I’m a sucker for cooking games because it’s something that I love. Add in dice drafting and you’re speaking my language. Diced Veggies merges this theme and mechanic into a colorful and beautifully illustrated game that is setup for a successful family game night.
Gathering Ingredients
The goal of Diced Veggies is to gather ingredients to cook dishes from around the world. Each dish is worth victory points and Hype cards can be added to boost the overall score of the recipe.
Ingredients are represented by 5 different colored dice. Purple onions, red tomatoes, green jalapenos, orange carrots and brown (tan?) mushrooms. These dice get rolled into a rectangular mold to start the game. This is where players will cut away the ingredients they need to complete recipes during the game.
Players start their turn by cutting away a section of ingredients from the outside edge of this block. Using the cardboard cleaver in the game, players are allowed to cut away only a total of 10 dice pips worth of ingredients. You’re also limited by cutting from an outside edge, keeping the cleaver parallel to the table.
Each player can hold a total of 8 ingredients, discarding the excess at the end of their turn.
There are two card types in Diced Veggies. Recipe cards show players what ingredients they need to cook a dish to score points. Hype cards can be paired with recipe cards to gain additional bonuses. Once a player has cooked 7 dishes, players finish the round and the game ends.
Cooking Up Greatness
Recipe cards show the ingredient dice needed across the top and victory points at the bottom. After drafting (cutting away) ingredients at the start of your turn, you can cook up to two recipes from your hand. Hype cards can be added at this point to enhance the points on the recipe you’ve cooked.
The Hype cards in Diced Veggies are diverse and really boost a players score. When cooking a recipe, the pips on the ingredient dice mean nothing. The dice values come into play when using Hype cards. One card may require a total ingredient value of 19, while another card requires your dice to all be the same value. This encourages players to target specific dice when they know a bonus is available through a Hype card.
When you find yourself stuck with the wrong ingredient or die face, using the Chef token is a must. Each player has a single Chef token that allows them to change the die color or number. Once you use this token, it’s discarded until a “restock” happens.
If you start your turn and there’s a missing ingredient type in the center of the table, you can call for a restock. This rerolls all the still available and used dice back into the rectangle mold. It’s almost like a reset for your block of ingredients. The restock action also gives players their used Chef token back if they had previously used it.
One of the trickiest parts of Diced Veggies has to be drawing a card at the end of each turn. Players can only hold 2 Recipe cards and 2 Hype cards at a time. When you’re working on two tough recipes, this means something is getting trashed. Even if it’s just the new recipe you chose. Finding that rhythm of completing a recipe each turn will keep cards flowing through your hand.
Veggies for Everyone
Diced Veggies has a unique dice drafting mechanic that’s easy to understand. Having the Chef token at your disposal is a nice way to adjust dice when you need to finalize a recipe. With almost a decade of making board games, Kids Table Board Gaming understands what it takes to make an accessible game for families to enjoy.
One of my favorite parts of Diced Veggies is the totally unnecessary cardboard cleaver that slices into the dice. It’s a component that I love to use and it makes the game more thematic as you slice your way to victory. With over a dozen plays at home, conventions and coffee shops, the cardboard cleaver has held up well.
The dice have a nice color and solid quality while the cards are thick and durable. Because KTBG has been making family games for so long, they know how to build games for families. This experience shows in every area of Diced Veggies.
If I had one complaint about the game, it would be that the recipe cards will make you hungry. The different dishes featured on each recipe card looks fantastic. Claire Lin did a wonderful job including dishes from a wide variety of cultures which is such a nice touch.
Diced Veggies is a game that is easy to fall in love with. Dice drafting has never looked this delicious.
Diced Veggies goes on sale at Gen Con on August 3, 2023. You can pre-order the game at the KTBG website today.
This game was provided to us by the publisher for review. Read more about our review policies at One Board Family.
Highs
- Excellent component quality
- Unique dice drafting mechanic
- 4 card hand limit makes for tough decisions
Lows
- High die rolls mean less ingredients can be drafted
- This game will make you hungry for real food
Complexity
Time Commitment
Replayability
