Express Order!
Kushi Express is a real-time dexterity game that stimulates Kushi sellers in Japan.
You are, according to the rulebook trying to attract bystanders to your restaurant by quickly fulfilling orders for grilled skewers, but you have to make the order as quickly as possible as there are other restaurants in the middle of the street also competing for business(?!).
I got confused by the story this game is trying to tell - I suspect replacing 'restaurant' with 'food cart' would actually mean the previous paragraph makes a lot more sense. Kushi isn't a cuisine I'm familiar with (the word actually seems to be a direct translation of 'skewer') and after a brief search, I can only conclude it's a shortening of Kushikatsu.
That said and setting aside the questions over the concept the game itself is very lightweight and easy to play; each player receives a skewer, four cubes of food and two topping strips. An order is flipped from the deck and players race to match it.
By your second or third attempt you'll have figured out how to get the toppings on the way you want them, but the first few times the more complex options can seem impossible! The component quality is great with robust well made pieces with shapes to differentiate them as well as colours.
Once you've got a complete match you put your order on the plate and shout out "Bon Appetit!" I'm not sure why the game designer added in French here, but we were shouting "Kushi" for this in any case.
If your skewer is correct you take the order, leaving your skewer on the plate whole flipping over the next tile. I really like this mechanic as it forces the player who won the last order to be delayed. In games whose core is a real time mechanic (Fold-it, Anomia, Ghost Blitz etc.) one of the key issues I've seen is that players 2-3 seconds faster than the others consistently win.
There's not really anything the other players can do to change this except go on an intense training regime to improve and really who would do that? Kushi Express tries to moderate this a little with this leave the skewer on the plate rule. Its not quite enough, and I found player's who weren't as quick tended to check out, but adding a few second delay to the winning player might get there and I like the thought that went into this issue.
This is a great little filler game for adults, though I would recommend only playing with half the order deck as the game can feel like it's dragging with the full thirty cards. Where this game will shine I think is for kids as the colours are bright and interesting and the components robust enough to survive some rough treatment.
Note that I was given a free copy of this game for the purposes of providing a review.
