Do you prefer your Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts toasted or frozen?

If you’re like people we know, your immediate response may be, “you can eat them frozen?”

Well, apparently you can.

And in Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts Game, by Funko, you’ll be taking both toasted and frozen Pop-Tarts to score points and hopefully be the first to eat 30 points worth of the convenient snack.

Pop-Tarts is a simple and quick card game that up to 6 players can enjoy.

Just be warned that you’ll probably need some snacks nearby because you’re going to get hungry playing the game.

 

How to play Pop-Tarts Game

The objective in Pop-Tarts is to score the most points from the Pop-Tarts you eat. But before you can “eat” the Pop-Tarts, you must get them on your Plate. Good thing getting Pop-Tarts on your plate is super simple. Plus, you’ll want to get the most valuable ones as well as combinations that grant you bonus points along the way.

For setup, players shuffle the Pop-Tarts cards and line up 7 face-up in the center of the table. The Toaster card is placed to the left of the line and the Freezer card to the right. The Arrow card is placed below the line facing to the left or right.

The Bonus cards are shuffled and 3 are placed face-up above the line of Pop-Tarts. Lastly, the Action card deck is also shuffled and each player gets a hand of 3 cards.

On a player’s turn, they may first Play up to 3 Action cards from their hand.

Next, the player “Plates” the Pop-Tarts card at the front of the line. This means they take the card next to either the Toaster or Freezer (whichever way the Arrow is pointing) and place it on their Plate on the corresponding location. If they took from the Toaster side, they place the Pop-Tart on the Toaster side of their plate.

After the card is removed from the line, the 3 cards now at the front of the line are moved toward that end and a new Pop-Tarts card is drawn and placed in the now-empty center of the line.

Lastly, the player may “Eat” cards on their plate for points. This means they remove Pop-Tarts from their plate and place them face-up in their personal scoring pile. Players may never have more than 4 Pop-Tarts cards on their plate at the end of their turn.

If the player Eats a set of Pop-Tarts that matches one of the visible Bonus cards, they take the Bonus card and add it to their scoring pile. A new Bonus card is drawn so that 3 Bonus cards are always available.

At the end of their turn, a player may discard as many Action cards from their hand as they choose and replace them with new cards.

Players off-set the cards in their scoring pile so that all players can see everyone’s points throughout the game. Once a player reaches 30 points, players finish out that current round. Then players total the points from Pop-Tart cards they’ve eaten and the player with the most points wins!

 

Can the whole family enjoy Pop-Tarts Game?

The simple gameplay nature of Pop-Tarts Game is ideal for families with young kids. Playing with their food is always a fun theme for kids to enjoy. And in this game, they get to chow down on lots of Pop-Tarts.

The game also leans further to the luck side of the luck/strategy spectrum that we like to evaluate games on. Yes, a player will have choices to make on their turn (by Action cards they play), but the game hinges more on the luck of the cards drawn and when the different Pop-Tarts come out.

Players are able to impact the game by the Action cards they play at the start of their turn. There are only 4 different types of Action cards, but there are plenty of each. They let players change the direction of the arrow and switch cards around (end to end, adjacent, or two away from each other).

However, we’ve often been stuck with three of the same action in our hands. We’d wish we had a card that switched adjacent cards, but only had Arrow changing Actions. This is why the last possible action of discarding Action cards from your hand is valuable – to let you fish for better / more versatile options of Actions in hand.

It’s also not a game you can plan a long-term strategy for. You may have your eyes on a certain Bonus card that you’re hoping to get, but depending on how the Pop-Tarts are lined up when your turn comes around, you may not be able to get it. That’s because the line can change plenty by the time your turn comes around.

Thus, the game is more tactical and opportunistic than strategic. Which also means that you can’t plan out your turns too far ahead of your next turn. You’ll just have to work with the situation the player before you leaves for you.

If you want to play where you can have more of an impact on setting up yourself for future turns, you’re better off playing as just a 2-player or 3-player game.

But we love that it plays up to 6 players. That means we can all play together.

Plus, it’s always nice to have some games on hand that don’t take a lot of thought and are easy to pull out and play.

And all I said about lack of strategy won’t be missed by young players anyway. They’ll love the chance to collect colorful Pop-Tarts and will have fun switching cards around and trying to get the cards worth 3 points.

Plus, the game is a great way to introduce more choices into games for your youngsters. Before taking a card at the front of the line, they can first choose how to switch the cards around. And they’ll have fun doing so.

So if you’ve got youngsters and are looking for a colorful and tasty-looking game for them to play, give Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts Game a try.

We’d like to thank Funko for a review copy of Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts Game.