Cake of Doom is hitting Kickstarter on 10th March. You can find more information about the game here or follow the kickstarter here.
Social links here:
Twitter: @CakeOfDoomGame
IG: @CakeOfDoomGame
This game was proved for free for purposes of this preview. As a preview, rules and components are liable to change. The free game does not affect my opinion. I am not that cheep. ;)
Cake of Doom is from first time designers Amar Chandarana and Pearl Ho. If you want to give it a try yourself, head to Tabletopia, Tabletop Simulator or Screentop.gg.
The game is set during an Alien invasion. You play the role of one Alien race trying to take over the human race, trying to bribe the hungry inhabitants with cake. The most obvious invasion technique. Although, I do feel it would be more effective in the U.K. than other countries.
Set Up
Give each player one asymmetric alien race card. This will be their character for the game and it will also give them a cool power to use as they play. Then give each player three blue and pink mischief cards and five green cake cards. If you prefer, you can let players choose their own cards with any breakdown of mischief or cake cards, up to eight. Place the remaining cards in two face down decks.
Next place the Doom card into the centre of the table along with the region cards. Five for a three player game, seven for a four player, nine for a five player, and eleven for a six player game. You are now ready to play.
How to Win
To win a game of Cake of Doom, you need to claim the Doom card. But you cannot get this until you have at least two region cards. You can win these cards by playing your cake cards. You can see how much each needs as a minimum on the card itself. When you win them, they will reward you with a control bonus.
How to Play
On your turn, you can play as many blue grab and steal cards as you wish. These will allow you to boost your cake supply. Then, you can try and make a bribe and win a region. You can play as many cake cards as you like. But the other players may then collectively play a sabotage card, so you may want to play a few more cards than you need to counter any negative effects coming your way. You can always block these with a suitable block card though, so having one spare could be very useful at this point.
You can either try and bribe a region currently not controlled by anyone, or a region that was previously won by another player. If you win, be sure to keep your cakes that you used in front of it, so that if another player tries to steal it from you in a later turn, all players will know how many cakes you used to win it. This is so they know how high they have to go to beat your bribe.
Some of the cake cards will give you a bonus as well as simply adding a cake to your bribe. Certain cakes will be better at targeting certain regions that others, based it seems, on their country of origins. Americans love their Apple pie! (more crumble for us brits. With custard, obvz!)
After a players has played their cards and attempted their bribe, they will then draw cards based on the current round. In round one, you draw one card. Round two, two cards. And so on. This creates a great pace to the game. As players hand's become more powerful as they game progresses, giving you all the chance to steal from each other, keep other players away from being able to attempt to get the Doom card, whilst trying to do this yourself. If you started with too many cards, the game would be over too quickly. If you ended with too few cards, you wouldn't ever be able to outbid other players previous bribes. It's a lovely build.
Cake of Doom is a fun, family-friendly card game, that has a delightful theme, and simple ruleset. I can see this being popular with young families, looking for a game to play on weekends, after dinner, and our at restaurants when waiting for your food. It has that classic card game feel, with an easy to understand strategy, but enjoyable take-that swing of mid-game leader.
Players will steal regions from each other, with card going to-and-fro between people around the table. There is a strong attack-the-leader vibe to this, as collectively, you cannot let anyone go for the Doom card before you. If anyone ever gets two regions, all players will then go after them, trying to bribe one of their regions from them.
As such, younger players may not enjoy having their cards taken from them. Take-that as a mechanic is always harder for those under eight years old to accept I find. And older children may be looking for a game with a more complex strategy. So, I would say this game has a perfect sweet spot of eight to twelve year olds, who I think would really enjoy this game.