Dice for breakfast

BreakFast & Furious is Mark Tuck's latest dice allocation PnP. You are playing as the chef of the Hungry Trucker Cafe, preparing a variety of breakfasts that range from cholesterol bombs to light vegan dishes. It is taking part in the 2021 9-Card Nanogame PnP Design Contest, and it's ready to test and taste.

Your goal in the game is to serve as many breakfast dishes as possible. Each 'shift' consists of 9 cards (orders), and if you manage to complete all 9 orders, you flip the cards over and begin a new shift. On each turn, there will be two order cards revealed on the table (but you can also see the one that's sitting on top of the orders pile). Each order requires specific coloured dice (ingredients), and some ingredients have to have a specific degree of freshness (die result equal to or above a certain value).

Let's take the Eggs Florentine as an example: the card requires a green die (veggies) of value 2 or more, a white die (bread) of any value, and a yellow die (egg) of value 4 or more.

You start the game with one die of each ingredient colour inside your bag (the fridge). Then, you choose up to 3 dice from the 'Market' (central dice pool), and throw them in the bag as well. You give the bag a good shake, draw up to 3 dice and roll them. Depending on what you rolled, you will allocate the dice to the dishes, or, if you can't use them, you keep them on the table.

If you manage to fulfill an order, you take the benefit of that card, return the dice to the Market and turn the card around to keep it for its special ability. You can also partially complete orders by placing as many dice on them as you can. If you fail a card completely, you take its penalty. Any completed orders that have a die of value 1 on them have to be discarded, and any dice on them return to the Market.

The challenge in the game comes from the freshness of the materials. At the end of each turn, every die value is reduced by one, and if any dice on the table or on the cards go down to zero, they end up in the garbage bin (removed from the game). The dice pool is thus gradually diminished, and you may end up losing the ingredients you need for future orders.

Even though there are several ways to manipulate the dice (through gained abilities and card bonuses), if you keep rolling low numbers, you're going to trash most of the dice and won't have anything to serve those hungry truckers other than stale bread (or not even that). There is no clear win/lose condition, however, you are just trying to achieve a good score according to the table provided by the designer (from 'you're fry-erd' to 'employee of the year: a record-bacon performance!'

No matter if you feast on a full buffet when you wake up, or have a plain cup of coffee, this is a clever little game that deserves your attention. It will appeal to fans of Mark Tuck, fans of food-themed games, fans of small dice games, and the members of the 1PG who wear the 'starting my day with solo play' microbadge (what better game to play while having breakfast?). Give it a go and maybe vote in the PnP contest too!

#BreakFastAndFurious #Tuck