P for Pizza Review | How the Difficulty Ladder Works

I’m Spector, a dad to Alex, 7, and Emma, 10. This is the box that comes out when we have eleven minutes before dinner and nobody wants to learn a rulesbook. Big Potato Games published it in 2020, Doruk Kicikoglu designed it, and it is a real time word race played with one pile of triangular cards in the middle of the table.

The honest headline is that P for Pizza is a loud, funny fifteen minute filler, not a strategy game, and it needs a table group that enjoys saying stupid words out loud on purpose. The old version of this page described a completely different game, with letter cards in your hand and cardboard pizza tokens. None of that is in the box. What is in the box is much better once you understand the ladder.

Which P for Pizza Version Should You Buy

Big Potato currently sells three editions and they are not interchangeable. This is the first question to answer, because the wrong box is the main way this game disappoints people.

The main game is the one most people mean when they say P for Pizza, and it is the right default. Kids Menu is not a reskinned box, it is a genuinely easier game: one category per card instead of three, easier prompts such as “something green” or “a good name for a sausage”, and you can build your pizza with any slice you win, so the difficulty ladder is gone. XXXtra Hot plays the same way with spicier categories and is printed as an adult game, so it does not belong in a room with kids in it.

Play time is the one number sources disagree on. Both Big Potato storefronts print 15 minutes, which is the number I use. Several retailers list 20 minutes. Card count varies by printing too, with 120 in the current box and one shop listing an earlier 80 card version, so check the side of the box if the count matters to you.

P for Pizza Setup, One Pile and Three Cards

Setup takes about thirty seconds. Take roughly forty of the pizza cards and stack them in the middle of the table, category side up. Turn the top three cards over and lay them around the pile with the letter side showing, one on each edge, so each facing letter sits opposite a category. Then discard the category card on top of the pile to reveal a fresh one, and the first round starts immediately.

There is no board, no scorepad, no player boards, and no setup by difficulty. Everyone plays at the same time and there are no turns to take. If you enjoy the shape of a game with a proper learnable system, our Sushi Go card game review has a much bigger decision in every hand.

Card Play and Topping Matching

Each triangular card is double sided. One side carries three categories, one on each edge, and the other side carries a letter on each edge. When the cards sit around the pile, each facing letter points at a category, and that pairing is the prompt.

You pick any of the three pairings you can solve. The category has to match the word and the letter has to match the first letter of the word. The publisher’s own example is a category of flavours of ice cream with the letter C facing it, and the answer is “chocolate”. A television category with B facing it gives you “Baywatch”. Any letter with any category is legal, which is what makes the three card spread worth reading carefully before you shout.

Shout the answer as soon as you have it. The first person to say a correct answer takes that card, and it becomes a slice of their own pizza.

The Difficulty Ladder Is the Whole Game

This is the mechanic the old page of this review missed, and it is the reason the game is better than a simple word race. Each category is colour coded, and the colour decides where on your nine card pizza you are allowed to place the card you just won.

• Green is the easiest category. A green card can only go on the bottom level.
• Yellow is medium. A yellow card can go on the bottom or the middle level.
• Red is the hardest. A red card can go anywhere, and it is the only card that can go on the top.

Your pizza is nine cards in three levels. The bottom level takes five cards, the middle level takes three, and the top level takes one. While you are still on the bottom you can answer any of the three colours. Once you move to the middle, green is off the table for you: if you shout a valid green answer, you do not take the card and the round simply carries on for everybody else. On the top level, only red will do.

The consequence is that the difficulty rises for each player individually, not just for the table. A player sitting on eight cards with the top still empty has to solve a red category while three people are competing for the same three prompts, and that is where games end. It also stops the obvious strategy of only ever answering green, which is exactly the loophole the colour coding exists to close.

If you are playing with a younger child and the ladder is too steep, the official adjustment is the one the Kids Menu box applies to itself: let younger players take cards of any difficulty for their middle and top levels.

Challenge Cards in Kids Menu

Kids Menu includes a card type with no category at all. Called Pizza Party, and listed as Pizza Time in the box, the prompt is a pizza topping for every letter touching the card, no matter how strange the topping gets. Three letters means three toppings at once, which turns a race into a round of pure nonsense.

This is a Kids Menu feature, not a main game rule. If you are playing the standard P for Pizza and someone tells you about a pizza topping card, they are describing a different box. The main game handles a dead round differently, which is next.

Turn Flow, Ties and Stuck Categories

Play is continuous. After a card is won, the category card in the centre of the pile is turned over into the empty space and a new set of prompts is live before the winner has finished placing their card. There is no pause and no handover.

Two situations need an answer, and neither has a referee in this game.

• A tie. If two players shout the same answer at effectively the same time, neither of them takes the card. Both players need another answer, and the round continues until someone is clearly first.
• Nobody can answer. If no one can solve any of the three pairings, the group can discard the centre card and reveal a new one. A category card should not be discarded just because one player is stuck, so make the group agree first. That is the whole rule, and it is a better habit than the old advice to hand the decision to a designated player, because there is no designated player in this game.

There is no score to keep and nothing to lose. You win by completing nine cards, and the game ends the moment someone does.

Our House Strategy, Not Official Rules

Everything above is the published game. The rest is what we do at our table.

1. Read all three before you commit. The cards are visible to everyone. Look for the pairing with the shortest word first, because a short word is a fast word.
2. Answer for the level you are on, not the level you want. If you are near the top of your pizza, a green answer is wasted. Aim at red even when the green one is right there.
3. Bank the red cards early if you can. You need exactly one red card for the top, so a red you win in round two is a problem solved. A red you win in round twenty is just noise.
4. Pre load a category. Pick one category you know cold, such as anything to do with pizza itself, and hold that answer ready so you can fire it the instant a matching letter lands.
5. Talk over bad cards, not good ones. If a category is genuinely nasty, say so out loud. It is a party game and a shared complaint is part of the fun.

If your group prefers something with a real puzzle underneath the theme, Codenames is the word game I would hand you instead, and if you would rather be tested than creative, our board game trivia guide fills the same fifteen minutes very differently.

P for Pizza Review for Families and Small Groups

The publisher’s own pitch is that it takes seconds to learn and that parents, kids and grandparents can all play it. That is fair. My experience is that the game works best with four players, because four gives you two people who lose the green race and two who win it, and the laughter comes from the losers explaining what they were about to say.

Two players works, but it is a duel and the noise drops. If you want a two player night, our best board games for couples guide has games that hold up with exactly two.

The box is small, it is slice shaped, and it is the one that lives in the car. Our travel games that need no flat surface guide covers the rest of that shelf, and if you are buying for a stocking rather than a shelf, the small box stocking stuffer guide has the other cheap quick options.

What the game quietly teaches is worth saying out loud, because parents ask. It is a phonics and vocabulary drill disguised as shouting. The vocabulary and spelling board games guide covers the games that make the same point on purpose, without a pizza in sight.

P for Pizza Compared With Other Party Games

P for Pizza is a solo race against a shared pile of prompts. Choose a different game when you want teams, drawing, or trivia.

• Choose P for Pizza for a fast individual word race with 2 to 4 players.
• Choose Exploding Kittens when you want luck, cards in hand, and a curve instead of a word ladder.
• Choose Codenames for two teams reading a clue giver instead of racing.
• Choose drawing and sketch party games when the group would rather draw than speak.
• Choose 30 Seconds when fifteen minutes is still too long.

If fifteen minutes is your hard limit rather than a preference, our quick board games under fifteen minutes list is the faster shelf.

P for Pizza FAQ

How do you play P for Pizza?

What is the hardest part of P for Pizza?

How many cards do you need to win P for Pizza?

What happens if two people shout the same answer?

What if nobody can think of an answer?

Is P for Pizza good for two players?

Is P for Pizza suitable for young children?

My P for Pizza Review Verdict