Rochester Gamers Community

Last week on a quick impulse as my Thoughthammer order was about to ship, I added "Wasabi!!" to my order. At first, the game didn't really appeal to me once some compared it to the game "California", which I really don't care for (and.. for some reason the components smelled horrible!). But, after reading some more about it, hearing good things on podcasts and getting a kick out of the bits, I decided to give it a try.

At this point, I sort of got some *really* basic plays in with my 2-yr old daughter, who was able to pick the proper tiles for some fairly nasty recipes (I'm not a huge fan of sushi.. I'll eat stuff like yellowtail and a spicy tuna roll, but once you hit the mackerel level or eel, I'm turned off and feel like I have entered an Immunity Challenge in the show Survivor). My 4 (almost 5) year old son also took an interest in it, and I got him to do some tile placement on the board (no action cards though) as I got more of a feel for the game play.

In the end, I plan on trying it out at work with three co-workers over lunch as the game time is rated as 40-60 minutes. Just perfect for lunchtime. Setup isn't *too* bad.

The game mechanic is tile placement. In each players possession is three ingredient tiles (their hand), a set of three menu items to try to achieve on the board, and maybe a special card (obtained through the completion of a recipe). On your turn, you play a tile on the board and refresh up to three tiles. A player may also play a special card. A player may also pass and instead exchange some of their menu cards. After this is done, the player scores if possible. Scoring chips are obtained as well depending on the size (number of ingredients) in the menu item. If the items appear on the board as they do on the card, the menu item is said to be "prepared in style" and therefore earns a wasabi cube. Game ends when the board is either filled up or someone prepares ten menu items (the ten items vary in size from two to five items).

So, there is a hint of "Lord of the Fries" mixed in with some "california". I haven't actually played it yet, but it looks like it will be pretty fun. I did get a taste for sushi lately and stole some of my wife's usual pickup from Target.. eh.. I think I'll like the game better than actual sushi.. I'll give an update when it gets played.