Desserts for National Card Playing Day

If you play card games you may have heard of a company called Looney Labs. Their most famous games are part of their Fluxx series of games but they also make other fun card games that we have in my house including Aquarius and Chrononauts. This past spring I was sent a new game from Looney Labs via the Vine Reviewer program that I am part of at Amazon.com, called Just Desserts Game.
We've been playing it for months and months now. December 28th is National Card Playing Day and tomorrow is Christmas. If you are looking for a great last minute gift idea, you need to check out this game. It would make a great stocking stuffer, too. Here's why!

The basic story behind the game is that you are a waiter in a very strange restaurant. It is strange on two levels. First it only serves dessert items. Second the items are made before orders are placed and that means you may have trouble giving customers what they want. The card has a total of 100 cards of two types -- "Just Desserts" or "Guest."


There are 24 guests cards are organized in six suits represented by colors and icons. Below you can see one card from each suit. You can have up to six guests out at one time but if they share the same suit then one must be discarded though it is not yet out of the game.

I counted 76 dessert cards which list various treats including ones I've only heard of in passing but have never tried myself.  Of these 76 cards, 24 desserts include chocolate represented by a chocolate square icon in the upper left hand corner of the card.  There are 12 "taste icons" possible but they only appear as 1-4 icons per card. Here is the chart of the taste icons:

Here are four of the 24 chocolate desserts you could serve:

Unlike the Fluxx games the directions here are stable and do not change though they do offer three variations if you want to make the game more challenging. The game is very simple to learn but that is deceiving. While most guests have a favorite dessert you may not have that particular treat when they come up to the "restaurant" so you have to offer other goodies that include their favored taste icons but not ingredients that guests lists as "hated" or "not allowed" with a line through that icon.

The game can be played with only two people or up to five players and since it is very much based on visual and not text, I believe it can be enjoyed by ages 8+ as the box suggests. We've had a lot of fun with it especially when you add in silly voices for the guests as you play. Check it out using our link below and you can help The Chocolate Cult through the Amazon Affiliate program. If you've played it, leave a comment and let us know if you think it is fun to play, too.