Baking cakes with your adorable animal friends, I can't think of a better way to spend an evening!

Frenemy Pastry Party (2019)
Designer(s)	Jesse Li	Artist(s)	Lazy Cat Amix, Sherry Huang, Emily Hancock	Publisher	Solis Game Studio
	3-6		8+		15-30m

Frenemy Pastry Party is a game all about baking delicious cakes with super cute animal friends. The game is very light and easy to learn. I fell in love with the game just based on the illustrations, and the gameplay kept me hooked. I really appreciate a good light game that doesn't require a lot of time to learn and to play. 

Box and Components

The game comes in a cute square box that is just a little bigger than 2 decks of cards. The box is very sturdy and includes a nice insert to keep all of the cards in place. The artwork on the box is adorable and shows off the cute animals that are on the cards in the game and some fruit on a cake. Everything about this game screams cuteness and fun. 

The game is purely a card game so all of the components are decks of cards plus a short instruction manual. The cards themselves have very nice illustrations that look great on the sturdy cards. There are 3 types of cards in the game:

• Animal Friends: These are secret objective cards that players will receive at the beginning of the game. Essentially, if you fulfill the requirements of the Animal Friend card, you will receive a bonus 3 points at the end of the game. 
• Cakes: The animal friends want you to help them bake cakes, which will require certain ingredients. Players will turn in sets of ingredients to earn these cards, which award 5 points at the end of the game. 
• Ingredients: Ingredient cards include chocolate, kiwi, strawberry, blueberry, and mangos. Players will turn these cards in to bake cakes, but there is also a way to earn points at the end of the game for having these in your stash. 

There is also an optional player mat. It is very well made with the edges being stitched so it won't unravel over time, and I absolutely love the artwork on the playmat. There is a space for all of the cards that will be described in the setup. It makes setup easier and look nicer, but it is certainly not required. 

I have 0 complaints about the quality of the box and components; it is perfectly suited for the type of game that this is. 

Mechanics

The game is very straight forward. You want to collect ingredients to bake cakes. The person with the most points at the end of the game, wins!

Setup

1. Separate and shuffle the 3 types of cards. 
2. Place 3 cake cards face up on the table and place the remaining cards face down nearby; these will replenish the face up cards as they are claimed.
3. Place 5 ingredient cards face up on the table and deal each player 2 of these cards; place the remaining cards nearby as they will be used to replenish the face up cards as needed. 
4. Deal each player an Animal Friend card; place the remaining Animal Friend cards back into the box without looking at them. Players may look at this card, but keep them secret from the other players. 

Whoever most recently had cake is the first player. 

Player Turn

Player turns are very straight forward. You may perform one of the following two actions on your turn. 

1. Collect Ingredient
   • You may take one of the five face up Ingredient cards. If there happens to be 4-5 matching Ingredient cards, you may actually claim two matching Ingredient cards. 
   • Replenish the face up Ingredient cards if there are cards left in the deck; otherwise, simply end your turn.
2. Bake a Cake 
   • Select one of the three faceup cake cards to attempt to bake. 
   • You may ask up to two other players if they have a specific Ingredient they would be willing to offer to help bake the cake. 
     • They can choose if they would be willing to help you. If they have the Ingredient and want to help, they can offer as many of that Ingredient up to what the cake requires. By helping you, they will be able to stash those Ingredient cards for VP at the end of the game.
     • They are not required to help and may decline even if they have the Ingredient. You want to help when it is in your best interest...they are your frenemies after all.
   • Turn in the needed Ingredients from your hand minus any provided by your frenemies. Your cards are discarded, and you claim the cake card placing it under your Animal Friend card. The helpful frenemies will do the same with the ingredients they provided for the cake. 
   • Replenish the face up cake cards if there are cards remaining in the Cake deck. 

Play continues to the next player if the end game has not been triggered. 

End Game

 Once one of the following end game conditions have been triggered, the game ends immediately and final scoring can begin:

1. Once there is no card to replenish the face up cake cards (essentially, there are 2 face up cake cards and no deck). 
2. Once there are no ingredient cards remaining; the discard pile is never shuffled. 

Final scoring is very straight forward; players will receive the following points for their cards:

• Baked Cakes award 5VP.
• Ingredient cards stashed from helping other players are worth 1VP.
• Completing Animal Friend cards are worth 3VP.
  • How Animal Friend cards work is pretty straight forward. Five of the cards show individual fruits; if you have the most of that fruit ingredient(ties do not count), you earn 3VP. One card has all of the fruits shown; same idea but you have the most ingredients cards. The final one awards 3VP for having the LEAST cakes at the end.

Add up the points from the three criteria above, and whoever has the most points wins!

Final Thoughts

I love this game. It has a feel of the game Just Dessert by Looney Labs to me, which is another super simple game I love. The game is super simple to learn, looks amazing for such a small game, and is a lot of fun. We found ourselves playing a few games in a row because of how quick the game is. The game is rated for 3-6 players, but we found the game runs just fine at 2 players. We found we didn't assist each other as much, but we still had a lot of fun. I imagine this game is a little more competitive when you have so many people going after the limited Ingredients. 

This will be easily a game I can recommend to others in our gaming group and will certainly be demoed at our FLGS once we are able to return. If you enjoy light games that require a little social tactics, I highly recommend Frenemy Pastry Party. 

Links/Media

Frenemy Pastry Party Board Game Geek Page

Publisher Product Page

Disclosure

We received the product in order to write an honest review; all reviews reflect the honest opinions of the writer.