We’re throwing a huge outdoor party – won’t you attend? We’ll need maids from all the houses to help with preparing the park for the festivities. So, send your best maids to complete food, cleaning, and decoration errands, and let the epic party begin!

What Is It?

Action Drafting – At the start of each round, players will each draft a high class maid which might give them a special ability (i.e. taking first player, or buying extra cards that round), or allow them to have their maids “get to work” – gain the top card of an errand deck for points

Deck Building – Players start with a few cards in their deck and will use their “love” cards to “employ” more staff cards and add them to their deck

Limited Card Play – Players start each round with one “serving,” which is how they will play maid cards. They’ll have to be strategic about what cards they buy, and work to have a good combination of cards to be able to play more maids per turn

Who Is It For?

  • 2 to 4 Players – Scales well. Game has you remove some cards when playing with less than 4 to help keep the game in the right time frame
  • Ages 14 & Up / Mid-Weight Gamers – Not for younger players because the art is a bit risque. Pretty simple deck building game, but I think a static market relies more on upfront strategy, so I think it’s good for players familiar with the mechanism
  • Fans of deck building game and action management
  • Players who don’t mind static markets

PROS

  • Aesthetics – As long as you don’t mind the art style, the art is really nice!
  • Components – Nice cards; the oversized cards for the actions are fun, if a bit unnecessary
  • Rules – Well-written with some good examples
  • Easy set-up
  • Good variety of High Class Maids – even if you pick last you still have some choice
  • Interesting balance of not always being able to buy the point cards unless you took the right High Class Maid. It’s all about buying the right cards and building a strong deck, like any deck building game, but also knowing what action to draft to make the most of the cards you have that round

CONS

  • Personally, I prefer a rotating market in deck building games so that no one can rely on a go-to strategy from the start. There’s a bit of variety in maid cards each game (choose 10 out of 13 to play with), but not much
  • I wish 1st player just rotated instead of forcing players to take it as their action for the round
  • I don’t feel a strong sense of the theme
  • The game doesn’t come with dividers, so the cards just sit in the box in a single stack. I’m also not bit on the long rectangle box in general

Final Thoughts

The game box says “deck building” and “worker placement,” but that isn’t how I would describe it myself. To me, worker placement is where you are sending workers out to spots each round (i.e. Asking for Trobils, or Everdell). While you could block players from “spots” by taking the High Class Maids that let you grab errand cards, it didn’t feel to me like the maids were going to spots, so to speak, like a usual worker placement game. I’d describe it more as deck building with action selection.

I don’t love the static market. I really prefer not knowing exactly what cards are going to be out each turn because I think it keeps things more interesting, instead of watching players buy up the same cards each turn because they seem to be the best. However, I do really like how players have to balance the High Class Maid actions alongside their normal turns.

Overall, a solid deck building game if you’re a fan of the genre!

Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 6.5/10

Designer – Masayuki Kudou
Artists – Tohru Adumi, COMTA, F.S, Akira Hayase + more
Publishers – Japanime Games, Arclight Games
MSRP – $39.95
Website

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

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