I don’t want to bury the lead here, so I don’t care how many baking shows you watch on Food Network, or wherever, you’ve never seen a desert-based competition get as cutthroat as Sweat Deals. There is nothing intrinsic to the game that makes it cutthroat, or even that encourages cutthroat play. Yet every time I’ve played, the same sequence of things happens. 1: Learn to play then have a cute and enjoyable game. 2: Second game gets more competitive. 3: Third game turns cutthroat.
I can’t explain it. But I’m telling you it’s a legitimate phenomenon.
Let me explain the game a bit, and you can see if you can find how cutthroat-ness grows out of the cute-ness. Because that really is one of the key things about the game. It’s cute. Adorable even. The card art is all anthropomorphic sweet treats. There are 8 different treats (although some are removed, based on the player count) along with a handful of special cards. Specials include Mochi (worth 5 coins but isn’t part of any set), Sprinkles (worth 0 coins but is wild and goes with anything), Grab & Go (o coins but can interrupt bidding to immediately swap for the active desert), and four Hybrid deserts (0 coins but always counts as both depicted deserts). The Hybrids are extra neat, and are combinations that make sense like Pie & Ice Cream or that… don’t, like a Strudel Cupcake.
The gameplay is very straightforward, for the most part. Every player is dealt 7 cards and will always have 7 cards. The active player will offer a dessert for trade, saying only the dessert type (Chocolate, Pie, Cupcake, etc) and each other player will either bid on that card or pass. To bid, the player says only the number of coins on the card they are willing to trade. Then the next player matches or raises the bid or passes. This continues until no player can or wishes to bid. The highest bid secretly swaps that card for the offered one. If there are matching bids those players reveal the card they bid with, and the active player chooses which to swap for. If every player passes, meaning nobody bids, the offered card is discarded face up, and the player draws a replacement from the top of the deck.
A game is only really intended to last 10-15 minutes. But even then, that could start to feel repetitive. Although it oddly doesn’t, there is another way to spice it up a bit. Once per game, each player may call for a Bake Sale. The player draws a card and then discards any of their cards face up. The next player may take that discarded desert, discarding one of their own, or pass. This continues until all players have passed on the same card. If any player takes the card, the cycle begins again, and players may swap or pass on that new card.
The game ends in one of two ways. On their turn, a player may propose Closing Early and if all players agree, the game ends. If not that player takes their turn as normal, and play continues until a player gets six matching deserts and calls out “Sweet Six” immediately ending the game. When scoring, players add up the total coins they have in their hand and then add in bonus points for matching sets. Two of a kind earns 4 points up to a Sweet Six of a kind earning 22 points.
Do you see any reason to get cutthroat? No? Me either. The other thing you might not notice at first is that there can be a shocking amount of strategy in there. For example, a Hybrid desert counts as both deserts, meaning a player could end the game with 22 points for a Sweet Six and 4 points for a pair, totalling 26 points. But four of a kind is worth 14 points, so a Hybrid could allow for two sets of four with only seven cards, making 28 points. But only a Sweet Six is guaranteed to end the game, and if the other players decline to Close Early, you would have to swap/discard a card (most likely) breaking up those two sets. So as you start to see those subtle details in the game, that’s when things start getting vicious.
For such a cute and simple game, it’s shockingly good. Because it plays quickly and goes up to eight players, it also makes for a great game to break into while waiting for more players to arrive for your game night. Because the competitiveness of it amps up quickly, it may or may not make a good “pallet cleanser” game for your group. But that may also be exactly what your group wants. This is honestly a game more people need to know about. Currently, it’s only available directly from Surprisingly Fun Games, and in a very small number of retail stores. By all means, pick this up direct from the publishers, but if you have a Friendly Local Gaming Store that you haunt, show them your copy or show them this review and see if they would bring copies in for you. Either way, you should get this.
You can find Surprisingly Fun Games online at surprisinglyfungames.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/SurprisinglyFG (Although they don’t really DO Facebook.
TheRatHole.ca does not accept payments for our reviews but may have received a promotional copy of this product for review.