Making beautiful cakes is a great pastime, especially if you do it without making the entire kitchen a mess. In Frenemy Pastry Party, you and your friends are working together to make pastries, while also trying to get the most points that they can individually.
Frenemy Pastry Party has you trying to collect ingredients to make one of the cakes shown in the middle of the table. On your turn, you can pick an ingredient from the inventory in the middle of the table or try baking one of the cakes. A lot of what you do will be dependent on your special card; each adorned with a cute animal who wants a specific thing — mangos, a variety of ingredients or some other fruit.
Making cakes is where the other players are your friends or your enemies. You’ll most likely not have all the ingredients needed for the cake, so you will need to ask individuals directly for the missing ingredients. They can claim not to have it or give up the ingredients that you need. Each person who helps you will get one point for the ingredients they put down, which get put in their personal discard piles. Whoever is making the cake will give up their ingredients permanently for the cake card, which is worth three points total. If you cannot make a cake with the cards in your hand and the help of the other players, the cake card goes back into the middle of the table and you end your turn, basically doing nothing on your turn and waiting for the next one.
Putting up ingredient cards that match whatever your animal card can really help you gain extra points in the end, which gives you a reason to help others in the game. Most of the time, you’ll need to have the most of a specific card, so watching what other people are putting in their personal discard is a large part of the game.
Watching other players and trying to figure out how to best benefit yourself while not revealing what type of card you are looking for becomes a challenge as you horde mangos or try to grab loads of cards at once. We had one player who refused to help anyone, just because he wanted to make the cakes himself.
The game ends when all of the ingredient cards are gone, at which point another turn isn’t done, and everyone starts revealing their cute animal card and counting up points. Frenemy Pastry Party is a light and fast game that’s super easy to understand. The artwork on the cards is the best I have ever seen in baked games, showcasing some beautiful bakes that I would really love to eat in the real world.
Frenemy Pastry Party is also small, so it’s easy to take it around to wherever you are, just so that you can work together while also trying to beat your friends at cute cake making! We came across this game at UKGE and I just had to pick up a copy. It’s really been a lovely addition to my food-themed board game obsession.
You can purchase Frenemy Pastry Party on the developer, Mizo’s website.
