While checking with possible reviewers for the game, DC member kilele was good enough to email me about his discovery of a brand new game that was released just a few months ago, that is extremely similar to my idea:
Chef Cuckoohttp://boardgamegeek...e/117885/chef-cuckoo
Ironically, it's made by a company that also make a kids game I have recommended in the past,
SpotIt. They produce low cost high quality small games for kids.
So, I don't really know where this leaves my game.. The similarity between the two is unmistakeable and the core ideas are the same, though with a slightly different focus. Mine is a bit more targeted at culinary fans, theirs is more targeted at quick family fun.
Might be for the best for me to just drop the idea now. On the other hand, I never had any intention of making any real money off this, so perhaps it shouldn't matter if another game like it already exists, and it's not like it's a particularly innovative gameplay idea -- it's basically taking direct inspiration from the current crop of tv cooking shows.
Options now include:
- Drop the idea completely and move on
- Don't worry about the similar game and continue as planned
- Try to do some substantial modifications to make the games more unique. This sounds good on paper, but this isn't like a traditional game where you are just trying to create a fun game -- the idea was to simulate a cooking show idea and let players invent dishes they would like to cook and eat, so messing with the basic ideas is not going to be conducive to this. However, that doesn't mean that I couldn't try to make a more traditional game using the same cards, and include the cooking one as a variant.
Thoughts?
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