Mouse Tar Tar

I guess I should update this. I find my self frequently the Game Design Showdowns less frequently on BGDF than in the past. Mostly this is a combination of:
A) I've won numerous times, therefore my desire to win has been lessened.
B) I've got enough of my own projects to work on.
C) The general bugginess of the BGDF has been experiencing with some upgrades occuring with it's ISP has been rather limiting my time there.

Anyway, my last attempt was back in October, with a rather bad finish of 6th place. Part of this I attribute to the fact that I completely missed one of the requirements: Set Collection, I believe.

There is usually the common complaint during these things about 800 words not being enough; this entry continued my downward spiral of trying to create something with less and less words, targeting more simpler party games with an interesting easy-to-grasp gimmick than trying to shoehorn an overly done gamer's experience. Plus, a continued avoidance of graphics, when possible, just to make it a bit more challenging.

Hence, the wackiness of building food platters with play-doh while trying to hide little plastic rodents within the food.

All of the gory details about the contest can be found here at the October 2007 GDS challenge link, otherwise known as "Eating Crow."

Chocolate Mouse
Each player gets 1 player screen, and 10 Bucks. Bucks are single coins or chits.

Additionally, each player gets two small, plastic dishes to create food items on.

One player gets the Food Critic badge. This is passed to the player on the left at the end of each round. Any player who is not the Critic becomes a Chef for that round.

Place on the table in the center where everyone can reach:

• Containers of various colors of play-doh.
• A pile of tiny plastic Grey Mice.
• The deck of Entrees and the deck of Sidedishes, both face-down.
• A 6 sided die, known as the Health Inspector.

A Round of Play:
If a Chef has at least one Rat, he must roll the die. If the Chef has more Rats than the die roll, he discards 2 Rats, gives half of his Bucks to the Critic, and must sit out this round.

The Critic draws 4 Entrees and 2 Sidedishes. He selects one of each, and discards the rest.

The Critic places his selected dishes face up on the center of the table. The Chefs will need to make these dishes to the best of their abilities and using the play-doh.

The cards are simple text descriptions of basic menu items: "T-Bone SteaK" and "Garden Salad".

The Critic should close his eyes, or leave the room, for the next phase of the game.

All Chefs secretly select an amount of Bucks and place that amount into the fist. All Chefs reveal their selected amounts.

For each Buck selected, each Chef can take play-doh of a different color. SO if a Chef selected 3 Bucks, he can take play-doh of three different colors. There should be enough play-doh for everyone; one player cannot "capture" a color from any other player.

However, the player (or players) who has selected the most Bucks must also take an amount of Rats equal to the amount of Bucks they selected minus the amount of Bucks that the next highest player has played.

Example: Steven and Joy both played 4 Bucks. Fred played 2 Bucks. Steven and Joy get to select 4 colors of play-doh, but they also have to take 2 Rats. Fred takes two color of play-doh.

Behind the screens, each Chef must now use their play-doh to construct the best looking Entree and Sidedish. If a Chef has one or more Rats, a Chef may try and hide the Rats in his dishes. Players are not allowed to mix colors of playdoh.

When all Chefs are done, they present their finished dishes by placing them randomly at the center of the table.

The Critic returns to the table (or opens his eyes), and takes 10 Bucks from the stock. He can touch the dishes, but can examine them closely. He votes on the most tasty looking dishes by placing up to 5 Bucks next to any dishes he wish. Otherwise he may divide up the Bucks any way he wishes.

Finally, the Critic may complain that any dish has Rats in it. If the accusation is true (by physically taking apart the play-doh in the dish), the Critic collects the Bucks next to the dish. If the Critic is wrong, the Critic must match the Bucks next to the suspect dish with Bucks from his own account.

The Chefs reveal who created what dish, and collect the Bucks next to their dishes.

The dishes are collected, and the play-doh is seperated back into the correct colors (as much as possible) for the next round.

For the Win:
After all players have had a chance to be a Critic three times, the game ends. A player's score is the amount of Bucks they have minus 2 bucks per Rat. Whoever has the highest score wins.