5 Food based Board Games:
- 1. Order’s Up is a team based word play game, similar to scrabble. However, every tile is an ingredient. Each player gets 7 random ingredients to start the match. There will also include a card deck. When drawn at the beginning of each round, each player must “spell” or “cook up” an order that would fit the cards description of how the food must be. If one cannot complete the order with their ingredients, they either loose that round, or they can choose to continue working for another franchise (another player). Once this is done the new 2 player teams can get 11 ingredients. Whoever makes the most orders (team or teamless) wins.
- 2. Restaurant Wars is a economic, strategy, and competitive game with elements of sabotage mixed throughout it. whoever is the oldest in the game is the Executive Chef. At the start of each round, each player (besides the Executive Chef) will pick a card at random from the characters Deck. when that player finds out who they are, they get that character’s abilities for that round. Characters include:
- Executive Chef: Abilities include plus 4 tokens each round, and this player can fire other chefs
- Sous Chef: Abilities include plus 3 tokens each round, this player has the ability to stab another employee
- Prep Cook: Abilities include plus 2 tokens each round, this player has the ability to poison another chef’s lunch
- Busser: Abilities include plus 2 tokens each round, this player has the ability to leave the restaurant a mess, which will scare customers, causing the manager who’s playing to give up one token to the busser.
- Server: Abilities include plus one token, however they have the ability to steal all the tokens from any player
- Manager: Abilities include plus 4 tokens each round, and this player can fire other front of the house or back of the house employees except for the executive chef
More Rules for Restaurant Wars:
- This restaurant runs like most restaurants; on power and greed. Each player can either choose to use their abilities, or gain plus 3 tokens instead. This game is similar to Dominion in that in order to win, one must buy out the cards from the specialty deck, which include things like new uniform, new shoes, new apron, new car, plus one wage increase, etc.
3. Tasty Travels is a scavenger like mind game in which players play as chefs competing in a high-stakes cooking tournament where they travel the world (on the board), gather ingredients, and cook signature dishes to impress the judge. The goal is to create the most impressive multi-course meal to win the prestigious “Chef of the Year” title.
Components of the game:
- Ingredient Pieces: Each ingredient piece represents a specific ingredient (e.g., truffles, saffron, fresh basil, shrimp) with different rarities and qualities. Each piece will be on a part of the board that corresponds with that piece’s region. Each tile landed on wins you ingredients from that region when landed on that you get to pick.
- Recipe Cards: These represent famous dishes (e.g., PB&J, Burgers, Home Fries, Beef Wellington, Sushi, Tiramisu, ratatouille). Players need specific ingredients to complete them. There will be a few rare recipe cards which incorporate fusion recipes. However, players can’t complete these harder card challenges until they have traveled to multiple regions on the board and collected needed ingredients. Categories: Appetizers, Entrees, Deserts.
- Chef Avatar: Each player is represented by a chef with a unique ability (e.g., “Gardemanger or Farm-to-Table Pantry Chef” gets bonuses for vegetable-based dishes, Diner Chef/Quick service chef gets bonuses for greasy fried things, Chef de Partie/Fine Dining Chef gets bonuses for luxury fresh ingredients such as lobster, wagyu beef, or scallops and a Patissier/Pastry Chef). However, any chef can still use any ingredient, but if their final meal matches their avatar, they get an extra point. Each player before the game starts picks one of these avatars, but can choose to cook in any regien out of the 4.
- World Map Board: Divided into regions that represent culinary hotspots (e.g., Italian, American, Mexican, French). Each region specializes in certain ingredients and each player must travel to different regions of the map to get these said ingredients. Each player moves on the map by rolling a 8 sided die, and deciding which paths to take based on the number rolled. There will also be vender tiles, which give you any ingredient on the board, as well as warp tiles which teleport the player that lands on it somewhere else on the map entirely.
- Judge Cards: These determine what the judges are looking for (e.g., “Sweet, Spicy, Savory, Healthy, Vegetarian, Salty, Bland, Carnivorous”). Bonus points for matching dishes to preferences.
- Bonus Points are given to players who come up with their own recipes, or match recipes to their region.
4. Ingredient Gathering is a culinary card matching game that is a game of chance. The cards are all laid out on the grid upside down so that the players don’t see the ingredients on the cards. The players then must match two unseen cards. Every item has a duplicate. Their goal is to match the duplicate with the other duplicate. (ex. If there are 20 cards in a deck, then there will be ten total ingredients all with duplicates). The object of the game is to clear the board. Once a card is turned over, it is then put back if not matched, but still must be remembered by the players (game of memory).
5. Battle Shop is a strategy type guessing game for two players, in which each player gets the same grocery list, however, each store (each side of the boarder) is different, and has a different store layout. It is then up to each player (chef) to sabotage the other chefs groceries in order for their opponent to not complete their grocery list. whoever has the least amount of ingredients when leaving looses. How to call out a sabotage: One player will say aisle 8 row 3. for example. If they hit a desired ingredient, they loose that grocery item.
These all sound fun and I enjoy seeing the influence of dominion, citadel and bang. I’d like to see Restaurant Wars play tested.
Restaurant Wars is intriguing! I like the idea of buying out cards to win. Have you considered mechanics that would allow players to change roles? promotions etc.
Restaurant Wars has a lot of potential! I’ve been watching a lot of cooking game shows lately so I am especially enjoying this theme!
Great depth in Restaurant Wars. Many positions, many ingredients…Allows for a diverse gameplay.
Resturant Wars I think would be a very fun game.