We all love a good party game. Unfortunately, due to the ongoing pandemic, we can’t really get together and play those a lot anymore. Luckily, I live with my girlfriend and fellow reviewer Maui and we had the chance to try out this little game by BreakFirst. In Instant Chef Party you can play with up to 4 players in a series of mini-games themed around… you guessed it: food. I’m not a great cook myself, but I still took my chance and dived into Instant Chef Party. Let me share my thoughts with you.
We played Instant Chef Party for 4 hours on the Nintendo Switch.
What we liked!
- Fun minigames: When you’re moving around the board, you land on various spots that can trigger a minigame. You’ll also have to participate in a minigame at the end of a round (after everyone rolled the dice and moved). There’s a total of thirteen minigames, and the game chooses which one you have to play. Every minigame is food themed and this was really fun. Some of the games involved growing as many vegetables as possible, memory, doing the dishes, making burgers etc.
- Dice choice: There are various dices in play, and some make you take steps back instead of forward. And that is definitely not what you want because the goal is to be the first to reach the end of the board (which can be 20, 30 or 50 steps depending on how long you want to play). The player that wins the minigame at the end of the turn, has first choice when choosing a new dice. Every dice has a name, like salted caramel, cookie, peanut butter, and so on.
Somewhere between
- Unclear explanations: Before every minigame, there is a short explanation telling you what the goal of the game is. It also shows how you have to use your Joy-Con. This is where things went a bit wrong. It wasn’t always clear how you had to hold your Joy-Con, and at some point I was holding it entirely wrong. By the time I figured out I wasn’t doing what I should’ve been doing, the minigame was over. And I lost.
- Repetitive: Thirteen minigames might sound like a lot but honestly, the gameplay got repetitive quite fast. We only played with two players, but I can imagine playing with four people can also be tedious. You spend a lot of time rolling dice and moving on the board, and frankly, this is rather boring. The game is fun, but only for like half an hour and then you put away it for a while, and you might just forget about it until friends visit and you want to play a party game.
What we disliked
- Lag: When you are playing the minigames or when you are moving around the board, you will experience a lot of lag. It’s really annoying because you constantly get the feeling that the game is going to stop working. And it takes up a lot of time. It ruined the gameplay experience a bit too much for both me and my girlfriend.
CONCLUSION
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