Fast Food Fear!
Fast Food Fear! Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Game Components
This rules manual, 110 cards and a two-minute hourglass.
Setup
The player who was last in the kitchen (or just a random player) is appointed as Monster Chef and receives the placeholder making him the dealer. He gets the hourglass ready by making sure the sand is completely in one bulb, then divides the cards into those with the blue back and those with the red back.
He shuffles all the blue cards. Then he creates a Customers line, by lining up as many blue cards as there are players plus one, all face down (example: in a game of 4 players, the Customers line will be made up of 5 face-down cards). The remaining cards are stacked face down and placed to one side.
All the red-backed cards have to be shuffled in a single deck. After doing so, the Monster Chef will form a playing hand by dealing each player 6 cards face down; the remaining cards will remain stacked at the center of the playing board. All ready to cook? May the sauce be with you!
Our Specialties
Fast Food Fear offers no less than 12 courses. Some are more common, others more rare:
| Course | Cards |
|---|---|
| Fancy Sushi from the green swamp: enjoy it in all its freshness! | x3 |
| Stuffed Sandwich with seaweed and eel: for a light meal! | x3 |
| Tasty Pasta with tangled creepers: put your hunger in chains! | x3 |
| Mouth-watering Dessert of glazed donuts: an unparalleled confection! | x3 |
| Tasty Chicken with herbs from the ditch: try our secret recipe! | x5 |
| Sweetest Ice Cream from the ice planet: pure freezing joy! | x5 |
| Fabulous Pizza with fungi and lichens: for those who love an exotic flavour! | x6 |
| Super Hot Tacos from the fiery sands: a warmer palate! |
Gameplay
The game starts when the countdown begins, as soon as the Monster Chef turns the hourglass over. He then turns half the cards in the Customers line face up (rounding up, if necessary). At this point, starting from the dealer himself, players will take turns, in clockwise order.
Players can talk, suggest and coordinate so that one of the players (no matter who) can play from his hand, in his own turn, the combinations of courses that match the orders from Customers revealed in the "line", so that their cards can be removed from the game. Every Customer in the line is asking for 3 to 5 courses, which are listed in order of "rarity": the higher a course is on the list, the fewer matching cards are in the deck. The deck does not contain the same quantity of each of the different courses.
In each turn, a player has to (the active player chooses 1 – just one – of the following):
- play a combination of "courses" as appeared for a Customer in the line (the blue card is removed from the game, another customer in the "line" is revealed, if possible); or
- play 1 "event" to apply its effect (then, the "event" card is discarded); or
- discard any 1 card and pass the turn.
At the end of each player's turn, all players must draw cards from the top of the deck in order to bring their playing hands back to a full six-card hand before the next player plays his turn.
Once the deck runs out, the dealer will pick one blue card from the stack and add it to the Customers line, facing up. The dealer will then turn the discard pile upside down to form a new deck (don't shuffle it!).
Ending the Game
The game ends only in two ways:
- You lose! If the hourglass time ends. In this case, all players are defeated: and they will have to justify their delay to the hungry customers; or
- You win! When all the blue cards in the "line" of customers have been removed from the game — so all of them have been "served" correctly and on time.
Tips from the Monster Chef
For a Customer's order to be well underway, you need to have at least the first two courses on top of their list, the rarest.
This game takes place in "real time". The dealer can be very helpful in keeping a close eye on the hourglass in coordinating teamwork, managing the resources on the cards and monitoring the available time to avoid unnecessary confusion.
Variants
"Star" Cooks
Game variant designed for less experienced players.
Your restaurant begins with a 3 Star rating. If the hourglass runs out, the game is not over but the first Customer in the "line" goes away very mad and he writes a bad review of your restaurant. So your rating drops by 1 Star and 1 new Customer is added to the line. The game continues with a new hourglass of time. Things go on this way until your restaurant has no Stars or when you have satisfied all customers of the "line".
Practice this way until your group gets too good to keep playing this variant.
Next Please!
Game variant designed for experienced players: during the setup, when the dealer creates the "line" of Customers, he must add two blue cards to the number of players, instead of one. In addition, whenever someone plays an "event" card, it must be given to the Monster Chef: he keeps them stacked next to his placeholder until the end of the game (in this way the "event" cards aren't discarded, so they will not be put back into the deck when it runs out).