W. Eric Martin: Company Profile: Jolly Roger Games/Review: The Great Chili Cookoff

Jim Dietz has taken on every role possible in the world of games: player, store owner, designer, and publisher. In fact, Dietz’ company—Jolly Roger Games—was launched in 1997 due to the way that other publishers had treated his game submissions. While rejections are inherent in every creative business and designers must be prepared to face them, Dietz says that game publishers often handed down rude and dismissive rejections, essentially telling him that novices had no place in the business.

“I don’t want anyone else to go through that,” says Dietz, “so when I am sent designs, I try to be nice and explain stuff, not just send a rejection. No one tells designers the business end of things or how to make their product more attractive in terms of ease-of-production—the little things that will get a game looked at.”

What’s more, he adds, “I think there are a lot of unpublished designers out there with great games. I’d be ignorant as a businessman if I rejected a great game just because a person doesn’t have any other publishing credits.”

Dietz has lived up to his words, giving several designers their first publication credit: Ty Douds (Victory & Honor), Joe Huber (Scream Machine), Eric Canfield (Maul of America), Gwenaël Bouquin (Knock! Knock!, co-designed with Bruno Faidutti), Dan Baden (The Great Chili Cookoff, reviewed below), and Carlo A. Rossi (Graverobbers, to be reviewed in a month or so).

“Sometimes the designs are good because they aren’t established,” says Dietz. “Established designers have a style—you know what to expect with them.”

Over the years, Dietz has shifted Jolly Roger’s output from miniature systems, roleplaying titles, and boardgames to card games, whether or not they use a board. That’s not to say you can pigeonhole a Jolly Roger title; themes for recent games run the encyclopedic gamut from chili, graverobbing and dynastic aspirations to civil war battles, Chinese mythology, and amusement parks. “The company has changed as I have changed,” says Dietz. “The big rule of thumb for me publishing a game is: ‘Is it fun?’ If the answer is yes, I am interested in it. I also try to avoid similar themes wherever possible so that the company doesn’t get typecast—which is one of the reasons JRG isn’t caught up in the latest pirate game fad.”

Unlike a number of new American publishers that produce games in China, Jolly Roger has moved its production from the U.S. to Germany, which is still considered the standard bearer for quality game production. JRG titles now typically include rules in English and German, while The Great Chili Cookoff also includes rules in Korean and Graverobbers, in a nod to designer Rossi, has rules in Italian.

Production details and a growing international game market aren’t the only changes that Jolly Roger faces. “There are ten times as many game companies now as in 1996,” says Dietz, who also teaches history to high school and college students. “Most publish just a single game thinking, ‘I’ve got the next big thing’—and then find out it isn’t so easy. Most of those then disappear having lost a lot of money. The problem is that the number of companies swamps retailers so that they have to carry more companies, not knowing who will be the survivors. In the process, it makes it harder for small- and medium-sized companies that are long-term to get their product onto shelves.”

“I think this is happening overseas as well,” he adds. “There are now dozens of German companies making games, and the market is saturated.” Niche games can create new markets, though, and The Great Chili Cookoff seems like an ideal gift for family gamers, especially since the game comes with a recipe book for the fifteen chilis featured. The target market for Graverobbers? Let’s not go there…

The Great Chili Cookoff

This game has been described as a trick-taking variation, but a better description of Chili Cookoff would involve card drafting. Each player starts the game with two chili recipe cards and seven ingredient cards, which range from common items like tomatoes, meat, and chile peppers to outre chili flavorings like peanut butter and chocolate.

Each recipe card lists seven ingredients, and no two recipes have the same combination of ingredients. The Meat Lover’s, for example, depicts four meat, a tomato, a chile and mustard, while Steve’s Sin has two tomatoes, two chiles, meat, an onion, and chocolate. (Detailed recipes for each of the cards are included in a separate booklet.)

After randomly choosing a start player, players take turns playing a single ingredient card to the table. Each card lists a point value and a strength. The point value is always the same for a particular ingredient (e.g., a tomato is 1 point, an onion 3), but the strength of an ingredient might vary. Tomatoes range in a strength from 1-7, for example, whereas all peanut butter cards have a strength of 4.

Whoever plays the strongest card claims one of the face-up cards; whoever played the next strongest card then claims a card, and so on until all the cards have been claimed. Players can claim their own cards, and ties in card strength are won by whoever played later. (The winner of a turn plays first in the next round, usually putting him or her at a disadvantage.)

After seven turns, each player will have collected seven ingredient cards. You then compare those seven ingredients against your two recipe cards, scoring each recipe separately and counting only those ingredients that are needed for the recipe. Collecting all seven ingredients for a recipe adds six bonus points to that total. Whichever recipe total is higher is your point total for the round; the player with the highest score after three rounds wins the game.

The Great Chili Cookoff scales from 2-7 players, and as you might expect the game experience changes greatly depending on the number of players you have. With only a few players, the ingredient cards you need for a recipe might not be among the cards in play, which gives you an incentive to take cards away from others since you can’t help yourself. With more players, negative play doesn’t work as well, but the chocolate and honey that you need will likely hit the table at some point, so you have to figure out how to position yourself to win one when it does show.

As with most trick-taking games, each hand is a puzzle that you need to solve. Which ingredient cards can win tricks, or perhaps more importantly, which cards can win tricks and depict an ingredient you need? As each turn plays out, you’ll debate the merits of playing a strong card (to let you choose early) versus playing a card that puts lots of similar ingredients on the table (to increase your chances of getting one).

The Great Chili Cookoff is light enough for family play, but more serious cardplayers can also have fun with this quick game. Recipe drafting might even be possible once players become familiar with the game; you could receive your ingredients, look them over, then do a clockwise and counter-clockwise round of drafting. This would allow players more control over their goals—something a few players mention in test games—although everyone would then know exactly how to hose you!

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