Burgoo - A PAY-WHAT-YOU-WANT game of community stews by Michael Mindes

Burgoo is a game designed by Dan Manfredini for 2-5 aspiring stew chefs which takes 15-30 minutes depending on the number of players.

There is a stew to be made, while many cooks will help to make it, only one cook will get the fame, glory, and honor that the stew will bring.

Each cook (player) starts the game with 12 stew ingredients randomly formed into a mixing line (2 sets of 6 ingredients).  And a hand of ingredients that allow them to manipulate their mixing line, or add ingredients to the stew from every mixing line.

On a cooks turn they may sample the stew, taking one ingredient of their choice from the stew into their hand.  Or they may spend an ingredient from their hand to divide their cooking line, gaining access to more of their ingredients, or to add ingredients from their line into the stew, but be wise because if you add an ingredient that other cooks are ready to add, they too can add to the stew on your turn.

What if multiple cooks are done at the same time?  Well, every good Burgoo cook knows, “Ingredients in the hand are better than 12 in the stew.”

Burgoo will be printed to TMG’s typical quality standards.  The ingredients that make up Burgoo are:

• 96 ingredient tokens (16 of each Beef, Carrots, Onions, Celery, Potatoes, and Herbs/Spices)
• 1 Rulebook
• 1 Baggie to hold everything.

At TMG, we REALLY love games and publishing games. Towards the end of 2012, we wanted to be able to provide fantastic micro games. Not just micro components and a micro footprint, but also a micro price.

It wasn’t until about September of 2013 that we figured out a viable method for providing games like these at a quality level the fans of TMG have come to expect.

So, we have embraced a pay-what-you-want methodology with one modification, a minimum support level which covers our costs. At the suggested pledge level of $5, then we (TMG and the game designer) make a decent amount from your pledge.

Most of all, we want to be able to bring these great tiny games to you, your friends, and your family. If this project goes well, then we will be able to bring more like this to you in the future as well. So, please share this project with your friends.

Hello everyone! Thank you for taking the time to check out my game called Burgoo! It is one of my favorite designs and I thought I’d give you a bit of history about the game: 

The game of Burgoo started out as a design challenge that I proposed for my local game design group way back in 2007. The challenge was simple: “Design a game using only glass beads. The quantity and color are up to you. No board, no paper and pencil, nothing but the beads”. Restrictions like that always get my creative juices flowing and I got to work. 

The resulting game was something that was portable, simple to teach, quick, and fun to play! Everybody loved it and I ended up winning that challenge hands down. After many playtests and a lot of feedback, I felt it was the time to pitch the game publishers. Unfortunately, publishers at that time weren’t ready for the concept of a micro game - “too small to publish”. So, I decided to try my hand at publishing my own game. 

I made around 50 copies of that game and sold them at the BGG.CON flea market under the poorly-titled name “Chains of Fenrir”. The game sold out, and I was happy leaving the game on a positive note to pursue other designs.

I thought that that was the end for the game. So it lied dormant, or at least it tried. The game kept popping up. Friends were teaching friends. People were making their own copies. I thought maybe it was time to give it another go with the game. After coming up with the perfect theme (soup, of course!) I showed it to the great guys at Tasty Minstrel. They loved it and thought their “pay-what-you-want” would work perfect for a game of this size.

I am really looking forward to you trying out Burgoo because I know you and your friends will enjoy it as much as I do. Thank you for your support!

Dan Manfredini is the designer for the games Island Siege, Venture Forth, and Monkey Lab. For the past five years, he has run a charity game convention called “Give to Game” to raise food for local pantries. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and two board game loving sons.

We are pleased to be bringing you the game Burgoo. As the game only has a couple of punchboards of tokens and the artwork is already complete the risks associated with this project are low.

To date, TMG has delivered numerous games throughout the world. Some that were funded on Kickstarter and some that were not, at this point in time, we are confident that we know how to deliver the product.

The major risks here are delays due to pre-press errors, materials editing, and some other potential issues.

PREVIOUS PROJECTS…

Dungeon Roll Winter Promo is currently being manufactured and we expect to be able to deliver this small and simple project on time to backers. The risks here are low.

Coin Age, and Templar Intrigue are in a situation similar to the Dungeon Roll Winter Promo Pack in that it is a small and relatively simple product to deliver. It is a handful of cards. We have extensive experience getting a product like this produce. The major risk here is if people will like the game.

City Hall and Captains of Industry are both currently in the pre-press/manufacturing process and we expect to be able to deliver by our targeted time in the project of May 2014. After pre-press we will move onto manufacturing and once that is done it will go on a ship. Once the Ocean Freight arrives, it will be onto delivery.