A Few Fries Short of a Happy Meal – A Burger Joint Review
There’s just something strangely fascinating about playing with your food. Lately, it seems that gamers who like games and grub have had a buffet of choices: Wasabi!, Wok Star and Lord of the Fries are some that have been recently released. Since I was not one of the lucky few who grabbed up a scarce copy of Wok Star, I decided to go completely American and try my hand at fast food franchising with Burger Joint.
The object of Burger Joint is to be the first foodie to reach 12 on the scoring track by building up basic restaurants like Burger Joints or Pizza Parlors, and then converting some of them to Diners or hoity toity Bistros. The basic restaurants are easy to build and will gain you victory points, but little else; Diners and Bistros require more resources, but in addition to victory points they also grant the player certain special abilities.
The components for the main mechanic in Burger Joint are cubes – lots and lots of colored cubes. Seriously, there are oodles of little red, green, black, yellow, brown and white cubes that are used to build the restaurants and purchase Publicity, which nets you victory points and allows you to raid your opponent’s cube stash. At the beginning of each round, the active player blindly draws cubes from a nifty cloth sack equal to a certain production number, determined by the number of Diners and Bistros currently in play. The cubes are placed in a common area on the production board, and then are divided according to which player is currently operating a Diner with a certain color specialty. For instance, the burger player starts the game with Diners specializing in black and yellow cubes. As long as the pizza player isn’t operating Diners with those colors, the burger player gets first dibs on yellow and black cubes, making it easier for the burger enthusiast to build Joints. Once cubes are divided, the active player may choose one of their specialty cubes or a cube left in the common area, then the inactive player does the same. After this first round, all cubes are returned to the common area, and selection continues until all cubes have been chosen. It’s now time for the active player to roll up their sleeves and decide what to do with all those cubes!
During a turn, the active player may can build as many restaurants or buy as much Publicity as they wish, as long as their cube supplies hold out. Players are also able to trade three cubes for one cube of any color from the bag. Once a player purchases a Bistro, they may also perform a special ability, such as trade two cubes for one of any color or draw an extra cube randomly from the bag to add to the supply. Some Bistro abilities are more powerful than others, but those Bistros are also worth fewer victory points. The Bistro abilities are helpful and enticing; so much so that it’s often important to remind yourself that it’s points, not powers, that win the game!
At the end of a round, each player must discard cubes in excess of seven, and the remaining cubes are stored in the player’s warehouse, available for use on their next active turn. It’s now the other player’s turn and production begins anew; this process continues until one player reaches 12 points on the score track and becomes the town’s reigning food magnate. Oh sweet, delicious victory!
Gameplay/Replay | Components & Theme | Fun |
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Overall score: 13 out of 18 - Twilight Struggle it's not, but if you're looking for a light snack, Burger Joint just might calm the cravings. |
Burger Joint is a game for 2 soda jerks, ages 10 and up, from Rio Grande Games. It retails for around $20 and can be purchased online at Funagain Games or at your favorite local game store.
Did you know that when you buy from Funagain Games that you’re helping out this site? It’s true! Get games, help out your favorite blog. It’s win/win!
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[…] All aboard – and a plethora of other train puns too unbearable to publish – this week, a look at TransEuropa! Yes, yes, I can hear the collective groans now; a million (ok, a couple hundred) voices crying out, “Another train game?” Yes, dear readers, another train game. Bear with me during this brief review, though – a) it’s fun, b) you can play it blitzed, and c) it has about as much to do with trains as colored cubes do with making burgers. […]
Good to see some press about this. I had heard a brief review on a podcast a while back and wanted to know more. Now I do. Thanks!
Go Forth And Game,
tomg
Tom – No problem, glad I could help! There haven’t been many reviews of it out there, so I figured it was time. It’s a really interesting little game, I’m glad it’s in my collection for the mechanics alone, but it’s definitely not for everyone.