Introduction
Access
To play Yes Chef! you need some space to spread out cards that everyone can conveniently reach. You need to play in real time. Players need to be able to hold their hands in secret, and there’s a lot of fast hand movement. The game doesn’t require you to talk but it’s likely people will make loud sounds with slaps of hands or movement of cards.
And always: Remember to respect the players and their needs.
Components
In your copy of YES CHEF!, you should have the following:
- 25 Food Cards
- 25 Customer Cards
How To Play
You’re trying to collect satisfied customers. You do this by matching a customer card in your hand with a foodstuff that’s been flipped up.
Also: The game is real time. You can draw your cards as soon as you’ve played them. The only thing the game stops for is when a player is ready to flip a new card!
Setup
Take the food cards and put them face-down in front of the group. Spread the cards out, smoosh ‘em around, make sure they’re not sitting tidily together. You need some cards to be on top of other cards and you need the cards to be mixed around messily. All cards need to be face down.
Then, shuffle the customer cards and put them somewhere where all players can reach them, and each player draws 3 cards. Ready to go?
Play starts with the player who most recently complimented a chef, or choose someone at random.
Play
The player who’s starting chooses a food card and flips it face up. That card shows a food stuff with one or more symbols on it, showing the kind of food it is:
Rich Salty Spicy Sweet Hearty
Every food is at least one of these types.
When the card gets flipped, you can immediately put a customer card from your hand onto it. The first player to put an appropriate card on the stack, a customer who actually wants that food, gets that customer card and food card together. If nobody puts down a card that works, the player who put down a card first gets it – but it’s an unsatisfied customer!
If nobody wants the food that’s available, it gets set aside, and nobody gets it.
Whenever you get a card, you set it aside next to you. Keep unsatisfied customers upside down so you can remember them.
If you want, you can discard a customer – ignoring that customer – to draw another card! Doing that will cost you at the end, when the time comes to check the points, though!
One the food and customers have been sorted out, the player who got the card is the new card flipping player and has to flip a new card when everyone’s ready.
Winning
When all the food cards are used or set aside, each player checks their cards to see who won! All customers left in hand become unsatisfied customers.
A player gets 1 point for a satisfied customer, and loses 2 points for each unsatisfied customer.
Credits
Game, Rulebook, Art: Talen Lee
Creative Commons Resources: http://game-icons.net
Special Thanks
To Flynn and Rhys
To Flynn and Rhys’ grandfather