Filler: Review

Filler: Review

Information:

Mechanics: Hand Builder, Turn Bidding, Set Collection, Simultaneous Selection

Player Age: 8+ 

Player Count: 1 - 6 Players

Time to Play: 20 - 30 Minutes 
Game Designer: Jonathan Chaffer
Game Artist:  Claire Donaldson

Publisher: Green Couch Games

BGG Weight: 1.00

Disclaimer: A review copy for the game was provided by the publisher.

Objective:

You are a pastry chef trying to become the most renowned by building a repertoire of ingredients in your hand to effectively create any pastry that is required by the customers. So now it is time do what all pâtissiers are born to do; heat up the oven and the fill those pastries with delicious goodness.

Card Anatomy:

Turn Order Cards:

The turn order is constantly changing throughout the game, so you will find that this numbered card will definitely come in handy. At the start of every round, after the turn order is determined, these cards will be in front of each player designating their turn order for the round

Recipe Cards:

Each pastry card has several key factors on them; to the top left is the time which will be used to determine turn order. Below that on the left hand side are the ingredients that the card produces. Underneath this, some cards have victory points of either stars, trophies or cash. Lastly, below the main illustration are the ingredients needed to place this card in your hand from the recipe book.

Some cards have special abilities. The first ability in the image below is the ‘arrive early’ ability, where if this card is played with another card when determining turn order it will reduce your time by an hour. All the other abilities happen when the card is purchased. The next ability 'bonus fill' lets you purchase another card this turn. The 'bad batch' will let you remove one card out of your hand from the game, and lastly the 'bonus restock' will allow the player to return all of their discarded cards to their hand.

Starting Cards:

Each player will have a set of three starting cards, these have no victory points or effects; only time and ingredients.

Setup:

- Give each player a set of three starting cards and the matching reference card (that will help you with the rules).
- Create the recipe deck by shuffling into a deck 10 recipe cards per player.
- create a recipe book by revealing recipe cards from the deck equal to the amount of players plus one.

How to Play:

There will be several rounds of play to fully stock your kitchen. These rounds will continue until there are not enough recipes to refill the recipe book.

Establishing Turn Order:

Each player will determine how early they want to start their day. The recipe book isn't restocked until the end of the round so if there is a recipe you want you may want to start your day early and pick it up. To do this each player chooses a card and places it face-down. Once this is done each player reveals and discards their card. The player with the lowest time will go first and receive the first turn order card. The other turn order cards will be given to the other players corresponding to their recipe times. Once the turn order is decided each player will be able to fill or restock on their turn.

Fill:

This is when you add recipes to your hand by discarding any amount of cards (minimum, one) from your hand that have ingredients that match necessary ingredients of the recipe. If the recipe you just gained has any abilities that activate, they will do so now.

Restock:

As the game continues, the cards in your hand will grow smaller and your discard pile will grow. When you do this restock action you are able to draw all of your discarded cards into your hand so you have more options of ingredients and time. When this happens you can also reserve a card by placing it from the recipe book onto the top of the deck.

End of Day:

Once every player has had a turn, the round begins anew and the recipe book will be restocked (this restock is the amount of players plus one). The game will continue until there are not enough cards to restock the recipe book.

Scoring:

Bow we see who has built the best hand. Each victory symbol will give the player one point and each time there is a complete set (one of each victory symbol) the player will gain three extra bonus points. It is good to broaden your recipes throughout the game to cover an array of victory symbols.

Final Thoughts:

Pros:
- Wide player range (including solo).
- Deciding what cards to use for turn order and what to use for recipes makes for interesting decisions.
- Easy to teach and quick to play like the name suggests.
- The solo mode has six unique A.I. players to verse.

'Filler' is a fun game of hand management. While you play, you are trying to create a hand filled with early time cards, point cards of each victory symbol, and recipes with several ingredients. Obviously this isn't easy to achieve, with the special abilities added in, the challenge becomes even harder to manage. While thought provoking, Filler is still a quick game to play and easy to teach. If you are looking for a quick hand management game with a delicious theme then filler is for you.

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