Kitchen Kompetition

Perilous Puns and Dashing Dragons

I love the artwork of Sandara Tang.

I had done an amazing job last year of holding off on backing any more Kickstarter projects. I had been running out of room at my house for new games and had promised my wife that I'd really take a long look at games that I wanted to add to my collection and would hold off on purchasing anything more from Kickstarter. That actually held through the initial campaign for Critter Kitchen and despite my enjoyment of the various puns and clever gameplay that was on display during the campaign, I managed to hold off on backing the game.

This was before I had purchased Sarah Flamecraft for her birthday and while I really enjoyed the artwork of the game, I couldn't justify backing another game on Kickstarter in November since December was right around the corner. December is always an interesting month for us as we have both my birthday, Sarah's birthday and Christmas all nestled within three weeks of one another. We've made it a personal rule between the two of us that neither of us is allowed to purchase anything until after our birthdays or Christmas are over. This often results in a month-long buildup of my wishlist as I'll often come across games throughout the end of November/all through December that I will frantically add to my lists that I send out to family in the hopes that it will be added as a last-minute purchase. Often that happens unsuccessfully, but it allows me to build the anticipation for the final opening of presents.

I've also managed to pull (drag?) Sarah into the board game realm with me this last year with how many games that I've been playing over the last year or so. It is often a nice way to wind down the night together and she definitely has some favorites that I've been able to introduce her to this last year, including Everdell and Flamecraft. The former was after borrowing a copy from a friend after hearing about the game over and over here on BGG, and the latter was purchased for her birthday after she saw it at our local game shop. I had personally been looking at purchasing Flamecraft for myself, but after she had shown such excitement about the game, I picked it up for her as a birthday gift.

We played a few initial rounds of Flamecraft and the artwork was indeed as fantastic as the box art suggested. I loved the elegant feel of the playmat as well as the clever gameplay loop that tasked players with building "Reputation Points" through various enchantments and activations of dragon workers. The game itself was a bit lighter than I had expected, but ultimately Sarah loved the game and was thoroughly impressed with the dragons and "firing" them up.

With names like "Fogo de Char" or "Pizza Coven" how could you not enjoy this game?

What I personally loved the most was the clever use of puns in both shop names and dragon names (both artisan and fancy dragons had clever names). With a meat shop named "Pizza Coven", a plant shop named "Oh My Gourd," and a potion shop named "Funky Brewsters", I was immediately sold on the game, despite its lighter-weight nature.

The cute artwork on the cards paired with the clever naming of each of the shops and dragons just tickled my funny bone enough that I was thoroughly entranced with the game. As I've noted in previous posts, one of the major things that I look for in games that I add to my collection is aesthetics and how the game looks on the table. With the combination of fantastic artwork and gorgeous setup for the game, Flamecraft really knocked it out of the park for me. Sure, it wasn't the next Brass: Birmingham, but not all games have to be. Sometimes it's nice to sit down with a cozy game like Flamecraft or Calico at the end of a long day and enjoy the lighter fare that they offer.

I've actually found that over the last year, despite my leaning towards medium-weight games, I do enjoy a lighter weight game, especially with some of my regular people that I play with or playing solo at the end of a long day. While it is fun to set up and play through something like Dinosaur World or Apiary, sometimes I just want to not have to think about long term strategies. Games like Flamecraft help fit that niche as it's not terribly long, but also allows for some depth of strategy while playing. Plus the artwork doesn't do a bad job of making it look cozy and fun.

Announcement Blues

I'm floored with how good this looks.

When Cardboard Alchemy announced that they would be running a campaign for their new game, Critter Kitchen, I was torn. At that point I had not yet picked up Flamecraft so I didn't really have any bearing over how the game would feel or look and it had not yet been announced that there would be a solo mode included in the base game. I was pretty certain that it would be added since many games nowadays are adding in a solo mode for players, but there wasn't anything that was announced, so I was convinced by my beautiful wife to pass on the kickstarter.

It did hurt me a bit to do so since the game itself was a combination of two things that I loved: board games and cooking contests (specifically Food Network cooking shows... there's something about them that just brings me so much joy). However, I had given it quite a bit of thought throughout the campaign and despite keeping an eye on the campaign as it proceeded, I decided to pass on the game. It wasn't in my budget and with Christmas coming in the next few weeks, I would probably be getting several other games that I would be enjoying.

I was happy with my decision. I had waited on purchasing the game and would probably pick it up later when it was in retail stores. There had not been a solo mode included in the game and that was the biggest hesitation point for me as many of my games that I play lately tend to be solo. It's the reality of being a parent to two small children that most of the time I want to play games, it tends to be in the evening when my wife is generally exhausted and doesn't have the mental capacity to play anything. There had not been a solo mode introduced when I had last looked at the campaign (I think it was with four or five days to go so I was reasonably certain that nothing would be added) so despite my disappointment at not getting another game illustrated by the amazing Sandara Tang, I would have to be happy with waiting for the game to come to retail.

I did have some further regret about not backing the Kickstarter after playing Flamecraft with Sarah and not having the deluxe components, but I had to be happy with my decision. I do like the better overall quality feel of the wooden versus cardboard components, but I kept reminding myself that Kickstarter was something that I would have to avoid since it was a long-term investment without any guarantees of delivery on the date that was noted.

All was calm and peaceful in the household and life continued onward through Christmas and my birthday. I was able to save up for and purchase a copy of Everdell: The Complete Collection along with all the bits and bobs for the game with the money I received for Christmas and my birthday and was very happy with the purchase. I kept telling myself that the few games that I had received for Christmas were enough and had to let Critter Kitchen go.

Call of the Critter

"Lantern Lane" - one of the locations in Critter Kitchen. I'm a sucker for a game with excellent art direction.

I had backed several games over 2023 on Kickstarter and despite my insistence that I remain off Kickstarter, I told myself that it would be ok to check up on some of my games that I had backed. Weirdwood Manor was coming along nicely and the devs provided constant updates to the status of the game to my joy. Dead Cells: The Rogue-Lite Board Game and Dungeon Kart were getting updates a little less frequently, but with the holidays, that was to be expected. I was happy with my current games that I had backed and despite some temptation to look into other games that were on offer, I decided to hold off on checking anything else as I'm easy to manipulate with clever marketing and I know it.

I also have a curiosity streak a mile wide and give the proverbial cat a run for his money with how curious I can be. Curiosity definitely killed this cat because when I decided to give the Kickstarter page for Critter Kitchen a look, to my dismay, I found that they had a solo mode that had been added since I had last looked into the project. I was beyond frustrated, since that was the determination point for why I didn't pick up the game. Now that they had added the solo mode, I was now out of excuses for myself as to why I shouldn't pick up the game.

I loved the artwork from Flamecraft and knew from the Kickstarter campaign that Critter Kitchen had excellent art direction and it absolutely checked my boxes for being great with it's artwork, a worker placement game with variable setup, and even scratched the itch of adding in another one of my real-world hobbies of cooking shows. I was all in with the game as all other hurdles had been cleared in my mind, but knew that I would need to convince my wife that it was worth it to pick up, and that was the biggest hurdle I had to clear. I spent the next week or so attempting to work up the courage to start talking with my wife about purchasing the game. I started discussing the game at length with her and surprisingly found that she was more open to the idea than first expected.

After showing her a few videos on how the game was played, Sarah looked at me and said "Get the game." I was shocked that I had not really had to convince her since she was very resistant to several games I had noted previously and when I asked why, she noted that she saw how much the game really fit into my love of cooking shows. While she was not a big fan of them personally, she did like board games and with how much she loved Flamecraft, Sarah was open to playing Critter Kitchen and told me to back it.

I gleefully backed the game as soon as it came to BackerKit and added my name in for the pledge that was to be sent out at the end of the year with the Deluxe Version of the game (again, I'm a sucker for wooden components and awesome storage solutions). I was beyond excited that I didn't have to cajole Sarah into letting me purchase the game and was really pumped that I was going to be able to bring a board game version of a cooking show to the table.

Virtual Wonders

Picture by Rozie Powell (Rozie_CozyB)

After backing the game, I began to get curious if there was a virtual option to play the game before it shipped off to backers. I had learned from my mistakes about backing games unplayed and wanted to determine if there was an option to play virtually. All of the games that I had backed on Kickstarter offered a way to play virtually (sometimes more than one way) and I was curious if there was a way to play the game on Tabletopia, since that was my preferred method of playing as I don't own Tabletop Simulator (I really should purchase a copy of it).

I found that the devs had provided a way to play on Tabletopia and after finding the link provided, I was able to boot up the game and mess around with the virtual rendition of the game. It felt slightly different due to being a digital rendition of the game, but ultimately, I was fairly happy with how close it was to the mockups provided on the website. A review of the rules to refresh myself and some further fiddling with the game allowed me to get to a point where I was familiar enough to teach the game to a friend.

I played a game with my regular gaming buddy, Anthony, on Tabletopia and I was very impressed with how the game felt and played. Like the Kickstarter page had mentioned, it was a worker placement game that gave priority to the smaller chefs that went out to get items for cooking in the kitchen. The game itself played fairly quickly and the implementation of digital shields on the virtual version was very clever as neither Anthony nor I knew what the other person was planning for the final plating of the meal for our critic. When we tallied up the points, I had won by about 10 or so points and felt fairly good about the game.

I gave it some time to think about how the game was played and while I found it to be a bit lighter that what I would normally bring to the table, I knew that the game itself was still in development and rules had not yet been finalized, especially for some of the expansions included with the game. The artwork was incredible as expected and I was thoroughly wowed by Sandara's beautiful work on the game yet again. Overall, I found the worker placement and priority tracks to be a very clever implementation as it allowed players to place workers at the same location with the caveat that another player might take the ingredients that you needed.

I personally think that it will play a bit better with a larger player count, and I'm curious to see how the game plays with the solo mode, but overall, I'm very happy with how it feels. It's a mid-light worker placement game that offers some clever twists on the worker-placement genre and the theming is practically dripping from every plate included in the game. Critter Kitchen promises to be an excellent addition to my collection and I cannot wait to add it when it starts getting shipped out later this year.

Final Questioning and Wind Down

I will say this again as I've noted in the past that Kickstarter is definitely a dangerous site to play roulette with. The website is specifically designed around getting people to spend money on the projects listed. I tend to avoid checking the listed games as I know that there's always going to be more listed and even at 5 games backed from last year to now, I'm still feeling like that's too much. I have a large collection already and while it is definitely fun to join the "Cult of the New", I do want to encourage everyone to keep enjoying the games that you have. Be smart with your decisions on Kickstarter, Gamefound, etc, so that you don't get burned by games that are overhyped and don't meet your expectations.

I was fortunate enough that I was able to look back on the pedigree of games that Cardboard Alchemy had produced and was able to make a determination of my choices based on their previous games published since I knew what I liked, but I know in the past I've made some mistakes with Kickstarter. Back when the site was in its infancy, I made several choices to back games that I thought sounded cool but ended up just absolutely biffing it when they came to the table. It's something that made me swear off Kickstarter for quite some time and I only started backing again several years later when it was announced one of my favorite bands in middle school, Five Iron Frenzy, was going to Kickstarter to make a new album. I've been very careful about what I've backed since then and while this last year has seen me back an unprecedented 5 games, I'm still very cautious about what I choose to back.

Be smart and make sure that you are aware that anything you choose to back can take significantly longer than the "Estimated Delivery Date" shown on the initial page. I know that I've harped on this in the past, but just because a game is on the "hotlist" here on BGG, doesn't mean that it'll fit your gameplay needs. Our hobby is great, but remember, there's only so much time during the day that you can play games and it's absolutely fine if you choose to play a game you own for the 30th time rather than buying another game new.

Tell me your thoughts: What kind of artwork do you like in the games that you play? Are you a cartoon fan, or do you prefer something a bit more realistic in style? Do you like to obtain games from publishers that you've previously bought from and if you do, is that something that you try to pick and choose what game you get, or are you all in no matter what the game is? What are some games (or even projects) that you've backed on Kickstarter and then had buyer's remorse?

Thank you so much for taking the time to check out my blog. If you liked it, remember to leave a thumbs up and please feel free to comment! I try to respond to every comment that is made here on my blog.

Have a wonderful rest of your week and remember to keep on playing those board games! You matter and you are very important to this community, no matter your contribution.

*originally posted on BoardGameGeek on 6/3/2024*