We’ve always tried to teach our kids about being good stewards of their finances.  When they earn allowance, they have to put 10% into a “Save” jar and another 10% into a “Give” jar first, and then are allowed to spend whatever is left.  Additionally, whenever it is close to a birthday or Christmas, we typically don’t let them spend any of their money since we know that there is going to be an influx of gifts in the near future.  But… if I’m being honest, I can’t say that I do the same for myself!  It’s not that I’m just going out and spending money on board games right before Christmas, but some of the deals are just too good to pass up… right?

An example would be Target online last week, you could buy two toys/games and get a third free!  So, I bought two things for my kids to save for Christmas and then something for me (A Gentle Rain: Bloom Edition.)  And on Black Friday, I went to my local game store to see if they had sales, and they were giving 25% off every game!  So, I grabbed something for my youngest, but it wouldn’t be financially responsible if I didn’t grab something for myself at this deep discount, right?!  Ok, I’m trying really hard to give myself license for my undeniable obsession with purchasing board games but without it, I wouldn’t be sitting here writing a review on the cheese-making game Fromage, which I did pick up for 25% off, if you were wondering.

This is the latest game from the pair of designers who worked on the In Search of… series and the Between Two… series as well as the publishers who brought us Canvas and Globetrotting.  So, how much fun is a game about making cheese in France really supposed to be?  Read on to find out!

The rulebook for Fromage is done very well, utilizing plenty of large illustrations, full of highlights and call-outs for the vital aspects of the game.  Any possible points of contention come with an added Clarifications section for easy seeking later on.  The book even has Strategy Tips littered throughout, which is a welcome addition for a new player.  Honestly, nothing negative can be said for the rulebook, in my opinion.

A standout piece of Fromage are the components, in both artwork and ingenuity.  As you go through the box for the first time, you can’t help but be awed by the four Board Quadrants that are going to make up the circular, some might say, “Lazy-Susan-Esque,” main board.  The quadrants are nice and hefty, printed with a different Venue on each one.  I assumed they would just fit together like puzzle pieces, but they actually have a system to lock into place and not pull apart while playing.  This is a great quality of life upgrade since players will be touching, and physically rotating, the board a lot throughout a game.  The last thing I want to point out on the Board Quadrants is that they come with inserts that can be slid into the board itself.  This allows you to cover up the pre-printed slots on the board (which are for a four-player game), making the game playable at one-, two-, or three-players.  Each insert is double-sided so players can mix-and-match them and add quite a bit of variety to the board from game to game. In regard to the player components, they will receive 15 wooden Cheese Tokens and 3 Workers in their chosen player color.  These Workers are quite a bit different than your typical Worker Meeple that you see in other worker placement games.  These Workers are thin plastic figures, depicting a different cheese maker from the waist-up, with two protruding pieces at the bottom.  These pieces fit into the slots in one of the three Worker Bases each player will get: a white Soft Cheese base, a yellow Hard Cheese base, and a blue Bleu Cheese base.  The Workers should be slotted into these, giving you a worker that can create one type of cheese each.  You also might notice that these bases are hollow and can fit perfectly on top of your wooden Cheese Tokens!  Don’t worry, I’ll explain soon enough but the whole production of these components is really stellar. 

Most of the other components are your standard cardboard chits or tokens.  There are some Order Cards that are reminiscent of the wine orders in Viticulture and have a nice artist’s rendition of a different “fancy” cheese on each.  While we’re on the topic of artwork, I love the images in this game.  The art style evokes late 19^th century France, utilizing a duo-tone neutral color palette for the background of the Board Quadrants, with splashes of color enhancing the important play areas.  I can’t help but smile when playing the game, taking in all the details across the different components.

I do have to say that the one negative in this department is the Resource Tile, that “fits” into the middle, where all four quadrants come together.  This tile is a square with cut-outs to display the printed numbers underneath, but in my copy, the tile doesn’t really fit where it’s supposed to.  It seems as if it isn’t perfectly flat, so it constantly slips and slides as soon as someone even breathes on it.  It would have been nice if there had been a groove cut across each quadrant so that there would be a space for this tile to slot down into, stopping it from moving.  It’s a small gripe and doesn’t impact the play of the game much at all, but for a game that has a lot of care and attention put into the other components, this one piece stands out in a particularly negative fashion

Setup & Gameplay

Setting the game up is a cinch so I’m not going to go into details in this review.  But if you’re interested in exactly what goes into the setup of the game, please check out my full “How-to-Play” video here.

When discussing the gameplay, I think it’s important to bring up two worker placement games Fromage was obviously inspired by: the aforementioned Viticulture, and the Mayan themed Tzolk’in.  While Fromage doesn’t copy either of these games, players can find bits and pieces of each, used in new and exciting ways.  Viticulture’s overall feel is present in Fromage, heightened by the fact that players will not have the whole board available for worker placement each round.  This is similar in nature to how the different seasons work in Viticulture.  For Tzolk’in’s part, the rondel mechanic and having workers perform more powerful actions the longer they stay on it, has noticeably played a part in the rotation of Fromage’s main board.

In Fromage, player turns are taken simultaneously.  Each turn, a player may do both of the following actions, in any order, but can only do each action once.  The first is to Gather Resources, where players will take any of their three Workers and place it on one of the three available spaces on the Resource Tile that is facing that specific player.  Each side of this tile awards one of the game’s resources: Fruit, Livestock, Structures and Orders.  Of the available spaces, players can choose if they gain one, two, or three of said resource.

The second action option is to Make Cheese.  For players to do this, they will need to take one of their wooden Cheese Tokens and slot it into one of the available spaces within the Venue that is facing them.  Players will need to be cognizant of what type of cheese is detailed on that space, as they will have to use their matching worker (Soft, Hard, or Bleu) to place on top of the Cheese Token.  If that specific worker type is not available (as it is already out on the board), the player must choose a different space for their Cheese Token.

After all players have completed their turn, by taking either one or both of the above actions, the whole board is rotated 90 degrees, so that the Board Quadrant to each player’s right is now in front of them.  At this point, all players will take the Retrieve Workers action, if needed.  Unlike other worker placement games, where it is typical that at the end of a round, players grab all of their workers, Fromage comes at this aspect from a wholly different direction.  Once the board has been rotated, players will see if any of their workers are now pointing at them, and if so, they are able to retrieve these workers.  Conversely, any worker that is facing a different direction will stay on the board for another (or possibly two more) rotation(s). 

So, what factor determines which way the workers are facing?  Above I discussed that each Venue space has one of the three cheese types detailed on it, but they also each have one of the three different Cheese Ages: One Month, Two Months, or Three Months.  These are depicted using an easy system of Bronze, Silver, or Gold colored illustrations in the space.  Bronze spaces are shaped so the Cheese Worker is always facing to the right, meaning that these workers will be facing the player after a single turn of the board.  Silver is always facing the opposite direction of the player, taking two rotations to face the player and lastly, Gold are always facing to the left so that there needs to be three rotations before a player can pick them back up.  As you have probably guessed, scoring is predicated on these ages, where three-month cheeses are worth more points than two-month cheeses which are worth more than one-month cheeses.

I love this aspect of Fromage, because you are constantly weighing the opportunity cost of your decisions.  Is it worth it to make a three-month Bleu Cheese and give up the ability to make any more of that type of cheese for three turns, scoring more points at the end of the game, or should you snag a one-month spot so that you get your worker back on the next turn?  There is an added layer when you bring in the different Structures and Livestock options.  Both of these resources allow you to augment your turn by taking extra actions, or making another cheese without spending a worker, to name a few.  And don’t forget to fill the Orders or grab some Fruit so that you can make the special Jam and Fruited Cheeses. 

The last thing I want to point out is the wide variety of play between the four quadrants.  Each act as a mini-game within itself and all four feel totally different from each other.  At the Festival Venue, players score points for creating the longest and/or largest group of adjacent cheeses.  Players visiting the Fromagerie Venue will want to spread their cheeses out across the six shelves, securing a wide selection and maybe even some resources and Victory Points while they do so.  At the Bistro Venue, players will want to serve cheese pairings to as many tables as possible.  The more pairings a player can create, the more points each plate will win at the end of the game.  Lastly, the Villes Venue shows a map of France, divided into six regions.  Customer Tokens, worth a varying number of points, are spread across the map randomly at setup.  Players want to place cheese in the regions, winning the Customer Token if they hold the area majority at the end of the game.  If you’ve ever played the Tuscany expansion for Viticulture, you’ll recognize similarities to the map where players put their Star Tokens.

Solo Mode Thoughts

Fromage’s solo mode is a nice way to learn the game, but it is not strong enough on its own to warrant a purchase for solo-only players.  In the game, the player’s turn works in the same manner as the multiplayer mode.  The difference is that the opponent is called The Corporation and has a unique player board to itself.  I do like that each board contains a different difficulty so you can easily tweak this from game to game.  The Corporation chooses which type of cheese to put out solely based on the next Order Card drawn.  If no cheese of that type is available, it discards the card and gains three points.  The rest of its points are basically determined by how many Cheese Tokens it places.  It uses no workers, no Livestock, no Structures, etc. Fromage really shines because of the interaction of the players. Even though it is not direct interaction, players can actively block each other in Venues such as Festival, and this aspect of the game is completely lost in the solo mode.

Worker Placement games seem to be a dime-a-dozen nowadays, and I never know if I need another one.  But I’m glad to report that Fromage brings enough differences to the table to stand out.  With its wonderful artwork, smooth simultaneous play, and fun mechanisms, Fromage might just be “the big cheese” at your next gaming session!

Ratings are based on 5 main criteria: rulebook, setup, components, art & graphic design, and gameplay.  The first 4 criteria are rated 1 to 5 and the gameplay is rated 1 to 10.  These scores culminate in an “overall satisfaction” score that is rated from 1 to 10.  If the reviewed game has both a solo and multiplayer mode, I have assigned scores separately to give context to which mode we enjoy more.