Quick Look: Rival Restaurants
Designers: Gary Alaka, Rob Chew, Jon Kang
Artist: Audrey Jung
Publisher: Gap Closer Games
Year Published: 2019
Your goal in Rival Restaurants is to be the first restaurant to get 20 popularity points and be crowned “The Wiener!” Players earn popularity points by buying and trading for ingredients and using them to “cook” (complete) recipes. The more advanced the recipe, the more points it’s worth.
Each day, players move through three phases:
1. MONEY and MOVE: Players collect their income for the day and decide where they want to move. Turn economy is crucial as players are not permitted to move for the rest of the day once their location has been chosen.
2) BUY and BARTER: Players have one minute to buy as much as they want but only from the location they’re in. Players can also barter/trade with anyone in the game, not just the people in their location.
3) COOK and COUNTER. Any player who has all the ingredients required for their recipe can cook it and collect popularity points.
In addition, each player controls a chef equipped with their own “chef power”. Chef powers are asymmetrical and allow players to bend the rules in their favor. The base game of Rival Restaurants has twelve chefs, and additionally, at the beginning of the game, each player must choose a restaurant to play, with each restaurant having a unique level-up structure with rewards for reaching 3, 7, and 12 popularity points. Lastly, players can also choose to buy “action cards”, that is, development cards that are typically for one-time use.
Review:
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Harry Jacobs- Reviewer
Harry has been a gamer for over 5 decades, his first games were strategic war games from Avalon Hill and Strategic Publications Incorporated (SPI). Currently he resides in Yellowknife Northwest Territories in Canada, a city known to hold most of the cold weather records in Canada. While not playing games or working, his five dogs keep him busy around the house and yard. He is active in Ptarmicon Game Knights a club dedicated to bringing gaming to the communities in the Territories and can be often found teaching games both on club nights and at their various events. He looks forward to bringing his reviews and perspective of various games, in order for you to make an informed decision around buying and playing games. You can also catch Harry nigh-lighting as the North of 60 Gaming HERE.
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