Too Many Cooks (2002)

This Reiner Knizia concoction is a sort of a trick-taking game, but instead of everybody playing one card and seeing which one wins the trick, everybody takes turns adding cards until the total adds up to 10 or more and the player who added that card takes the whole pile.

This can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the player's goal for that particular round! There are five rounds in the game and exactly five different goals to be fulfilled: to take as many mushroom cards as you can, or as many pea soup cards, or as many onion cards, or as many chili pepper cards, or to take no cards at all. (The pepper cards, incidentally, count minus 1 unless your goal for the round is to collect them.) Goals are revealed simultaneously, so you may or may not be in competition with another player for the same cards during the round. And you can't choose a goal you've already chosen, so things can get pretty tough especially on the last hand, where no matter what cards you're dealt, you *have* to go for whichever of the five goals you haven't done already.

Since the game is always exactly five rounds, it lasts a good dependable half an hour every time.

Awards

• 2005 Nederlandse Spellenprijs Nominee.