Ok, I read your new ending paragraph. I guess I have to disagree with you about the significance in the difference of how the two games award points to the winner of a round.
In my case i say the judge can divvy up a larger number of points between players as they see fit, wheras in Chef Cuckoo, the judge gives two chips to the winner and 1 to the runner up. That's a difference, and I prefer my method, but it's hardly going to change gameplay -- I can assure you of that having play tested quite a few variants. Players are always trying to come up with their best dishes. My method just makes it a bit more of a social experience for the players, as they weight the best way to divide up points. It just adds a little more nuance, but doesn't change gameplay.
Other differences:
- In my version, chef players can trade in some cards. This is actually a significant difference, and it adds substantially to the game play in my experience testing.
- In my version, different Assignments can change the number of cards players get and can trade, can mandate the use of a secret ingredient, and do other interesting things like creating last minute changes that cause players to scramble to come up with different dishes, etc.
- Like I said the basic Cuckoo game does not have players present their dishes, which changes the game play completely.. But there is an explicit variation which is basically my approach; as described in the review: "instead of the judge revealing each stack of Ingredient cards, the chefs keep their selection in front of them. Chefs now take turns revealing their 3 ingredients, give each dish they created a name, and a description."
- Only 60 ingredients in Chef Cuckoo -- 150 and counting in mine.
I suppose one way to look at the value of proceeding as planned to get my game made is that, for people who like Chef Cuckoo, having so many more cards and different ways to play might be something they want. So perhaps one could view Chef Cuckoo as the game people on the fence about the concept should buy first to see if you like the idea (and the price difference will be significant -- no way my game could be made for anywhere near the cost of theirs) -- and then if you enjoy that, upgrade to this bigger and more flexible set.. So perhaps the audiences are different enough that there would be no problem with both games existing side by side and would benefit each other.. [On the other hand, another possibility is that the Chef Cuckoo folks would view my game as a threat to theirs and would want to threaten legal action, hard to know].
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