Game Review: Filler

Today’s game is all killer, no filler. I mean… all filler, no killer. Or maybe it’s all filler, yet no filler. Regardless, today’s game is Filler from Green Couch Games.

Filler
Publisher: Green Couch Games
Designer: Jonathan Chaffer
Artist: Clair Donaldson

Gameplay:

Filler utilizes resource management, set collection, some blind bidding, and a mix of hand/deck building mechanics. The game places you in the role of a pastry chef, trying to earn the most points based on the pastries you create. You make pastries by meeting the ingredient requirement on one of the cards in the public supply with available ingredients from your hand. Once you make a certain pastry, you discard the ingredients and place the created card in your hand, gaining access to the ingredients and/or victory points on the left side of the card. These cards also have a time displayed in the upper corner as it would appear on a digital timer. As each round begins, all players will simultaneously play one card from their hand, and the player who plays the earliest time is the one who ‘arrived for work the earliest’, and gets to go first for the round.

You might be thinking that there is a lot of information on each card: a pastry, the required ingredients to make it, the ingredients you have access to once making it, potential victory points, AND a time in the upper corner. You’re right, and I LOVE it!

Green Couch Games has created games with multi-use cards in the past (Rocky Road a la Mode), and they do it again here. The information is very clearly laid out. The idea of the created pastries going straight in to a players hand allows for quicker gameplay, unlike most deckbuilders where the cards you purchase or create are cycled through the deck before being able to use them. This makes for tough decisions and constantly changing tactics.

For instance, you might not necessarily want to spend ingredients to make Strudel. But the Strudel will give you the last ingredient needed to make the Blueberry Cream Horn, which IS the card you want. As long as the other players don’t make the Blueberry Cream Horn before you.

You continue to play rounds until you run out of cards while refilling the public supply of recipes. There are 60 cards, so the quicker recipes are made and more players you have, the quicker the game will be.

Theme:

Naming a game Filler that’s only listed at 20-30 minutes of playtime is a nice wink and a nod to the gaming community. Shorter length games are often referred to as “filler” games, as they fill the time in between larger games.

I really like the aesthetic of this game. The soft pastel colors, the script font used for the pastry names, and artwork of the pastries themselves are all very relaxing.

The idea of being a pastry chef isn’t a theme that’s oversaturated in the market. It’s always nice to see games with refreshing themes.

To start the game, each player gets a character with starting cards. It’s cool to see such diversity in the 6 characters. Seeing this kind of inclusion and equality in games is becoming more normal, but that doesn’t make it any less appreciated.

For Parents:

The box says ages 8 and up, and that seems accurate. Younger players can play this as well, especially since it is mostly non dependednt on language. But I wouldn’t really recommend trying to teach to anyone under the age of 6. The hardest thing for kids will be getting them to pay attention to the diferent areas of the cards for different information.

I know I just said that all of the information on the cards might be a little confusing for small children, however, it’s great only having a single deck of cards with kids. There are not multiple decks, or different kinds of cards. There’s a public supply of recipes, and each player has a hand and a discard pile. That’s it. That kind of simplicity goes a long way for family game nights with little ones.

To piggyback on that, the single deck of cards makes set up and tear down a breeze as well. Each player selects their character and starting cards, shuffle the deck, and play.

Final Thoughts:

Filler utilizes multi-use cards for a quick and competitive deckbuilder that is really enjoyable. I think this one plays a bit better with non-gamers or, as the name implies, just as a filler game to kill some time or lighten the evening. The blind bidding mechanic of playing a card for your arrival time is the most pivotal point of each round. “I don’t want to give up this card for my arrival time, because it has ingredients I need. But I want to play an early time because I have everything I need to make that Lava Cake, and I’m worried someone else could take it.” The bonus card effects do add some layers to gameplay to possibly chain multiple key moves together, such as filling a second pastry or returning ingredient cards from your discard back to your hand.

Multi-use cards can be one of my favorite features in a game when executed well. Filler does this, and with a theme you don’t see very often. Green Couch Games is a publisher I’m a fan of, and this game only further cements why. They deliver small box games, with unique gameplay mechanics, fun themes, and are easy to play. Filler checks all of those boxes.