Critter Kitchen

Cookin' up trouble (and also cheese)

I had the chance to play the brand new game from Cardboard Alchemy this week - Critter Kitchen! If you're not familiar with that name, it's the same publisher behind Flamecraft (same artist too, though not the same designers).

First time we played was on Thursday night and we maxed out the player count with 7 people (because of course my friends backed the deluxe edition). Setup took about 30 minutes since only one person had played before and she had only played with 2 people so there were a few extra locations and tokens that needed to be added to the game to make it balanced. Otherwise, the game is packaged in way that you can just hand people their player color and they are ready to go.

The story of the game feels like it could have come out of a discussion after a game of Flamecraft as they bought have to do with gathering ingredients around town. But Critter Kitchen is a little bit more chaotic.

You have three chefs you are going to send out to gather ingredients for meals (or listen for rumors) - a little chef who is quick but can only carry one item, a medium chef who can carry 2, and then your big Warthog chef that can carry 3 items! Of course, based on how things shake out at the end, there might not be 3 items to take...but you can always get some "consolation soup", as my friend called it.

Why might there not be 3 items? Because you choose your locations IN SECRET at the start of the round. Then everyone reveals their choices and after that, you find out who gets to go home with which ingredients! If you've ever played 'Go Nuts for Donuts', you know that feeling of trying to out think your friends, the "that's what they would do but wont' do because they know I would do" kind of thoughts...one of my friends and I were so in-sync, we lined up our locations SEVERAL times (there is a tie breaking mechanic at each location).

There are 7 rounds to the game - after 3 rounds, you score the 3-course meal that was revealed in rounds 1-3. In round 6, you score the meal revealed in rounds 4-6. You have one more round of frantic shopping to see if you can fill out your 7-course dinner that the restaurant critic has been waiting to review the whole game - but you only know a little bit about what the critic is looking for, unless you've paid attention the the rumors around town.

With 7 people and everyone learning how to play, we managed to get through the game in a little less than 2 hours. On Saturday, we played again, with just 4 people and 3 of us knew how to play - we got through it all in about an hour.

I really liked this game - it has lots of humor built in as many of the chef's are named after celebrity chefs from TV and then there are little bonus "Zous-Chefs" you can hire for a single round who have abilities that let you get bonus items. There's enough variation that it feels like no one could really min/max the game. We were laughing and groaning on each turn as we saw how things turned out.

There's a little shield to keep your ingredients hidden but honestly, I did not have time to look at anyone's board but mine and trying to decipher that from a distance would take some real skill and if you're playing that way, you're playing a different game - you could "hate draft" ingredients but in most cases, you're going to take what you need as items are scarce!

Honestly, I passed over Critter Kitchen when it was on Kickstarter because I was so meh about Flamecraft, which is also adorable but I felt the game play was just okay. But now I am kind of kicking myself because Critter Kitchen is solid! But at least I have two friends in my game group with the deluxe edition so that means I will get to play more soon!