Too Many Cooks

About this board game

Too Many Cooks is a co-operative hidden-information card game for 2–6 players, with a listed play time of 20 minutes. Working as a team of fussy chefs, you must create soups that satisfy shared culinary tastes while also meeting each chef’s secret personal preferences.

Each game is played across three rounds, with five minutes for each round. The soup begins as a 4-by-4 layout of 16 vegetable cards. Before time runs out, players take turns changing or moving ingredients, trying to keep as many chefs happy as possible.

• Change one card: swap it for a spare card to alter its vegetable or colour.
• Rotate a row or column: move an entire row or column one card in either direction.
• Pass: do so when your personal tastes and all shared tastes are satisfied.

The information you have is limited. After each change, players indicate how satisfied or dissatisfied they are by vocalising their reaction and rotating their taste cards in hand. You can express enthusiasm or disgust, but you cannot reveal the exact reason—for example, “Ewwww, that’s disgusting!” is allowed, while naming the ingredient you dislike is not.

Watch the other chefs carefully and infer what they may be working towards. A change that improves one player’s soup may upset another chef’s secret tastes, so every decision can reshape the group’s priorities.

Choose from easy, moderate, or hard difficulty, or play through all three settings in an hour-long session. The rounds become progressively more demanding, beginning with 7 tastes, continuing with 9, and ending with 11 divided between secret personal tastes and face-up shared tastes. Aim for a five-star rating before the kitchen closes.