Where Hoddog walked, Sosig runs, with fun modifiers and an order system that replaces the set building mechanics, making the sausage-assembling game feel like a strategic upgrade and perfect travel partner to Scrungo Games’ other compact, food-themed game.
I’ll often talk about the merits of a game having a compact box and clear rules, which is something that the latest food-themed offerings from Scrungo Games have had. Both Hoddog and Sosig come as fist-sized cubes, which can sometimes indicate a simple (in concept or complexity) game, however, that’s not the case in Sosig. It’s certainly not as deep as your euros or engine builders, but there’s enough going for it that sabotage and strategy can come into play.
To set up Sosig you’ll need to separate out the Head, Body, Order, Award and Mystery Meat cards, shuffling each one independently and then placing them down. You’ll keep just one award, which’ll give some bonus points at the end of play. You’ll flip two orders, two body cards and one head card up, and place the mystery meats face down. This’ll create a central area comprised of 10 areas – of which four are draw piles.
Players then take turns drawing one card from the body or head piles, or face up areas, and laying it down in front of them. The goal is simple, to complete as many orders as you can, and you get the chance to claim the cards as your own when you complete your sosig. Notably, if you play cleverly, you can complete multiple orders at once, although the rules are unclear about whether you can technically complete orders the moment that they are laid down to replenish a completed one (I’m going to assume, no).
Where Sosig gets really interesting is in the mystery meats. These the modifiers that I opened with, and it is in here that you can sabotage others. A burn card will reduce a sosig card to zero value (if its not wrapped in pastry, of course), while chomping, similarly, can undo a complete sosig on any non-pastry tiles. It’s just enough sabotage that it won’t crop up often, and it can be a real gamechanger. You get access to these through completing orders, and don’t need to play them immediately.
Add to this that different sosig cards can grant multipliers for adjacently or quantity and there’s actually quite a few moving parts when it comes to scoring. After that it’s time to tally up the award goal too, which if you fail to meet the minimum threshold can also see you docked points.
While Sosig will definitely need somebody present who is willing to run through the point tallies, it’s a fantastic game for younger children and serves as a solid introduction to sabotage elements. I also want to reiterate that the size of it makes it perfectly portable, easily putting it up there with games like OK Play. albeit not as tactile.
You can find out more about Sosig on the Scrungo Games website.
