Entry 08

In class on Thursday our group played Burger Truck Battle. Using Altice's chapter, I will be analyzing how the game played and what I thought about it. When it comes to the cards, we each got to choose which burger truck card we wanted to be. Right off the bat I noticed that each truck card was pretty different, which when reading what Altice wrote about the "uniform" is not that common. However upon further playing, it was apparent that every other card, such as customers, and ingredients were identical which backs up Altice's "uniform" paragraph. The uniformity of the ingredient cards "guarantees fairness" in a way that each player is unfamiliar with what the opposing players (or burger trucks) have in their hand. If you attempt to use your "french fry" card, the person you choose to steal a customer from may be sitting on a "ketchup" card which acts as a block.

The play space wasn't anything special. We just used our own desks and placed the cards wherever everyone could reach them from. Like Altice writes in the "Spatial" section, the cards need a flat surface for arrangement and display. We used an empty desk in the middle of all of us to set the draw, discard and dieted customer piles in an easily accessible area.

The way it plays is you use all four burger ingredients (bun, patty, lettuce, and tomato) to get a customer to come to your truck. After all the customer cards are gone, the person that has the customers that sum up to the most points wins. You can use cards like diet. or french fries to make customers leave a truck and either sit out or come to yours. After the first round of figuring everything out, we got very competitive. 

In burger truck battle, the theme is BURGERS. We all agreed that it made us quite hungry but that's just how it goes when your main goal is getting buns, patties, tomatoes and lettuce. I enjoyed playing with the thought of trying to get the most customers to my truck, and even thought I didn't win a round, it was entertaining when I successfully stole peoples customers.

Watch it played: 

The Uniform of cards in Catan are also very identical. The board, which is made of cards (or terrain tiles) fits perfectly with each other and the resource cards that you use to build roads and cities are also identical to hide what you possess from other players. Although the terrain cards are the same shape, each one has one of a few select terrains to create a unique map almost every game. 

When it comes to the play space, Catan provides you with an outline of the board to where all the terrain tiles fit inside. They give you the option to create a custom map (although in the video, he just uses the suggested map they provide in the instructions) and just provide the needed outskirts of the board to help you with setup. You can play this game in any spot where the whole board or map fits. 

The thematic elements of Catan are unique to the game and I can't think of another game like it. Each resource can be coupled up with one or more to create or build either structures or gain a utility card which may put you ahead in some areas of the game. The theme is to expand and build up your assets while gathering points by doing quests such as having long roads or the most cities. The person that hits a set number of points first wins.