The moment you have been waiting for is finally here! You get to build your very own cheese factory! Buy all the machines you can to help you out, and stock up on ingredients so you can make all the best and boldest cheese you can dream about! But, keep a sharp eye on the competition because they’re always trying to start fires in your factory and destroy your best machines. May the best cheese maker be crowned the big cheese!

What Is It?

Hand Management/Set Collection – Players are trying to gather certain ingredients for cheese recipes, but can only keep 5 ingredients in hand at the end of each turn, so they have to be careful not to collect too many without having what they need to craft cheese.

Engine Building – Players can use actions to buy new machines which give them abilities such as negating ingredients needed for recipes, drawing extra cards, and more.

Variable Player Powers – Players each get a unique ability that they can use once per game.

Take-That – Players can destroy each others’ machines with cheese fire cards to prevent them from getting benefits.

Who Is It For?

  • 2 to 4 Players – I thought at 2 players you often don’t see enough cards, because the decks are fairly big, but overall I think it works well at any player count
  • Ages 10 & Up – Pretty simple gameplay, and really adorable art, so I think it would be a good fit for a wide age range
  • Fans of set collection, hand management, and engine building
  • Players who don’t mind just a little take-that

PROS

  • Aesthetics – The Tiny Snek comics are just so cute! I like the vibrant colors across the cards
  • Rules are clear
  • Plays quickly and smoothly
  • Variety of player powers available so you can try different things out
  • I love the market stacking rule (same cards stack so that you don’t flood the market with all the same card); actually wish more games utilized this

CONS

  • I wasn’t sure how I felt about all the player powers. Some just seemed much better than others, even though they were all once per game. For instance, Steve can destroy a machine from everyone without a cheese card, but Penelope (unless she somehow knows what’s in everyone’s hands) just has a chance at getting an ingredient from everyone if they all happen to have it. And Turtyana could technically keep her ability all game if she never plays a cheese fire card, which isn’t terribly hard to avoid. It’s not the end of the world, but just something that caught my attention while playing
  • I was surprised there were only 2 cheese fire and 2 non-flammable token cards in the deck, because it seemed like it would be a bigger part of the game. With so few of the fires, it makes easy for players to stock up on machines, which I thought make the Firestarter machine very powerful (1 action to destroy a cheese over 6 points)
  • Similarly, since crafting cheese is how you get points and win, I thought the Cleaning Ray (crafting cheese does not cost actions) was very powerful, and it could be difficult to destroy if the right players aren’t getting cheese fire cards
  • Since the Curd Foam card is a one-off, I wish it had its’ ability written on the card

Final Thoughts

I thought the game was super cute. It had a great look and was a pretty smooth play overall. I did feel a little bit of unbalance in some areas, but that could also be from just not utilizing cards to the best of my abilities, or not knowing the best ways to combo cards. I thought game play was quick, so it’s a nice, light choice if you’re looking for something for just 20-ish minutes.

Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 6/10

Designer – Jason Anarchy
Artists – Alex Cohen, Gaelen Adric Izatt Galloway III
Publisher – Jason Anarchy Games
MSRP – $24.99 (Standard); $39.99 (Extra Cheese Edition)
Website

*I was provided a copy of this game to do this review*

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