Yakitori is an economic worker placement game about cooking yakitori. Yakitori is the broad name for a style of Japanese street foods describing any meats or vegetables that are skewered and then grilled.
In playing Yakitori the game, players roll dice and then select from actions such as Cooking, Market, and Influence. Foods (tiles) are bought, skewered and cooked, and then finally sold to net a healthy profit. Clever planning can pay off in this family-friendly game that will also intrigue seasoned gamers looking for a thinky game that integrates theme with mechanisms.
The usage of the various elements - a market, tiles, skewers, dice - in playing Yakitori is really interesting. It uses a market that is fairly fluid and has a lot of influence upon it from player actions. The movement of the tiles and turning them is also a very unique action. Playing Yakitori, you actually feel like you’re cooking yakitori and competing with other “chefs” to win.
Players: 2 to 5
Time to Play: 30-45 minutes
Ages: 10+
Read the Yakitori Rules on BoardGameGeek or watch Ken Grazier demo how to play Yakitori on YouTube
Publisher: Daft Concepts
Release Date: 2016
How did Yakitori come about?
The idea to design a board game about Yakitori came about during a bad round of playing a tile laying game; I made an off-hand comment about wanting to put my tiles on a skewer and grill them into blackened lumps. It was like an a ha moment; let’s make a Yakitori game! With the help of Chris Urinko and Daft Concepts, Yakitori was made and had a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2016. Check out this interview with Chris all about Yakitori.
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