Another new game has hit the table, this time Delicious by Pencil First Games. A roll and write around gardening sounds fun, and there are a couple out there. Delicious is the first one that I got to the table. And with getting all my fruits and veggies ready, is this a fun time, too simple, or what stands out about it?

How to Play Delicious

In Delicious you are trying to make your best garden. However there are rules on how you can place things in your garden. Each round you flip new cards and give tokens to them. The flipped cards either need to go on top or on the bottom section of your garden. However, each turn you decide if you want to change the position of those cards for you, or use both cards or just one card. And for each of them you can do it a limited number of times.

So once you’ve decided you fill in spots in your garden. Your garden plots are split into three areas, top and bottom for veggies and then a side area for fruit. Each spot has special rules with how you want to place your veggies for fruit. For veggies gardens are either matching, pairs, or different. And for fruit you get points for the same or different fruit in a row.

The game goes over 12 rounds where you’ll pick if you’re using both, one or switching where cards are each round. And each action has a limited number of times you can do it. Plus there are bonus areas where you can place a veggie or a fruit to add a bonus to your score. However, that takes away from placing a vegetable. At the end of the game you tally up your score from placing fruits and veggies and see who has the most.

What Doesn’t Work

This is a simple roll and write style game. Delicious doesn’t always offer the most choices, but there are some good choices in the game. Mainly around when you use both cards or not. Or when you flip cards from top to bottom for you or not. That is how you are able to focus on different areas. When you place your fruit or veggies that is pretty limited in terms of your decision making. So a fair amount of the game is luck.

Therefore, I suspect that the games replayability is going to be limited. While the tools and fruits, which I’ll talk about more in what I like, come out randomly as do the veggies, generally you understand what the options are. So as you play you likely will find a target path to go each game. With the biggest choices being around if you focus on the top plot of veggies or the bottom.

What Works?

How Many Cards

I like the choice the game does give you. While, yes, it is limited a lot of the time to what you can do, there are also interesting choices. In particular the choice of top or bottom can be interesting. But it’s really the choice of do I use one or two cards in a given around. You choose two early because you aren’t locked in, but it might mean you miss out on two good ones later. But you wait too long and now you lose the ability to use everything.

Fruits or Veggies

And I think the focus on either veggies or fruit can be interesting. And this stems from tools or fruits as tokens from the cards. You pick a card and that is always a veggie. But each card either contains a fruit or a tool. And some rounds you may play with two fruits in a round or two tools. But tools either help with veggies or with fruits. So where do you want to play with your flexibility?

When you play a tool it gives you a symbol. You fill in something you want in a row or column of that symbol. And you choose if you want to match the garden plot (top or bottom) of the card or if you use it for a fruit. And each way, either veggies or fruit is a good way to get points. So what and where you focus is another choice in the game.

Game Speed

The game is also fast once you understand it. I find that it is maybe a bit tougher to teach than the simplicity of the game might suggest. But it is not by any means a hard game to teach. Once you start playing Delicious turns and rounds go very fast. I like that every decision is being made at the same time in the game. When the cards flip you and I both are able to take our turns without waiting for one player to take a complete turn and then another.

Who Is Delicious For?

I think Delicious works well as a casual or family friendly roll and write game. It’s going to feel like just that little bit more than some of the more classic ones like Qwixx or Yahtzee, but not so much it is overwhelming. so I think it’s going to be a nice stepping stone roll and write style game. If you already know them really well and have played a lot, this is not going to be one to excite you. Unless, of course, you want to introduce people slightly more complex roll and writes.

Final Thoughts on Delicious

Delicious is a fun little game. I appreciate that Pencil First makes easy to pick-up games. I know when I pick-up a Pencil First Game it is going to be one that I can probably understand and teach really quickly. And Delicious very much is that sort of game.

The downfall for me, and why it might only stick in my collection for a bit, is the simplicity of the game. I find that the scoring between fruits and veggies is very balanced. And the top and bottom is as well. So it is possible to play a different game each time. But that is three combinations and how you balance them. I expect that I’ll find a rhythm of how I like to play. When I find that, I expect the game is going to start to feel a bit more samey. So if it stays is going to be determined by how well other people like the game.

My Grade: B
Casual Grade: B+
Gamer Grade: C-

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