Last Minute Card Game Gift Idea

December 20th is Games Day and 28th is National Card Game Day, so looking ahead to those fun holidays, and just in case you are looking for last minute gifts, I'm going to review the game Cake Stacker that I got through the Amazon Vine program. A multiplayer solitaire like game, this looked yummy because you are building cakes, something we cover fairly often here on The Chocolate Cult. I tested it out with my family to discover if it was rewarding, relaxing, and fun for us to play? Keep reading to find out and note there will be a lot of photos to show you what this game looks like. I received this game for free in exchange for writing a review of it on Amazon; this article is an expected bonus for both the publisher and that seller site.

Let's look at what is inside the box first. Look at the previous photo and you can see that that the instruction sheet doesn't fit well in the box, even folded in half wasn't enough, an edge of it was folded again. That refolded edge resulted in a torn section near the top that you can see in the photo to the right. This was the state of the instruction even before we took it from the box. Since the cards themselves fit easily into the box with room to spare, we were confused about why the directions couldn't have been made to fold up easily to fit into the box, too.

Four people can play this game because there are four decks of identical face side cards that different on the back side by color and by cooking tool on them. Pink Wooden Spoon, Yellow Rolling Pin, Green Whisk, and Blue Piping Tool (which I would call a bag in the USA but this is a UK game so I expect that the terminology is slightly different). You can pick your deck based on color or the tool; we picked based on color.

Cake Stacker Decks

I was hoping this could be a fun game that my family might relax with but two facts actually made it stressful for us to play.

First reason why it was more stressful was the instructions. Some of the instructions on how to play are unclear. For example, do you make one discarded pile from your stockpile or just lay those extra cards anywhere not on your work piles? If the goal is to move all of your stockpile and work piles into the center why does the game end when one player simply exhausts their stockpile? Or did we misunderstand the rules because they were unclear. While there was a sheet with the brand website on it, it said to contact them if you were unhappy, I checked it out to see if there was a video showing how to play, but while I could click on that, it simply said "coming soon" (as of December 31, 2021). To be blunt, you shouldn't need a video to show you how to play or more details on the website, the instructions with the game's box should be clear.

Based on what we think we figured out about how to play the game, it is like a multiplayer solitaire game. You build up four types of cakes (images to follow below) from the cake stand (photo to the right) to the crumbs left after you would finish eating it. Each cake has four layers between those two cakes -- three are cake layers that are easy to see and one is the top layer with lit candles. The lit candles make it feel like a birthday cake more than any other holiday, doesn't it? I'll show you the two clearly chocolate cakes below though you could argue that the Rainbow Cake could be any flavor under the icing, most of the time I've seen such cake had multicolored batter as well which is easiest to do with vanilla cake.

Chocolate Fudge Cake Candle Lit Top

Red Velvet Cake Candle Lit Top

The second reason this game wasn't relaxing and fun for my family is that this is a free-for-all style of game, not turn based. Yes, that makes it fast-paced, but that is often stressful for our family to play. Since our goal when we play games is to have fun, not to feel stressed, this was a turnoff immediately for one family member. A lot of families and individuals might love this type of fast-paced game though so if that sound fun to you, it could make a great gift this holiday season. Plus it isn't specific to any particularly holiday so you can give it as a gift to any cake lover you know.