A few months ago my wife had seen somebody post on Facebook that an online retailer had this game listed for half the normal retail price. She had asked me with “puppy dog eyes” if we could get it. The comments about the game on Facebook had been overall positive so I told her to go ahead and get it.
Flash forward to just a few days ago we finally got this game to the table. One of the reasons we played it now is because we are in the middle of moving from our current place to move in with my mother-in-law and we wanted an easier game to play due to how tired we are after each day of moving (slow process due to having to take one load at a time and put things away before taking next load over).
Anyways, here is our review of Cupcake Empire by Ludonova.
Cupcake Empire (2018)
BGG Description
Cupcakes are at the height of fashion in the city. It's the perfect time to expand your business. Even though at the moment you only have one small Bakery, the dedication and the level of creativity of your employees means that there are no limits to your ambition. Your task will be no piece of cake since your competitors share your same goals and they are not going to make it easy for you. Only those who work the most efficiently and effectively will manage to build their own cupcake empire.
Cupcake Empire is mainly a dice game. Your personal board represents your business and the dice your workers. In each of the columns of the board you can carry out one specific action; create new recipes for cupcakes, open new stores, serve customers, hire new workers, etc. On each turn you will have to decide which column you are going to activate, taking into account that the more dice there are and the more specialized they are, the more effective the action will be. Through these actions you will increase your level of sales and production, trying to get them to grow in equal measure since at the end of each of your turns your Income will increase by the amount indicated by the marker that is the furthest behind i.e. that has made the least progress.
Weight 2.79/5
A Little More Info
The description above is just a teaser into the game. So let’s dive into a little bit more (well, a lot more)…
Components (mixed with game play)
City & Personal Boards: The city board (which I will call the game board) is the central board that every player uses. This is where the neighborhoods are located (grey, yellow, & beige) with the customer meeples you sell to, where you build your retail outlets and bakeries, and track your victory/income points.
The personal (player) boards contain the five different action columns (which is discussed in this section with corresponding pieces), where you earn your “bright ideas,” the rest area (for dice number 6), the customer board (where you place the customers you sold cupcakes to), and the Production & Sales Level tracks.
Cake bases and frosting: In the game there are simple and mixed pieces. The cake bases are chocolate, vanilla and swirl (combination of the two). The frosting has four basic (strawberry, mint, chocolate, and lemon) and 6 different combinations of the mixed (two flavors swirled together).
These are important for a few reasons: 1) the combination of frosting and cake base increases your Production Level by two, three, or four points and 2) the combination you create helps you to sell to the customer meeples (see below). Two simple pieces together can match you up to only one customer whereas two of the mixed pieces gives four different combinations of customers to match.
To earn the mixed you pieces you need to make it down to Level 2 on the Bake Bases (purple /dice number 1) and Prepare Frosting (yellow/ dice number 2) action column.
Retail Outlets: These pieces are the little cupcake buildings in the game. You need to place a building in the yellow and beige neighborhoods in order to be able to sell your goods to the customers in that column (you could also use a bakery instead of a retail building; see below).
When placing the Retail Outlet you also increase your Sales Level by one point. To place in the yellow neighborhood you need to reach Level 1 on the Open Retail Outlets (orange/ dice number 3) action column. Level 2 allows you to place it in the beige neighborhood and Level 3 lets you place one in each.
Due to the limited number of retail spaces on the game board, other players can replace your store. If this happens, the sales level point you earned is taken away.
Customers: The game has 24 customers in 8 different color combinations. The pieces are placed randomly during setup onto the game board; one on each level in each neighborhood.
The color of the legs refer to the cake base and the shirts on the meeples refer to the color of the frosting. You can only sell to the customers that match your cupcake combinations. The Sell Cupcakes (green/ dice number 4) action column tells you know which level of customer that you can sell to. Remember that you have a retail outlet or bakery in that neighborhood first. Level 1 reaches up to the second row up in the neighborhood; Level 2 reaches the third row, and Level 3 reaches the fourth (top row).
Each customer you sell to increases your sales level either one, two, or three and one each 3rd or 4th row customer earns you at least one victory point (up to five). You then place the customer on your player board in the corresponding customer area on your player board.
Bakeries: Each player has three bakeries in the game. The first one is placed in the grey neighborhood on the game board. On the Contract New Staff and Expand Business (pink/ dice number 5) action column is where you can place a bakery. Level 3 lets you place it in a yellow neighborhood and earn an Improvement tile (see below); Level 4 let’s you place a Bakery in a beige neighborhood or activate any action in any column on your player board regardless of the number of dice there. When you place a Bakery you also gain either one or two steps in both your Sales and Production tracks.
There are two other Levels on this action column that deals with other items (see below).
Take note, that once a Bakery is placed it can not be removed by another player.
Improvements: There are 24 improvements tokens (six different, four each) that allow you to take extra actions if you activate a level of an action column. At the start of the game you have one that you place on any column you choose on the player board and you can earn more by using the Contract New Staff and Expand Business column and/or using a Special Action (once again, see below).
The six improvement actions are the following: choose a simple cake base from the reserve (where the extra components are kept until selected), choose a simple frosting from the reserve, open a Retail Outlet in a yellow neighborhood, Sell Cupcakes to a row one or two customer of an eligible neighborhood, Advance three income (victory points) steps, and move you Bright Ideas marker two steps (see below).
Also take note that you cannot place two of the same Improvement Tokens in a single action column.
Dice: The dice in the game is your “engine builder” and are your “employees.” They serve two main purposes: 1) Based on the number that is shown when you roll the dice, they are place in the specific action columns (as described above) with the exception of a dice roll of 6 which are placed in the Rest Area (more about this in a second) and 2) The non-grey dice are Specialists (pink dice are wild and called Jokers).
If the specialists are placed in the matching action column, you are allowed to jump to the next available action Level (skipping any holes), the Jokers do the same for every column they are placed in.
Any dice roll of 6 is placed in the Rest Area. First die there gives you a Bright Idea token, each additional die place advances you around the Bright Idea track. Once you make the full circle (3 steps) you receive an additional Bright Idea token.
Bright Ideas (& Special Actions): You can hold a maximum of three Bright Idea tokens at once. They are used for taking an action in the Rest Area and for taking a Special Action.
Bright Idea actions are the following: 1) Rest Area: use a token to move any or all of the dice in the rest area to any one action column, 2) Special Action: return Bright Idea token to the reserve and choose an improvement from the reserve and place it on your player board in an open Improvement spot, and 3) Special Action: Return a Bright Idea token to the reserve to move a single die to another column that you are going to activate (if a gap is created move the remaining dice up).
The Rest Area has another action you can use instead of using an Bright Idea token. You can decrease your income track one point for each die you remove from the Rest Area.
The Special Actions have two additional non-Bright Idea token actions too. The first is that you can lose two income points to receive a Bright Idea token and the second is move back three income points for each die you want to relocate to another action column.
Objective Tiles: The game also has 20 different objective tiles that are divided in four groups of five. At the beginning of the game, you randomly select one from each group. During the game if you meet the requirements of the objective you then place one of your round discs on it and gain the six income points (if you no longer qualify you still keep the points).
Additional Components: The additional items for each player are 3 cubes for tracking Bright Ideas, Sales, and Production levels; 5 round discs for keeping income points and completed objectives; lastly, four player aides that one side shows you the special actions and the other side is a reminder of the production values of the cake bases and frostings. The rulebook and a first player marker that depicts the fine “cupcakes under glass” is also included.
Gameplay and End Game Condition
Each turn a player takes has three required actions (with certain optional) and two “anytime during your turn” optional. Let’s look at the required ones first.
Required: The first step you must do is activate one of the five action columns on your player board that reaches a Level 1 action or greater. During this step you can also activate any of the Improvement tokens that are in the column.
The second step is advance your income marker by the number of steps indicated on the tack that is furthest behind of your Sales and Production tracks, This is also where you will score the one-time bonus of any of the Objective Tiles you complete.
The last required step is to roll all the dice in from the column you activated and place them in corresponding columns. Remember that any number 6’s you roll go to the Rest Area.
Anytime Optional: Anytime during your turn you can use the Rest Area and Special Actions (this time see above this time). Using these can help improve your efficiency during your turn.
End game condition: Yes, you read that right, end game condition (singular). The game ends when a player reaches the end of the income track around the game board (70 points) or beyond. The game is over after each player has taken the same number of turns once triggered.
What we like about the game
Since there are only a few video reviews out there for the game we had to rely more on the rulebook which is done beautifully. It wasn’t hard to read or follow which is nice. The rulebook had a nice flow to it.
Speaking of videos, the Dice Tower review by Tom is spot on (you can watch it here). He does a pretty good job of proving the overview of the game and we agree that this game is really fast to play. The box estimates that a game (assuming 4 player) can be done in about 60 minutes. Based on our two player games we played, we find this to be accurate.
My wife and I found that this game is not difficult at all to learn and play. We feel the weight of the game should be less than what is rated on BGG.
We also love the cupcake theme which holds true throughout the whole game. It is adorable and the aesthetics of all the components are overall beautiful. Even all over the box it screams of cupcakes. We do have a favorite cupcake/cake place that made us crave some of their goodies for when we play the game again.
What we don’t like about the game
This is not a deal breaker but when they talk about the yellow neighborhood, the color is more lime green. Likewise, the beige neighborhoods’ color is more like a salmon color. This was an initial issue with us because we wanted truer colors.
We also agree with Tom that the wooden components could be larger. The small size can be easily lost if one rolls of the table onto the floor or carpet.
Other than that, a solid game overall.
FINAL THOUGHTS
This game is a hit for us. It is enjoyable due to the cupcake theme and the gameplay does not deter from that at all. From beginning to end it is all about the cupcakes.
Even at full retail price we would say this game is worth it for families to have and play. This game would be great to bring out at parties for a small group to play.
Tell me in the comments what your favorite cupcake is. Be as vivid as possible since we would like to
“taste it” based on your description. Yum!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment