Kitchen Contest

I have not played this yet but I am BUZZING with anticipation for roping some friends into it. It's such an elegant system for emulating your favorite cooking reality shows and feels so hackable.

The basics: what does it claim to be? It's a competitive rpg (don't see many of those) but it's also "a game you tell with your friends." Immediately there is some friction here: a quasi-storygame that asks you to be in conflict with each other? But it works.

This friction helps create the feeling of a show like Chopped, where there's competition but also the awareness (on the part of the editors at least) that everyone is contributing to an overall story. The game puts us in the seat of the contestant, judge, and editor all at once.

The basic mechanics: use d6s to create target numbers for 3 courses that the chefs are trying to hit. They roll dice themselves and during each round have the chance to reroll one of their dice (Transform), reroll someone else's die (Sabotage), or simply vibe (Savor).

I want to draw attention to the Savor action. Each of the 3 actions have associated questions to help develop roleplaying, but Savor is unique in that there is no benefit to be gained. This is a fantastic rp moment. Are you cocky? Panicking? Non-confrontational? You decide!

Transform lets you live out your Top Chef fantasy. Sabotage lets you live out your Cutthroat Kitchen fantasy. Savor lets you find out more about your Chef and opens you up to all sorts of possibilities.

Now let's talk about modularity. This game is endlessly hackable. It's a rare game that feels both like a complete game and its own SRD, but this one does. 5 bonus game modes to accommodate different playstyles and # of players.

Each action can be switched up to create different vibes too! Want something like the Great British Bake Off? Take out Sabotage. Emphasize Transform. Stack dice to create new shapes! Add new targets beyond the course ingredients! Have recurring judges!

Want Cutthroat Kitchen? Emphasize Sabotage. Let the action take out dice! Hide them around your playspace! Make others roll w/ their non-dominant hand!

There's even room to add types of chefs w/ fun abilities based on reality show archetypes: Novice, Food Truck, Won't-Stop-Talking-About-Being-Italian, Molecular Gastronomist! Not to mention creating Judges with different tastes and ways to judge final dishes.

Perhaps the best part about the game is the "Judging and Tasting" section. It breaks down how you might describe a dish, provides adjectives (tags) that Judges can use, and makes describing art more accessible to players that might be intimidated by it.

This game has it all: Hackability! Fun! Food! Support for describing art! Simple elegant mechanics! Please please please buy this IMMEDIATELY

I ran this game for stream as part of Huetopia's Pride Brunchathon (VOD). This was such a fun game to channel your inner Food Network game/competition show contestant, and really easy to run after reading the instructions. I appreciate the variant rules included to shake things up and for replayability. 

Unrelated (but kind of related): if you plan on playing this game as part of a live-stream or podcast, it will be easier if the facilitator plays the role of 'MC' and not being a player vs juggling all three roles of MC/Chef/Judge (learn from my folly!). 

This is such a fun game! Hans has perfectly captured the essence of a reality cooking competition with this game. Would be happy to play this as a one-shot or multiple sessions as a series.