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Did you know that August 19th is National Potato Day? I didn’t until about a week ago, but I’m glad I do now!
Potatoes are a heavy lifting veg. Chipped, mashed, crisped, baked, hashed, hassled, distilled, and caked…….the delicious things you can do with a potato are almost endless. They are all of my 5 per day, and my almost exclusively beige diet is well known amongst friends and family alike. I don’t give a fig about Marbs, and Keto can do one. Carbs rule and the potato is the top tuber! And so it seems only fitting that we should celebrate it and all its nobbly goodness in board game form.
To help us all celebrate the oh so humble spud on its special day, here are 5 games which are the King Edwards of our hobby!
Ok Play!
This list could not be complete without some Big Potato games. Ok Play is a brilliant, portable, tile placing game with rules you can learn in less time than it takes to eat a chip! A twist on 4 in a row, you need to place 5 of the tiles in your colour in an orthogonal or diagonal row. But when you run out of tiles in your hand, you can pick up and replace tiles you previously laid. Seek the glory of the 5th tile at the cost of forgetting to block other players, and your chances of winning will be crushed. This is a great, durable game that is perfect for summer travels!
Bag of Chips!
When a game doesn’t come in a box, you know it is going to be party central. And Bag of Chips is a salty offering where players bet on crisps. No, you didn’t misread that. You’ll be scoring positive (and negative!) points by predicting what combination of flavours and volume of crisps will be in bags. But to get anything they’ll need to match the scoring cards you picked at the beginning of the round. A spicy push-your-luck offering, Bag of Chips could be a game that “once you pop, you can’t stop” playing!
Plant Based Riot!
Spuds just got serious in Plant Based Riot! Gangs of rotten fruit and veg are coming together for the tastiest turf war around. The Cartel have formed an alliance, and it is down to you to recruit mobs of brave brassicas and nasty nightshades to take their place as el capo di tutti capo of the edibles. Set collection mixed with special actions including stealing and swapping, you’ll be fighting over food with your opponents. Some cards will work to protect you, but others straight up want to tear you down. Meddling with each other’s efforts to amass 3 card gangs is great fun and essential to stopping them threatening to topple the crunchy Cartel. With brilliant artwork and some of the best puns around, this is a great way to celebrate the potatoes on your plate!
Abandon All Artichokes!
Another box-alternative game, Abandon All Artichokes comes in a bright green tin! And it does indeed want you to do what it says on that tin – loose your artichokes! Drawing cards and playing the ones you want, veggies have special actions which get triggered when you lay them down. Potatoes let you get rid of a card from your deck (composting those awful artichokes!), which is mega useful in this portion of deck-wrecking, card shedding sauciness! A quick playing game, it ends when you draw a hand of cards which I absent of all artichokes. The artwork is brilliant and the rules are so simple that nobody can resist the charms of these vivacious veggies!
Diced Veggies!
Another set collection game, Diced Veggies focuses on carving up the available dice to help you make delicious sounding recipes. And whilst potatoes aren’t one of the main dice types, the mouthwatering meals you are making doubtless need some nibblesome nightshades in order to taste right. Turns are simple:- Cut, Cook, and then draw another Card! Wield that cleaver to carve out some dice (collectively worth 10 or less) and then use them to cook up some tasty treats. When you’re done. Draw a hype card (scoring objectives) or a recipe card (points) and get ready to chow down! A fun family game from Kids Tables Board Gaming, the rules are light but the fun is appetite sating.
So there we have it. A list jam packed full of ways in which to celebrate the potato on National Potato Day! How will you honour the hip Jersey Royal or the marvellous Maris Piper? Whatever way you say thank you to the tubers on your plate, I wish you all Bon Appetit!
