Banquet Royal Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Game overview
• Content
• Before the first game
• Advanced Rules
• Setup
• Gameplay
  • 1/ Take an element and place it on the board, or announce a Royal Order
  • 2/ Score a Menu card in front of you
  • 3/ (Optional) Discard a card
  • 4/ Go back to a hand of 3 cards
• Endgame
• Scoring example
• Additional Game Variants

Game overview

The players will lay their Toques or Dishes from the kitchen onto the Royal Banquet table. The Toques represent the different cooks and the way they announce the Dishes. If the cooks respect the order of the combinations, they will earn Royal Points. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins, and is appointed as the royal cook.

Content

• 1 Game board with 36 spaces
• 36 Menu cards
  • 1 crown: 1 Royal Point
  • 2 crowns: 2 Royal Points
  • 3 crowns: 3 Royal Points
  • The crowns are on the back of the cards. The front shows the number of Royal Points and the combination you need to validate a menu.
• 40 Dishes:
  • 10 Salads
  • 10 Fruit Salads
  • 10 Puddings
  • 10 Burgers
• 8 Toques from 4 colored suits (2 per player)
• 4 Color reminder tokens
• 8 Royal Order tokens (double-sided)
• 8 Cloches
• 2 Reward tokens (GOURMET VARIANT)

Before the first game

• Once the pieces are removed from the boards, you need to assemble them.
• Each Dish, Cloche and Toque are made up with two parts: an upper part and a lower part.
• Please assemble them as shown in the picture on the left.
• Once assembled, the Dishes and the Cloches will be ready for any further use.
• The Royal Orders are made up with a Cloche and a Royal Order token. The Royal Order token is face-down under the Cloche.
• Royal Order tokens are usually bigger than the Cloches so that they can stay fitted. If the tokens ever go loose, please glue them.

Advanced Rules

In this rulebook, you will find an advanced set of rules which may be added to the game, and noted as follows: GOURMET VARIANT.

Please disregard this during your first game, or if you play with younger cooks. We advise you to quickly add those rules to spice up your games.

Setup

At the bottom of the box, you will find a reminder for setting up the game. It has all the needed information for you to ready your game.

1. Place the board on the table, between all players. It is the table on which the Dishes or Toques will be placed during the Royal Banquet.
2. The Dishes are put beside the game board in an area we will call the Kitchen. They are available for all players.
3. Sort the Menu Cards to form 3 decks of cards, sorted by ascending order of Royal Points (crowns on the back of the cards). Shuffle each of those piles and place them next to the game board.
4. All players receive a Menu card from each deck: a 3-point card, a 2-point card and a 1-point card. Each player chooses a color and takes the 2 corresponding Toques and the color reminder token.
5. Shuffle the 8 Royal Orders and randomly take 6 of them. Put them on the corresponding areas (shown on the illustration above and at the bottom of the box). The remaining 2 Royal Orders will not be used for the remainder of the game.
6. Reveal the Royal Orders. All players must acknowledge what Dish is underneath each. Give the players some time to memorize them, then flip them over back on their "hidden" side. Try to remember them all: they will maybe allow you to earn extra points.

Once this setup is complete, you should obtain something similar to the setup picture above (the illustration on the Setup page).

The player who cooks best starts playing, then the game is played clockwise.

Gameplay

A player turn is made up of the following steps, in that order:

1. Take an element and place it on the board, or announce a Royal Order
2. Score a Menu card in front of you
3. (Optional) Discard a card
4. Go back to a hand of 3 cards

1/ Take an element and place it on the board, or announce a Royal Order

On their turn, the active player may take a Dish of their choice from the Kitchen or a Toque (from their color and their own supply), then place the chosen element on a space that touches the center Bouquet or another Dish or Toque (regardless of their color).

The center Bouquet is the starting point of the game, but it is forbidden to put an element on it. It is also impossible to play on plates in front of each member of the royal family. The Dishes and Toques on the board allow players to validate Menu cards.

GOURMET VARIANT

Toques usually allow you to score 3-points Menus. In Gourmet Mode, they also give points at the end of the game: a Toque is worth as many points as the highest number of identical dishes touching it.

When a player has placed their two Toques, it is impossible for that player to place new Toques for the remainder of the game. If a Dish is not available in the Kitchen anymore, it is impossible to choose that dish anymore.

Instead of placing a Toque or a Dish, a player may announce a Royal Order.

There are only Dishes in Royal Orders – never Toques.

To announce a Royal Order, a player must have access to it. This means the targeted Cloche must touch a Dish or a Toque.

If a player decides to do so, they need to announce what Dish is underneath the targeted Royal Order to the other players.

The active player then flips the Royal Order, takes the corresponding Dish token and places it instead. If that Dish is not available anymore, the spot stays empty.

If that player had announced the correct Dish, they collect the Royal Order and place it in front of them. This will be worth 1 Royal point at the end of the game.

If that player had announced another Dish, they discard the Royal Order. It will not be used anymore in this game.

The Dish that was underneath the Royal Order, however, remains on the board.

Example: Daphne wants to reveal a Royal Order and announces a Pudding. She may do it because a Dish is next to the Royal Order. Then she flips the Royal Order and reveals the Dish it shows. Indeed, it was a Pudding! She gets one from the Kitchen and places it on the board instead of the Royal Order. She takes it for herself, and puts it beside her validated Menus. It will be worth 1 Royal point at the end of the game.

2/ Score a Menu card in front of you

If, with the Dish or the Toque that was just played, the active player manages to combine three Dishes or Toques which match a Menu Card they hold, they reveal this card to the other players, who check if there is no mistake.

• The Toques and Dishes combinations are valid only if they are aligned in the same order.

  Thus, a Burger/Pudding/Salad menu is not identical to a Burger/Salad/Pudding menu.

• If the combination is valid, the player places the card in front of them, scoring it. It awards the printed number of victory points at the end of the game.

• During a player turn, a single menu card can be validated, and it has to be done only by using a Dish or Toque that has just been played.

• However, you may use Dishes or Toques played during previous turns, either by you or the other players.

• When the active player reveals a Royal Order, the revealed Dish also counts as a Dish played this round for the purposes of scoring a Menu.

Example: Gaetan places a Burger on the board, then announces he has completed a Menu. He shows his card to the other players, and it comprises a Burger, a Fruit Salad and a Pudding. The three Dishes are in line in the right order on a single line. He puts the completed Menu in front of him, and it will be worth the printed number of points at the end of the game.

3/ (Optional) Discard a card

At the end of a turn, the active player may, if they did not complete a Menu on their turn, discard one of their Menu cards.

The active player places the discarded card beside the corresponding deck, in a face-up discard pile.

If a deck should be emptied, shuffle the corresponding discard pile into a new deck.

If the deck and the discard pile of one Menu type are both empty, players may not discard Menu cards of this type.

4/ Go back to a hand of 3 cards

A player must have 3 card in hand.

The active player draws a card with the same point value as the discarded or scored Menu card.

If a deck goes empty, shuffle the discard pile into a new face-down deck.

If the discard pile goes empty as well, the active player takes a Menu from another deck of any value.

If there is no available Menu, the active player simply doesn't draw.

Endgame

When all spaces are occupied by a Dish or a Toque, the game ends. (Note: the Royal Orders are considered free space, and become occupied when their content is revealed.) The players then add up their Royal Points. Each player adds the Royal Points on their scored Menu cards, plus one point per Royal Order they scored. The player with the most points is declared the winner. In case of a tie, the player with the most Royal Orders wins. In case of another tie, players share victory.

GOURMET VARIANT

In addition to the usual scoring, some points are awarded, following these rules:

• Players who scored the most 1-point Menus gain 3 additional points. (In case of a tie, all tied players win the points.)
• Players who scored the most 2-points Menus gain 2 additional points. (In case of a tie, all tied players win the points.)
• No extra points are awarded to the player who scored the most 3-points Menus.

The players also add up the points earned through Toques. Each Toque on the board is worth as many points as the highest number of identical dishes touching it.

Scoring example

• Orange player: has validated 3 3-points Menus and 1 1-point Menu. They also have 3 Royal Orders. They have a grand total of 10 Menu Points and 3 Royal Orders points, for a grand total of 13 points.
• Pink player: has validated 3 1-point Menus, 2 2-points Menus and 1 3-point Menu. They also have 2 Royal Orders. This amounts to 10 menu points, and 2 Royal Orders points. GOURMET VARIANT: They have the most 1-point Menus, so they get 3 extra points, for a grand total of 15 points.
• Blue player: has validated 3 2-points Menus and 1 1-point Menu. GOURMET VARIANT: They also gain points for Toques placed on the board. The first Toque grants 3 points because it is adjacent to 3 Burgers. The second grants them 2 points, because it is adjacent to 2 Puddings and 2 Fruit Salads. They have the most 2-points Menus, which is worth 2 points. This amounts to 7 Menu points, 5 Toque points, 2 majority points, for a grand total of 14 points.

Additional Game Variants

To deepen your experience of the game, you may use and combine the following variants:

• Proper Dining Etiquette: When setting up the game, every player puts a Royal Order on any space. You may even place the eight Royal Orders, but never directly around the central bouquet.
• All You Can Eat: At the end of the game, gain points for each different Royal Order you have: 1, 3, 5, and 8 if you have all four types of Dish.
• Hell's Kitchen: When you make a mistake when announcing the Dish under a Royal Order, after applying the normal rules, you must discard one of your validated Menus.