of the kinetic dynamism that came from people touching the category they’re answering.

I think that Big Potato have done a good thing here, and I think that there’s an opportunity here for fans of the game to combine both boxes (or, at least, add in some of the cards from the original) as the kids get more comfortable or confident with the rules… or simply get older.

The generation that started buying board games again are getting older, and soon some of their children could be having children. P for Pizza Kids Menu is a great example of what the industry needs to do to make sure board games don’t just become a hobby for the tiniest and the oldest again.

P for Pizza Kids Menu is available now from Amazon.