Burger Up

Ever fancied running a successful Burger Restaurant? Well dream no more as Rule & Make’s Burger Up is here to help you stack those burgers high with a variety of tasty ingredients and be the first to sell them for a tidy profit!

Components

Within this 2-4 player game you will find all you need to, hopefully, make a success in the world of Burger Up! There are:

• 21 Top Bun Cards – The menu or order cards if you like.
• Eight double-sided Bottom Bun Cards – Two for each player.
• Four Spatula Cards.
• Four Player Aids.
• A large stack of 72 Ingredient Cards, all containing two items per card!
• 40 cardboard coins in values of $1, $5 and $10.

Finally there is a very informative, but light, rulebook to help you and your restaurateur rivals get started. Have a look at my unboxing video below to see all these components in more detail:

Gameplay

Each player in front of them has a double-sided player aid, listing the different phases in each turn and the money or victory points awarded for differing sizes of burgers made. They also have two Bottom Bun Cards, these will be the plates each person builds their burgers upon, a Spatula Card clean side up, and worth four points at the end of the game if unused, and finally $2 for purchasing that must have winning ingredient!

The Top Bun Cards are shuffled to make the Order Deck, and three are dealt face-up to form the Pending Orders area. These have fun names like The Iron Giant, Even Stevens or Garden Delight and each inform you of what ingredients need to feature in order for you to claim the card and get paid.

Three Ingredient Cards are dealt face-up to form the Market and each player is dealt four of these cards face-down as their hand. The rest of the cards are shuffled and become the Ingredients Deck.

The last person to have eaten a burger goes first and starts the Market Phase. If they require, they can use money (victory points) to purchase ingredients for $1 each. Phase two is for building and there are four types of burger you can make; Sandwich, Gourmet, Tower and Colossal, each getting higher in size and rewarding its maker bigger bucks on completion. Once an ingredient is placed onto a burger it cannot be moved unless with a Spatula Card, which costs VPs at the end of the game.

Phase three is Burger Up, where you can score your burger if it meets the order requirements and gets paid dollars for the appropriate size. The final phase is Clean Up. Here you can discard any number of ingredient cards and then draw back up to the hand limit of four, and if the Market is missing ingredients it should be replenished.

When building up your burger the ingredient last laid shows you the next type of ingredient that must be stacked on top of it, indicated by a coloured symbol. Some of the ingredients are considered “perfect” fillers and carry bonus $1 when scoring.

Play continues until there are no new orders to be made and the winner of the game is decided on whom ever has the most coins, with five bonus coins being awarded to the chef who has completed the most orders.

Final Thoughts on Burger Up

Burger Up has brilliant artwork and a great pace to the game. Play moves steadily through each of the turn phases and with every three or four ingredients placed the burger stacks get higher and higher as each chef races to finish their order first.

Players have to decide on whether to make smaller sandwich or gourmet sized burgers for a definite lower price or keep building up for more coins but risking someone else stealing that order before they have finished.

The rulebook is clear, helping you to learn quickly and launching you into the game. It’s a good play for newcomers and well versed in the gaming hobby, and has a fair amount of replay-ability. It’s fun to see the different types of burgers created and down time is low as everyone is focused on perfecting their own creations.

Burger Up is a culinary delight that should be served up at any Board Gaming Table. I suggest ordering one today!