Board Game Review: Diced Veggies

With the holidays quickly approaching, you might be looking for a family friendly game to give as a gift.  Well, if so, I'd like to recommend a new game called Diced Veggies published by KTBG and designed by Jory, Rowan, and Josh Cappel with art by Claire Lin.

Diced Veggies is a set collection game involving dice and cards representing various recipes.  The game plays 2-4 players and is designed for ages 6 and up.  You can play a full game in about 30 minutes at the lower player counts.

Game Summary:

The goal of the game is to have the most points at the end of the game.  Points are scored by completing recipe cards and even more points can be earned if you combine a completed recipe card with a hype card.  

Game Set-up:

The game sets up incredibly quickly.  First, roll the 35 dice representing various ingredients into the included frame.  Drag the frame diagonally across the table in order to collect the dice in a nice grid with no spaces between the dice.  Once that's done, remove the frame and set the frame aside.  

Next, shuffle the hype cards (there are 34 of them) and form a face-down deck.  Deal one hype card to each player.  Then shuffle the recipe cards (there are 44 of those) and form a second face-down deck.  Deal two recipe cards to each player and turn three recipe cards face-up to form a display of three cards beside the deck.

Finally, give each person a single chef token and then choose a starting player and give them the cleaver.  You are ready to play!

How to Play:

On your turn, you will take three steps in order:

1. Cut
2. Cook
3. Card

1.  Cut:  Use the cardboard cleaver to make one cut that separates one or more dice from the block of dice.  You must lower the cleaver into the dice block and then slide the selected dice out of the block.  The big catch here is that the numbers on the dice you push out must have a combined total of 10 pips or fewer showing.  Move the selected dice in front of your playing area (being careful not to change any of the showing pips).

2.  Cook:  If you have all of the ingredients necessary, you can cook as many recipes as you wish.  Each color die represents a different ingredient (yellow = carrot, white = mushroom, pink = onion, green = pepper, and red = tomato).  Each recipe card will require a certain number of ingredients (and each die can only count as a single ingredient).  To cook, show everyone that you've got the proper dice and then discard those dice into the frame.  Flip your cooked recipe card face down but don't stack them as everyone needs to know how many recipes each player has cooked since the end game is triggered once someone cooks their sixth recipe.  

In addition, when you cook a recipe you may also play a single hype card from your hand if you meet the requirements for playing that particular card.  You must read the card requirements aloud to ensure you've met the conditions before discarding your dice.  Scored hype cards are paired face down with their recipes.

Note:  At the beginning of the game, each player is given a single chef token.  That token may be used before you cook to change either the type of the number of one of your dice.  Once used, your chef token is out of play for future use until someone restocks the dice block (more on that in a bit).

3.  Card:  To end your turn, draw one card.  This card can be from either the face-up recipe card display or a facedown card from either the recipe deck or the hype deck.  If you draw a face-up recipe card, fill in the display with a new recipe from the draw deck.  

At the end of your turn, you must check your hand limit.  Before the next player can go, you must discard your hand down to having at most two recipe cards and two hype cards.  Now, pass the cleaver to the next player and they get to take their turn.

One final rule:  When a player starts their turn, if there is at least one ingredient type missing from the dice block, they may choose to restock (and if there are no dice remaining they must restock).  To restock, you put the frame back in the middle of the table and then roll all spent and leftover dice into the frame.  Drag the frame to form a new tight block of dice and then remove the frame.  Give each player their spent chef token back.  Then, you take the rest of your turn as normal.

Winning the Game:

The end game is triggered when a player cooks their sixth recipe.  When that happens, that player finishes their turn and then all of the other players get one more turn.  Once that's done, everyone reveals all of their recipe and hype cards and count up the star value on each card to get their score.  The highest score wins and in case of a tie, the rules state that all tied players are victorious together.  

My Thoughts:

Diced Veggies is a great game for young kids.  The rulebook even comes with some variation suggestions for playing with younger kids making this a true family game.  Despite the simplistic rule set, I still find the game fun to play with my son.  There's just enough strategy in the game to keep things interesting but there's also plenty of randomness to help even the playing field among players of all skill sets.  

I will say that my original copy of Diced Veggies came with a number of dice that were missing the color in their pips.  Happily, after emailing the publisher, I was sent a number of replacement dice and so now my game is virtually perfect (I have one red die that is missing a colored pip but KTBB didn't sent out red die replacements).  From what I gather, the pip colors were a known manufacturing problem with the earliest batches of the game and I believe those issues have been cleared up for current printings.  Still, it's worth mentioning that KTBG took care of their customer well in case you end up with one of the damaged versions of the game.

The replacement dice that KTBG sent me

The Bottom Line:

Pros:

• Easy-to-learn
• Quick set-up and tear down
• Fun recipes to "cook" with a nice variety of dish options
  
• Cardboard cleaver is fun for kids 

Cons:

• The game runs too long at higher player counts, I would only recommend this game at the 2-3 player count
• Some production issues (see above) but those have been rectified in current printings I believe

Overall Score:

7.5:  This is a great entry into the family weight category of games.  Dice drafting and set collection isn't new but this game does things in a rather novel (and definitely tactile) way.  I do wish the game moved a bit quicker at higher player counts and I would have liked a few more recipe card just to keep things "new" a bit longer into playing the game.  That said, this is an elegant game design with a fun theme that kids can enjoy (for example:  my son enjoyed creating recipes of foods he'd actually be willing to eat)!

Note:  I am using Board Game Geek's rating scale to come up with my score. 

Board Game Geek's Rating Scale:

10:  Outstanding - will always enjoy playing

9:  Excellent - very much enjoy playing

8:  Very good - enjoy playing and would suggest it

7:  Good - usually willing to play

6:  Ok - will play if in the mood

5:  Mediocre - take it or leave it

4:  Not so good - but could play again

3:  Bad - likely won't play this again

2:  Very bad - won't play ever again

1:  Awful - defies game description