Takeout The Card Game – Review

Takeout: The Card Game is a social card game suitable for 2-4 players and with a suggested age of 10 years plus although my 9yr old loves playing it.  From Small Monsters Games, it is fast paced card game as you try to beat the other players to get an entire Chinese meal for yourself.

The scene is set for the game:

In Takeout, players are a group of young backpackers in a tiny noodle shop down an alley in China. Although none of you speak Chinese, you’re determined to sample authentic Chinese cuisine. The object of the game is to get one dish of each flavor (sweet, sour, salty, spicy and bitter) and a cold drink into your meal, before any of your friends do.

In the Takeout card box are a variety of cards, food cards and action cards which start together in a kitchen pile but are discarded into either a food pile that other players can select the top one from or a general discard pile.

There are also cards which show the complete range of flavours you need to collect in our meal and each player can have one of these cards in front of them to remind them of what they need to collect.

It’s then time for the game play to start. The instructions are fairly simple although it’s good to have a first round of play where you are not competitive and just getting to grips with rules.  After that everyone was at battle to get their meal prepared first!

The Takeout game starts by dealing out 5 cards per player, and then each player takes a turn that consists of drawing a card, playing a card and discarding a card.  If you get a food card you have the option of keeping it, playing it of discarding and this is were you get tactical. Sometimes it’s worth playing a duplicate food card to conceal the fact you have another one to complete your meal.  But also you have to remember the action cards come into play and you get the option of helping yourself to one of your friends dishes, sending one of the other players dishes to the bottom of the kitchen pile, swap a meal with a friend or pick a random meal you fancy from one of your friends!

We’ve really enjoyed playing this game as a family with my 9 and 11 year old children. It is fun, they are always eager to be the first to complete their meal first and they love the action cards when they can either steal off of others or put a part of someone’s meal back in the kitchen.  It’s a game of both chance with getting the meals you need and tactical playing to complete the entire meal.  With Takeout being a card game it means it’s great for carrying around with you for play anywhere, great for travelling, holidays etc as well as simply playing at home.  A fun game that we’d recommend!

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions. We are not paid for reviews although we do receive the product to try out and enable us to write the review.