Throw Throw Burrito Review: Half a Great Game
Bottom Line
Throw Throw Burrito is fifty percent of a great idea: the burrito-dodgeball duels are legitimately hilarious, and no other card game makes your uncle dive behind a couch. The other fifty percent — the actual card game — is filler that exists to schedule the throwing. It’s better than its Exploding Kittens sibling because the physical chaos is renewable in a way printed jokes aren’t, but the matching game wears thin fast, and your living room has opinions about the crossfire. Great gift for a rowdy family; middling game underneath.
Throw Throw Burrito gets a 4/5 Bamboo Plants and a 3/5 Pandas from us — the highest score we’ve given in our “famous but flawed” series, and the gap between its two halves explains both numbers. When the foam burritos fly, this game earns every viral video. When they’re not flying, you’re playing speed-matching that nobody would print on its own.
The Bamboo is 4, not 5, only because the simultaneous real-time play flusters a table’s slowest card-handler for a round or two. The Pandas 3 splits the difference between a dodgeball five and a card-game two.
| Detail | Info |
|---|---|
| Players | 2–6 |
| Best Player Count | 5–6 — maximum crossfire, maximum chaos |
| Age | 7+ |
| Play time | 15 min |
| Complexity | Light |
| Solo Mode | No |
| Designer | Elan Lee, Matthew Inman (The Oatmeal) |
| Publisher | Exploding Kittens |
| Bamboo Plants | 4/5 — real-time play takes one round to click |
| Pandas | 3/5 — renewable slapstick, disposable card game |
| Official site | explodingkittens.com |
| Official rules | Download the rules PDF |
How Throw Throw Burrito Works
There are no turns. Everyone simultaneously draws from the pile on their right, keeps or passes cards to their left, and races to collect three-of-a-kind sets, which score points. Two squishy foam burritos sit in the middle of the table, waiting.
Collect three matching special cards and the violence begins. Three Burrito Brawl cards: two chosen players grab burritos and throw at each other on the spot. Three Burrito War cards: the entire table lunges for the burritos at once, and the first person hit loses. Three Burrito Duel cards: two players stand back-to-back, pace off “3… 2… 1… BURRITO!”, turn, and fire. Getting hit costs a point; two rounds of this and highest score wins.
The design’s one genuine insight: the card game is frantic enough that the duels detonate mid-scramble, which is exactly when a flying burrito is funniest.
What We Liked
The duels are renewable comedy — the thing its sibling games lack. Exploding Kittens and Cards Against Humanity store their fun in printed jokes that deplete; Throw Throw Burrito stores its fun in your friends’ throwing accuracy, which never stops being funny. The hundredth back-to-back duel still produces a diving grandmother, and that’s a real design achievement.
It’s also the rare game that burns kid energy. Rainy afternoon, two wired ten-year-olds: this box is medicine. The physical element makes it feel like recess, and families with active kids get more value here than any review score captures.
Fifteen minutes, zero reading, all ages genuinely welcome — as pure gateway product, the formula works.
What We Disliked
What you remember afterward: the duel where Dad knocked over the lamp.
What you actually did most of the time: speed-matched cat and taco cards in a loop that has no decisions beyond “keep or pass, faster.” Strip out the burritos and the card game underneath wouldn’t survive a single review.
- The card layer is a delivery mechanism, not a game. Real-time set collection with no tension, no strategy, and no arc — it exists solely to randomize when throws happen. You feel this by game four, when the scramble starts to feel like homework between recesses.
- The honeymoon is short. The novelty carries a glorious week; then the sameness of the loop sets in and the box’s table-time drops off a cliff. It’s a better party trick than a game library citizen.
- Your room is a participant. Drinks, lamps, laptops, small dogs, and grandad’s glasses are all in play. “Clear the table first” is real setup cost the box doesn’t mention, and some spaces just can’t host it.
- Scoring is an afterthought nobody tracks. Every group we’ve played with abandons the points and just plays for throws — which works, but confirms how little the card game matters.
Who It’s For
Throw Throw Burrito is for families with kids 7–12, big silly gatherings, and any group that thinks “board game night” sounds too sedentary. It’s the best gift in the Exploding Kittens catalog precisely because its comedy is physical — a boisterous family will genuinely use this box, in bursts, for years of rainy days.
It’s also a legitimately great icebreaker for teens and youth groups, where the energy always needs somewhere to go.
Who should skip this game
Skip it if your game group actually likes games — the card layer will bore adults inside two sessions, and unlike the dodgeball, it doesn’t renew. Skip it in small apartments, rooms with breakables, or households where competitive siblings escalate (a foam burrito to the face at close range starts real fights — we’ve refereed one). And anyone shopping for a card game rather than an activity should read the burritos as the warning label they are.
Who Should Buy This?
Buy it as a family gift for the 7–12 crowd or a rowdy-gathering icebreaker — in those homes it earns its $25 in burned kid-energy alone. For adult game nights, try it at someone else’s house first; the number of groups still playing it a month later is small, and you’ll know within one session which kind of group you are.
If what appealed was “silly + physical + fast,” King of Tokyo trades the cardio for actual decisions and lasts years longer on the shelf.
Best Player Count
Five or six. The card-passing circle gets frantic, Wars turn into genuine melees, and there are enough bystanders for every duel to have an audience. It functions at three or four with reduced chaos. The two-player mode exists on the box and shouldn’t — a burrito duel with no audience is just mild assault with extra steps.
Replayability
Split exactly down the middle, like everything else here. The throwing: infinitely replayable — physical comedy powered by your own friends doesn’t deplete. The card game: threadbare by the fourth play, with no variable setup or new decisions ever arriving. Net result is a box that comes down for bursts — a sleepover, a cousin invasion, a team offsite — rather than living in any rotation. That’s a legitimate role; just buy it knowing it’s the role.
Play This Instead
For lasting silly-chaos with real decisions: King of Tokyo — monsters, dice, and push-your-luck choices from age 6 up. The energy survives; the depth actually arrives.
For the speed-matching itch, refined: Dutch Blitz or Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza — if the real-time scramble was your family’s favorite part, both do it better than TTB’s card layer (slap-reflexes included) for under $15.
For big-group mayhem that stays a game: Coup — the chaos is social instead of airborne, nothing gets knocked over, and it’s still going strong at play two hundred.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Throw Throw Burrito actually fun?
The dodgeball half genuinely is — the duels and wars produce real, renewable laughs. The card game connecting them is thin filler, so how much you’ll enjoy the box depends entirely on how much foam-burrito combat your group and your living room can host.
Is Throw Throw Burrito good for adults?
As an occasional party burst, yes; as a game-night regular, rarely. Adult groups exhaust the card layer quickly and keep only the throwing — most graduate to games with actual decisions within a few sessions.
What age is Throw Throw Burrito for?
The box says 7+, and that’s accurate — it’s arguably at its very best from 7 to 12, when burning physical energy is the whole point. Just referee competitive siblings; close-range burrito hits genuinely escalate.
Can you play Throw Throw Burrito with 2 players?
Technically yes, practically no — the duels need an audience and the wars need a crowd. Five or six players is the sweet spot; below four the chaos that justifies the box mostly evaporates.
Do things get broken playing Throw Throw Burrito?
The burritos are soft foam, but the players aren’t — people lunge, dive, and swat mid-war. Clear drinks, electronics, and breakables before playing, and treat small rooms as a real constraint. This is a floor game wearing a card game’s box.
Is Throw Throw Burrito better than Exploding Kittens?
Yes — its comedy is physical and renewable where Exploding Kittens’ is printed and depletes. Neither has much game underneath, but Throw Throw Burrito’s best moments still work on the fiftieth play.
Verdict
Buy it for a rowdy family with kids or as the year’s most reliable silly gift — the dodgeball delivers. Try before you buy for adult groups; one session reveals whether the card layer bothers you. Skip it for small spaces, serious game shelves, and anyone who read “there are no turns, everyone throws food” as a threat rather than a promise.
Throw Throw Burrito official site: https://www.explodingkittens.com/
Official rules (PDF): Download it here