Finding your Hidden Gem
What is your Hidden Gem, the board game that you own that is not well known but is a lot of fun to play and should be more popular?
Recently on a post to our favourite subreddit r/boardgames, that question was asked to the community, and it made me think what my Hidden Gem was and how that was such a great question.
After giving it some thought, let’s be honest, it took me about 2 min to identify what it was.
I shared with the community about this game that is close to my heart Burger Up and thought to myself more people need to know about this game so if you have a moment to spare id like to introduce you to my hidden gem of a board game Burger Up.
About Burger Up
Burger Up is a fantastic card matching puzzle game focused around the art of burger making. Published by Australian based publisher Rule & Make and designed by Allen, Alister, Matt & Stephen.
This game was a Kickstarter success that launched the company into the international tabletop gaming spotlight.
The Team behind Burger Up:
Matt Parkes — Game Design
Alistair Kearney — Development & Production
Allen Chang — Development & Graphic Design
Stephen Gibson — Artist
Burger Up is a 2 – 4 Player Game that runs for 15 – 30min
Players will spend there turns taking actions to fulfil customers burger orders. In the process of achieving these orders, they can earn prestige points to make themselves more efficient.
Becoming more efficient will allow players to be able to work on two different burgers at once.
Players can alternatively choose to stay on the path of earning money (Victory Points) for each Burger created but may find themselves being left behind as other players can produce more burgers later on in the game.
This on the journey becomes the best burger chef around!
Players strive to become the most prestigious restaurant and crowned the best burger chef by building the biggest Burgers and by using the best ingredients.
The Phases in the Game
Each round players will take turns, with each turn consisting of four different phases:
Phase One:
The Market phase where players may purchase ingredients from the market to add to there Burger in addition to the ones in their hand.
Phase Two:
The Building phase, where players place up to 3 ingredients on their burgers.
Phase Three:
In the third Burger Up! Phase players may choose to score their burgers if they satisfy an order gaining the coins relative to that order.
Phase Four:
The final clean-up phase, where players draw back up to 4 cards and the order deck is checked to make sure that the game continues.
The game will end when there are no more order cards left in the deck, leaving two unfinished order cards on the table unfinished.
Finally, a bonus is awarded at the end of the game to the player that was the most productive and built the most burgers.
The winner is determined, based on who has earned the most coins at the end of the game.
Gameplay Video
Check out the video below from Rule & Make to watch how to play the game Instead of us just writing all about it. Watch below as the game’s creators explain the rules of Burger Up whilst playing a three-player game.
Why is it a Hidden Gem
Burger Up is another example of Kickstarter bringing a fantastic board game to life for us to experience. I absolutely love this game it is light and easy to play and teach people while also providing enough options to make it a challenge as players become more experienced and play the game more.
It is the perfect balance between a strategy game and a party game with the added bonus of including a great theme of burgers this game is defiantly one to add to the collection, being a Kickstarter game and the publisher recently going out of business may make it more and more difficult to find in the future so if you are able to find a copy I recommend getting it and holding onto it.
This game has become harder to find since Rule & Make has closed down