My favorite game this year is definitely Critter Kitchen from Lucky Duck Game. Designed by Alex Cutler and Peter C. Hayward, it is an unparalleled art Sandara Tan, Critter KitchenIt was funded at the end of 2023 and appeared in the shop this year. Challenging up to five players, sending chefs out into town to create great meals, showing that the restaurant is the best in Bistro Bay during Restaurant Week.
I don’t lie, I was primarily interested in the game due to its theme/aesthetic and worker placement. But it was really fun to play and if you’re attracted to the game, you’ll definitely love it.
What is in the box?
Critter Kitchen It comes with a lot of components. Waterfront board, 8 location boards (the number used depends on the player number), 16 spice tokens, 91 ingredient tokens, 12 rumor tokens, 2 allspice seventh round tokens, 7 challenge cards, 72 rumor tokens, 72 critic cards, 12 critic cards, 1 Maytle D’ card, 1 token, 1 round track, 7 tracks, 4 tracks, 12 Zous-Chef tokens, and 10 restaurant cards (optional).
Player components include 15 chef figures (mouse, lizard, board) and blue, purple, red, yellow, orange, five player kitchen boards, 45 location cards, 5 critic plates, 5 player restaurant shields, and 15 challenge plates (3 per player). Finally, the solo components include McDogald’s kitchen board, 12 critics’ choice cards, 30 chef cards, and 14 manager cards.
I’ll come.
Production quality Critter Kitchen It’s solid. I had no problem punching out various tokens and the finishing touches on all the cards and boards is fantastic. My only complaint is that in the normal base version of the game, the inserts don’t really help to organize everything. Although not Dealbreaker, I hate playing a lot of games and hate setting up, so I’m trying to organize everything, so I can easily put the game together when friends and family are finished. It is best to separate things by player color. That way it will be easier to set up.
However, certain aspects take more and more material. Tang’s art really shines because the numbers are multicolored, so there is a real dimension and loves to have the art components being very detailed.
How’s the play?
Gameplay occurs in seven rounds divided over three days, with each round having five steps with the goal of fulfilling the challenge card, and after the seventh round, it offers the best meals for critics selected for that game. At the start of the round, Maitre’d reveals new challenge cards, restocks the locations of the soup trucks with bisques, restocks each location with items, revealing a new Zous-Chef. All games always include Soup Track, Midnight Merchant, Chef Academy, and other locations depend on the number of players.
Once the ingredients and rumored items are placed in locations, players plan where the chef will be sent by placing the location cards facing up to the kitchen board. but! Chefs have different speeds so it’s not just where you want to get items. A speedy mouse is the first choice, but only one item is one, while a lizard can pick up two and go second.
When all cards are flipped over at the same time, the player moves Meeples to a location and selects one, two or three items at speed. If there is no item to select, the player will get one soup token.
All locations are cleaned up and the round edges finish! Certain locations are unique. The soup truck has leftovers from the previous round and endless soup, and midnight merchants have no items until maple is placed there. Chef Academy does not have any items. Rather, there is a single Zous-Chef that provides support, but each chef is only chosen by one player and will return to the box if you don’t use that round.
At the end of the round, all location cards return to the player, and the round token moves one space on the round track, and at the end of the first and second days, the player offers the challenge by matching three displays and ingredients (except for the third and sixth cards, which only require two ingredients). Players plate and score independently of each other. Spice tokens double the score for matching ingredients, and each meal adds 1 or 3 points to each soup or bisque token, respectively.
The game continues until after the seventh round, with players offering critics food and scores, and scores based on which player has won the highest scoring course. There are other ways to score, but for this review, your goal is to keep enough ingredients to meet challenging meals at the same time and serve critical meals.
verdict?
As always, most star-earned players win the game, but players can spike in points if they play ingredients correctly and aim to check rumors throughout the game and score based on them. (Rumours may include getting more stars if there is more cheese or spice.)
When I was reviewing board games, at least some reviews, I became quite good at picking games based on their mechanics and design. That doesn’t mean that every choice was always good. There were a few games with great design concepts, but they didn’t work perfectly for the run (sadly). Critter Kitchen It absolutely provides that premise and it plays over and over until I try something else that I’m tired of it and get tired of it and get tired of it over and over again.
You can get a copy at Lucky Duck Game Or your FLG is now!
Copy images and reviews courtesy of Lucky Duck Game
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