The perk that I truly enjoy as an Indonesian of Chinese descent is celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival. Well, we don’t really celebrate it like a party. But it’s a time synonymous with mooncakes. Sharing the cultural ties with the Chinese community in Singapore, it feels fitting that a game centred on this tradition was born: Mooncake Master.
In Mooncake Master, Origame casts players in the role of mooncake artisans rather than in consumers. Over the course of the game, we then craft these delicacies, trying to satisfy coming clientele. Three rounds, three mooncakes each. And then come those three picky patrons, too.
Baking the mooncakes
Daryl Chow’s design dissects each mooncake into four equal quarters.Each square card depicts these quadrants with its various components that make up the complete confection: flavours, egg yolks, seeds, and nuts. I appreciate how they present these information in a tidy and clear manner. It’s effortless to identify everything on the card.
This streamlined graphic design helps lessen the downtime when doing the scoring at the conclusion of each round. But, before addressing this scoring aspect further, let’s take a look at the game flow.
Three cards are distributed to every player each turn. And actions occur simultaneously. We pick one card and pass the remaining — one to the left, and another one to the right neighbour. In the end, we will get three cards per turn. This process continues until we have completed baking three mooncakes. It doesn’t take long to finish a session. The swift pace positions Mooncake Master as a suitable filler game.
At this point, it’s clear that the drafting mechanic constitutes the core gameplay of Mooncake Master. A closed draft, to be exact. It bears resemblance to the mechanic we can find in Sushi Go! But on a smaller scale and shorter duration. Picking which mooncake tile from the three options depends heavily on the placement limitations and scoring requirements. Don’t forget that we also have to take the two tiles provided by the neighbouring players into account. It is reasonable to say that luck plays a significant role here. It’s challenging to bypass, or even mitigate, bad tiles due to hate-drafting.
The scoring in Mooncake Master is derived from both the so-called scoring table and the customer cards. The former one is a bit more complicated. At the end of each round, we compare the three mooncakes we have baked with the scoring table. This determines the yield in Taste Value. This value is based on the single or multi-flavour, numbers and shape of the egg yolks, and the pairing of seeds and nuts. We then compared this value among all players. In the end, the victory points of this round is awarded based on the relative performance in this metric.
With the Taste Value, this first scoring system provides strong incentive when adhering the requirements. It’s a difficult challenge, to be honest. Particularly because two out of the three mooncakes tiles we receive each turn are really depending on the whims of our neighbouring players. Plus the limitations in placement to reap the reward. Mooncake Master evokes a sense of attempting to solve a puzzle with random pieces handed our way.
The latter scoring system is much more straightforward. The patrons arrive with specific preferences. With this one, we don’t need to compete with one another to earn victory points. As long as the mooncake adheres with their needs, we earn victory points. Nevertheless, the challenge remains.
The mooncake we partially baked during the game is treated as open information. Thus, it’s really prone to hate drafting. We can just take one card that really benefits us — and then distribute the rest based on whatever our neighbours are currently baking. Giving them the worst tiles to place is actually the strategy in Mooncake Master. Sabotaging them to get the best rewards.
Mooncake Master’s design
Mooncake Master has undergone a redesign. The previous version was, albeit visually appealing, bigger and personally, a bit overproduced. I prefer this version more. It is much more compact and practical — easier to store and takes less table space. The scoring track is particularly a clever touch. Because it is now printed on the side of the box, a commendable efficiency, using the space that otherwise unused.
The game shines as a family game. It caters perfectly to casual gamers who seek something more engaging and more intellectually stimulating experience than offered by games from the social deduction genre. Mooncake Master resembles a puzzle. We must integrate available pieces offered by the other players to maximise points.
I am a full-time food technologist during weekdays. However, when the calendar hits weekends, I transform into an avid board gamer. I am a hardcore Legend of the Five Rings (L5R) LCG player from Fantasy Flight Games (FFG). Current hobby: buying board games. My shelf of shame’s list is getting longer, thanks to you, Kickstarter.
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