Barfight in a Box: A review of the card game ‘Superfight’

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Nicholas Friedman / Senior Staff Writer

Remember when you used to argue on the playground about who would win in a fight between a Jedi and a Ninja? Now imagine if that Jedi was manically depressed with three arms and that the ninja is three stories tall and made of hummus. Now, try and argue who would win.

That is the core of card game Superfight, described by the creators as Cards Against Humanity meets Apples to Apples in addition to a fight to the death. Beginning in February 2013 as a Kickstarter with a $10,000 goal, Superfight went on to raise a total of $60,898 with more than 1,200 backers in support of the project by the time the campaign ended.

Be warned: this game may destroy any long-lasting friendships you may have.

FIRST RULE OF SUPERFIGHT

Superfight pits three or more players against each other in fights of varying proportion. There is a white deck containing character cards and a black deck containing attributes. Some of those attributes are good (can fly; can shoot fireballs) and some are bad (smells like glue; hasn’t eaten in two days). Each player must always have three white cards and five black cards in their hand.

A ref is then selected for each round, and that person will draw a random white card and two random black cards from the deck. This is the fighter to beat.

Players will then go around the table, each playing one white card and one black card in an attempt to “beat” this fighter the fastest or most efficiently. Once each player has one of each card down, the ref chooses a direction: left or right. When chosen, players will place an attribute from their hand on the player’s fighter in that direction. You’ll want to make this a bad attribute if you want to mess your opponent up, or if it’s your girlfriend you’ll want to make it a good card (thank me later).

The ref then decides who, put simply, would win in a fight. This is where things get interesting, as each player is able to state their case. This often leads to a two-hour heated discussion over whether a ninja with a light saber and a musket could take down a mammoth that knows kung fu and can turn into any toiletry. Said argument has never been resolved, but the card regretfully went to the mammoth.

GAMEPLAY

Most rounds of Superfight range from absolutely hilarious to extraordinarily impossible, and sometimes that can lead to some problems. This is where the flaws in Superfight come out.

So let’s say the ref draws the card ‘Hulk’ and his or her two random attributes are ‘thirty stories tall’ and ‘made of lava.’ Well, that’s quite a hard one to beat, especially when players get extremely technical claiming that the Hulk literally cannot be killed, citing a comic book where Hulk was sent to the Sun and still didn’t die.

So what do we do about these impossible matchups? Well, the creators of Superfight say in the game’s manual that there’s really nothing to do when this happens aside from dealing with it. Just, you know, move on. This isn’t exactly the smartest design for a card game.

Another issue is that the game’s rules offer no sort of time limit, setting or circumstance for the fights. Are the combatants underwater? Let’s assume that we’re in space, can my duck made of metal breathe there? These are the kind of questions heard while playing Superfight and never again outside of this in your adult life. At this point you end up making up rules for Superfight, whether that means having the ref decide on a setting or leaving one out completely, opting for the fighters to sit cross-legged in a padded white room.

Since the game’s initial release, the creators have attempted to remedy these problems by offering additional expansion packs. These packs contain everything from character cards based on comic book heroes to circumstance cards not unlike the forsaken trap cards from your elementary school Yu-Gi-Oh-playing days. Sure, these cards make the game a bit more spontaneous and fun, but you shouldn’t have to pay an additional fee to make the game make more sense.

THE VERDICT

Overall the gameplay and concept of Superfight offer an extremely diverse and outright hilarious way to spend your possibly drunken nights arguing with the people most important to you. It also offers an outlet for three roommates to make their fourth roommate want to move out by annoying them with their piercing 3 a.m. laughter.

To put it simply, Superfight is some of the most fun you’ll have with a deck of cards since memorizing every combination in Cards Against Humanity. Despite some minor flaws that break the game, if you let them, Superfight is worth a fair shot and definitely worth the $25 entry fee. Just don’t blame me when your best friend decides to transfer schools because you think a moose that can shoot lightning can beat up Street Fighter with Cupid’s bow.

Featured Image: Superfight, a card game made possible by Kickstarter, pits players and their hand of characters against one another in a figurative fight to the death. Photo by Christina Ulsh, Senior Staff Writer.

Illustration by Jake Bowerman

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