Wok on Fire (Green Couch Games)

Cooking is not something I am even remotely good at. Because of that, my wife and I have a standing agreement. She cooks. I clean. It's a pretty fair trade-off. So what would make me interested in Wok on Fire, a game about cooking? Great art, small footprint, low price, and general fun of course. Wok on Fire is a dexterity-based, set-collection game for 2-4 players, ages 7+. It takes approximately 20 minutes to play and retails for $15.

Setup
1. Give each player a Spatula Card and a Player Aid.
2. Shuffle all the Ingredient Cards together. Deal 24 face-down in a stack to create the Supply and evenly distribute the other 26 cards face-down in a circular shape to form the starting ingredients in the wok.
3. Pick a start player and get cooking!

Game Play - Each player takes the following three actions on their turn:
1. Stir Fry - Use your Spatula Card to perform two stir fry actions. (A stir fry action involves sliding your Spatula Card underneath Ingredient Card(s) and flipping the card(s) over.
2. Pick Up Ingredients - After flipping, identify which two Ingredient Cards you want to pick up, and then do your best to pick them up without disturbing the other ingredients.
3. Chop - Pick up the Supply deck and using a hacking motion with your hand, chop two Ingredient Cards into the wok.
4. When the Supply is exhausted, the end of the game is triggered with each player taking one more turn.

Scoring
Arrange your claimed Ingredient Cards to form the best possible scoring combinations. For example, a noodle, meat, vegetable, and condiment combination is worth 25 points, whereas five onions are worth 35 points.

Review
Wok on Fire is a very fun little game that is fun for families, because even though it is a card game, you get to do fun, tangible actions with the cards. Kids especially will enjoy flipping the cards over or chopping them out. To a very small degree, the game reminds me of Sushi Go and Go Nuts for Donuts, because it has food elements and you are trying to pair up the food in the best possible way to maximize your points. The game itself is vastly different as you aren't drafting cards, but carefully revealing or not revealing cards to make sure you leave your opponents with cards that won't be as beneficial to them. I especially enjoyed the artwork associated with this game. There is a little bit of personality in each of the ingredients that adds to the visual appeal of this game. If you want even more ingredients/variability with the game, there is a $5 promo pack you can pick up, which adds some beef and snap peas to the game. Green Couch Games does a good job of packing tons of flavor into their little games. Be sure to check out the rest of their catalog and also consider backing their current game, Ladder 29 on Kickstarter.