Tonight's Gaming Menu: Killer Tacos, Numbered Melons, and Chai Garam

Tonight's Gaming Menu: Killer Tacos, Numbered Melons, and Chai Garam
Board Game: Tacopocalypse
• What's hitting the table today? Maybe a few games that can be played with a matching food or beverage, such as Tacopocalypse, which is due out in Q1 2022 from designer Mike Richie of U.S. publisher Redshift Games.

Here's an overview of this 3-6 player game:
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Serve up the best (mutated) foods in the fast-paced drafting game Tacopocalypse. Build combo plates that need to be sold before they eat you, and always be ready to scramble for the Wasteland's best condiments. Push your luck to score big, but beware the monstrous Chalupacabra!

In more detail, each turn players select a food card from their hand. All players reveal their cards simultaneously and either begin a combo plate or add to their already existing one. A player's combo plate must consist of all the same or all different food cards. If a card is played that cannot be added, then the combo plate is discarded without scoring it.

When any two players play the same food card, all players attempt to grab a condiment card. Will you get Nuclear Hot Sauce to enhance your plate, make your opponents fill up on Chips & Dip, or unleash the Dreaded Monstrous Chalupacabra? There is always one fewer condiment cards on the table than the number of players. These cards allow for greater scoring, opponent bashing, and multiple scoring options. Players then score any combo plates they wish, then pass their hand to the player on their left. This draft-and-play continues until the hands run out. Play as many rounds as you wish, then the player with the highest score wins!
• Feeling a tad thirsty after those treats? How about something to drink in the form of Chai Garam, courtesy of designer Sidhant Chand and Indian publisher Dice Toy Labs?

Board Game: Chai Garam

This 1-4 player design hit the market in Q4 2021, so you might have to re-heat it prior to playing:
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Can you ensure a garam (hot) cup of chai (tea) is served to your ever-growing customers on a rainy day? Get ready to dive deep into running a chai tapri (tea shop) by ensuring that your customers get their specific chai and snack orders on time. Earn their appreciation for every correct order, but be quick as another player might steal a few of them away. Run the most successful shop, and be the wealthiest player at the end of the game!

Each turn in Chai Garam, players take one mandatory action, either selecting up to three ingredients from the display (tea leaves, additives, water, milk, godown power cards, etc.) or serving their cooked tea to the grid of customers in the central board and collecting money.

Board Game: Chai Garam

Additionally as free actions, players need to cook tea, compete for goals to improve their star ratings, attract customers to their own shops, or play a "Chai Garam" card to take a double action! The game continues until a special "evening" customer triggers the end of play or any player achieves five stars. At that point, whoever has the highest value from money as well as stars wins.
Board Game: Countaloupe
• If you're looking for a sweet to end the meal, perhaps you could go with Countaloupe from designer Anthony Vadasz and U.S. publisher Bananagrams, which seems determined to have a game in its catalog for each fruit in existence.

This 2-4 player was first released in the fruit-free form of Switch 16 in 2001, but now it's been made palatable for consumption:
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Your goal in Countaloupe is to rid yourself of slice cards as quickly as possible, and whoever clears their plate first wins.

Each player starts with slices numbered 1-16. On a turn, you roll 3-5 dice (depending on your current top slice) and the chance die. After your roll, if any single die or the sum of any number of dice matches your top slice, you remove it; keep removing slices as long as the numbers add up. If, for example, you rolled 1, 2, 5 at the start of the game, you could remove the 1, 2 & 3 slices. You now either end your turn or roll again. If you roll again and fail to remove a slice, you must place slice cards back on your deck as a penalty.

Board Game: Countaloupe

The chance die may give you the opportunity to swap decks with another player — or force you to swap with whoever has the largest deck! Alternatively, you might gain the Nope! token and use it to block a deck, whether to keep an opponent from removing cards from it or to protect your deck from being stolen.

Countalope can also be played as a multi-round game, with players scoring 1 point per card removed, with a game ending when someone has 16 points. Whoever reaches 100 points first wins.

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