Board Games Hidden Gem: Queen’s Kitchen
Some games have great ratings from 10,000 or more people. But what about those games that have great reviews from only a couple people?
In any industry, marketing is most of the uphill battle towards popularity. So, I figured I’d highlight a mostly unnoticed game which came out this year with only 10 reviews on BoardGameGeek.
Queen’s Kitchen is a competitive pickup-and-deliver game with a modular point and action selection mechanics. The goal of each player is to score 50 points first. Points are scored by collecting ingredients and cooking your recipe.
During each round, players will choose one of several actions to take in order to move around the board collecting the ingredients they need to prepare their meals. Each recipe card shows which ingredients are required for prepare the recipe, with more difficult ones being worth a greater amount of points.
As the crops are harvested, the amount available will begin to dwindle. Using and action to make it rain will cause additional crops to grow or just head to the market to trade for what you need.
Delivering the prepared meals scores points depending on difficult of the meal, and the first player to 50 points wins!
The game comes prepackaged with expansion options to tweak the game rules for an additional challenge or spin, providing tons of replay value right out of the box. Getting that level of rules options built in is definitely a nice added bonus!
The most recent Kickstarter campaign was unfortunately unsuccessful, which might seem weird to be covering the game at all. But I’m hoping that with a little attention and buzz they might have more luck next time around.
Thanks for reading!
