Charlie's Take - Let Them Eat Cake

Osprey games has seriously impressed me. Escape From The Aliens In Outer Space came in and killed it critically. The Ravens Of Thri Sahashri arrived and quickly became one of my favorite two player card games. Agamemnon was an abstract game that I actually enjoyed. So, does Let Them Eat Cake get the icing or the guillotine?

The game starts off promising enough:

"The glorious revolution has done away with tyranny! Now you and your friends make up the Committee of Public Safety, overseeing justice throughout the land. Still, now that the Queen’s gone it would be a shame to let all that cake go to waste..."

In this satirical take on Marie Antoinette's famous “Qu'ils mangent de la brioche” quote, players are negotiating and making deals to acquire, well, cake. The first to a total of 40 rolls away stuffed to their gills and is declared the winner.

The artwork and silly theme is sold throughout with great illustrations and a nice light feel that stands in stark contrast to the hilarious yet bitter back-stabbings that may occur through play.

The rule-book urges everyone to shake hands and congratulate each other for their role in the revolution. "Immediately view anyone who refuses with suspicion" it jovially states. This is great because it drives right to the heart of this game and the atmosphere it seeks - ludicrous bravado and sly social needling.

Then everyone puts on their Sunday best, straightens their ties, and assembles for the election of the Head of Committee. This person is important, or at least feels as though they are important, because they will break all ties in other elections. They also gain one medal signifying their value and contribution to the revolution. Then they get to award or remove a medal from one other player. Odds are they're also receiving kickbacks and bribes from lobbyists drunk on sugar.

Elections are handled with each player selecting a card from their hand and placing it face down on the table with a simultaneous reveal. The rub is that your hand of cards with one corresponding to each player has a strict limitation - when you play a card you do not get it back until the rest of your hand has been played. Think Kemet or Game of Thrones battle cards, but here we're dealing with ballots for other players.

So everyone is suggesting we vote Ben Head of Com but I get Josh to offer me one of his medals or even a cake card to vote for him instead-yes, trading and deal making is heavily encouraged. Then I realize I already voted for Josh in the previous vote and no longer have his card in hand, dammit.

This hand management aspect in combination with voting is an interesting strategic consideration that is easy to overlook. It adds depth and punch to the design and is one of the better aspects.

After some bribery and open harassment the HoC vote is settled and we move on. You want to kick back and have some lemonade but that buzzer rings and you have to get back out on the street and shuffle off to the next open election.

The Guillotine Operator is delightful. Whoever is elected in this morbid role must decide on whether or not they behead the Enemy of the Revolution. The malcontent with the least amount of medals is given this sour title and must place one of their pawns on the awesome cardboard guillotine.

The pawns are used as a multiplier in the voting process and represent the constituents of each player. Losing them impacts your ability to sway subsequent outcomes and diminishes your power. So when you place your little guy up on that platform with the top poking through the slot for the head, it's a horrible feeling. Everyone else at the table is getting their bowls of popcorn out having a laugh and it's certainly one of the more entertaining moments in the game.

The Guillotine Operator may spare the sentenced but they will need to give up a medal since they are performing poorly at their job. The revolution wants blood and if you don't give it, your head may eventually end up in the basket.

Plastic heads will roll.

So now that's settled everyone can take a breather. Oh wait, we forgot about the Secretary election. You need 40 cake to win and the Secretary is the one who's going to grease those wheels. They draw a number of cards from the deck equal to the number of players and then assign one to each. Of course this is ripe time for making future arrangements or threatening to chop off the person's leg if they don't give you the 11 value cake. Then Jim sticks you with the 3 cake and you pound the table in anger, vowing revenge.

Mixed in with the cake cards are generals. These dapper dudes represent military allies in your camp, allowing you to pull some strings and modify the voting process with force. You can spend a general to call for a recount, tossing out a voting result and starting again. This is excellent because the player cards used are still discarded which adds a wrinkle to timing. If you want to really vote for Jen but the pulse of the table seems to be going towards Dan, do you feign agreement and let everyone use their Dan card, only so that you can kick out the vote? Great stuff slapping those generals down.

You can also turn in two generals to assign yourself a cake card and subvert the Secretary's role. Like that 13? Grab it with military force and watch the Secretary grumble in disgust as their power is sapped. Finally, you can turn in three generals to completely decide a vote. Who needs the will of the people when you have steel toed boots and sabers?

But let’s get back to the polls. After the Secretary assigns the cake we are not done yet. You thought it was time to kick back with some wine and eat a baguette, oui?

A Food Inspector must be elected to ensure the bakery goods are proper. Once this person is chosen they decide whether to toss out all of the cake, and lose a medal, or accept the results. This separation of assigning points and ratifying them is great as it's merely additional opportunity for bribery and cajoling.

And now you can finally kick back; at least for a moment. Then we begin the whole round again and repeat until someone flips over their 40 cake and does a celebration waltz around the table. Félicitations à vous you heathen.

If you're picking up what I'm putting down then you got the idea that this game has a ton of voting. The repetition of a continual election process can drag the pace and it comes across as very procedural. You're continually engaging with the structure of the game and it can overtake those fantastic moments of negotiation and betrayal.

Those social moments of excellence are really when Let Them Eat Cake is at its best. When you're arguing about being stiffed from cake and threatening to chop off Sam's head, now we're talking. Those moments are peppered throughout, and while not always given time to breathe, they do manage to provide a solid degree of fun.

Let Them Eat Cake is a weird one because I think it mostly succeeds at what it's trying to do, but it has a big hitch in its step. There are excellent moments peppered throughout and the table will bust out a fair amount of laughter. It's not perfectly smooth though and I think the repetition can ultimately suffocate some of the atmosphere. I suppose you can't have your cake and eat it too. Yeah, yeah - off with my head.