Cook Up a Delicious Stir Fry in Wok on Fire

Stir up some dexterity in this neat little card game that’s sure to leave you hungry for more.

Gameplay

Each player takes a spatula card. The player aid cards are then placed at the edges of a roughly 2’ by 2’ area. Inside this square is the wok. You spread out twenty-six ingredient cards, facedown, in the center of the wok and set aside the rest as the supply.

On your turn you take three actions. The first action is the stir fry. You place your spatula card under one or more cards in the wok and then quickly flick upward. You do this twice. If no cards got flipped during your two attempts, you keep trying until at least one card is.

Next, you choose two ingredients from the wok to add to your score pile. In order to choose an ingredient you must name it beforehand (or guess and hope you’re right!), it must be inside the wok, at least one corner of the card must be free, and you must be able to see a portion of the center circle on the card.

After taking your ingredients, you take two cards from the supply deck. After placing them in your palm, you use your other hand to brush them briskly into the wok. If the cards fall outside of the play area, or any cards fell out of it during the first phase of your turn, they are considered outside of the wok. You pick up these cards and also brush them into the wok.

The game continues until the supply runs out, at which point each player takes one final turn and scores are calculated.

Players score points based on the different ingredients they collect. Different ingredients score in different ways — for instance, some are worth points when paired with other items while others are worth more points the more copies you have of them.

Review

Cards are not the first thing you think of when you hear the phase ‘dexterity game’, but Green Couch has made something truly unique here with the blending of set collection, cards, and dexterity.

It’s fun to use your spatula to flip over the ingredients, or making a wild guess over an ingredient card you can only see a sliver of. Mixed in with this are interesting strategic choices about which ingredients to go for and trying to remember which cards are which as they’re flipped up and down during each stir fry phase.

The game’s biggest flaw is the difficulty of determining exactly where the wok is or isn’t. It’s great that the game can be contained in a small, light box, but it would be nice if there was a better way of keeping track of the play area than the rough placement of the player aid cards.

Wok on Fire has cute artwork, unique gameplay, and an engaging scoring system. Add to that a great production quality and you have a nifty little game that brings a lot to the table.

Pros: A unique dexterity game, great production quality

Cons: It’s difficult to keep track of the play area

Disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of this game.