Burger Master

• Designer: Jeppe Norsker
• Publisher:  Korea Boardgames
• Players:  1-6
• Age: 8+
• Time: 20 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Test your mettle in this competition to be the greatest burger chef of them all! Compete with other players in this fast-paced puzzle game to see who can complete the ever-more complicated orders to perfection in the shortest steps possible. Think you can do better than other players? Step up to the grill and prove it!

Complete the burger orders in the fewest steps possible to earn fries. Claim your title as the greatest burger chef by winning 5 fries!
. 40 unique challenges, hundreds of solutions.
. No down time.

To set up, decide if you are playing with the Value Menu deck (normal difficulty) or the Gourmet Menu deck (higher difficulty).  Shuffle the chosen deck and place on the table.  Get out all the ingredients and place a bun on each of the 4 plates.  Mix up the remaining ingredients and then place them on 3 of the 4 plates (leaving the 4th plate with only a bun).  If you are playing with the Gourmet deck, be sure to include the onions!  The onions are not needed for the Value Menu.

Once the players are set, reveal the top Menu card. All players now calculate how many steps it will take to construct the burger as shown on the card.  There are two different operations:

MOVE – move a stack of ingredients from one plate to another

FLIP – take a stack of ingredients and flip it over and place it on any other plate

Once a player thinks that they have solved the puzzle, they verbally announce the number of steps they think it will take and then they flip over the sand timer.  Until the time runs out, other players can declare a number less than the original declaration.

Whichever player has declared the lowest number now restarts the sand timer and now must try to construct the desired burger, counting each step as it is performed.  If the burger can be made in the stated number of steps, the declaring player gets a french fry as a reward.  If the burger cannot be made in the declared number of steps OR cannot be made before the timer runs out, everyone else gets a fry.

The game continues until someone has 5 fries.  If there is only one player, that player wins immediately.  Otherwise there is a sudden death round played amongst the tied players to determine the winner.

My thoughts on the game

Burger Master is the love child of the old arcade classic Burgertime and the Montessori favorite Towers of Hanoi.  Players are challenged to try to solve the puzzle in each round as quickly as possible.  You’ll have to do all this mentally as you don’t get a chance to actually try to solve it until the bidding is completed.

Once the initial bid is made, the timer is flipped over and everyone else has the added time pressure to try to come up with their solution.  There is also a bit of reverse time pressure placed on the first person to make a bid because you do have to make a bid as quickly as possible lest someone else beat you to your desired number.

The end result of all this time pressure turns out to be a whole bunch of speculative bids – sometimes players just blurt out a lower bid near the end of the sand timer.  Once the table has set upon a bid, then that player has the duration of a sand timer to actually solve the puzzle in the stated number of moves.

Normally, I don’t do well at these speed games – for whatever reason, my brain just doesn’t do well with these tasks.  That oftentimes means that I have no chance to score any points in a speed game.  As Burger Master awards points either to the player who solves the puzzle correctly OR everyone else if the correct solution isn’t made; I’m often in the middle of the pack even though I will likely go the whole game without ever getting a chance to touch the burger ingredients.

For me, this would be better as a solo challenge – just trying to solve each of the puzzles as best as I can.  In the multiplayer setting, I’m pretty much just a spectator.  

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it.
• Neutral. Steph H, John P, Dale (solo)
• Not for me…