Advert: This game was kindly gifted by Alley Cat Games for review purposes. All opinions are ours and our reviews are always honest.

This weekend we finally got a break in the cold, dark weather so in truly British fashion it must be time for a BBQ, right? Which is why today we’re reviewing Barbecubes from Alley Cat Games. Now, Lauren and I were spoiled growing up because we were brought up in top-tier barbecuing families. I’m not just talking sausages and burgers here, I’m talking minted lamb steaks, skewers, chicken wings, prawns and corn on the cobs. With elite barbecuing in our DNA, I guess the real question is: Did we inherit any skills to help us master Barbecubes?

Key Stats

2 to 6 players
3 to 15 minutes
6+ years

Publisher: Alley Cat Games
Designer: Rob Sparks and Brett J GIlbert
Art: Rory Muldoon

Theme/category: Food, Small Tin
Key mechanics: Dexterity, Player Elimination

Gameplay overview:

Barbecubes is a competitive dexterity game where you take turns to place pixelated food items onto a barbecue grill made out of the tin and a few wooden cross bars. Don’t worry, no real cooking skills are required – you just need to cook up creative ways to place your food that makes it more difficult for the next player to place theirs.

Each turn, you flip a card from the deck that tells you: 

• Which type of food item you need to add to the grill.
• How many grill bars the food item needs to be placed across
• Whether to use your dominant or non-dominant hand. 

And just like its predecessor Tinderblox, you can only place the pieces onto the grill using tweezers! 

If you knock any food pieces off or into the grill you take the card and put it in front of you. If you take a second card you’re out of the game. The last player standing wins and is proclaimed champion of the Grill! 

Our thoughts

The gameplay in Barbecubes definitely feels familiar to Tinderblox, which I reviewed earlier this year. You can tell they’re related, but different enough to feel fresh and in most cases, my successes were down to a steady hand, choosing the right space for my food, and nudging other food to make space.

In Tinderblox, you’re building a campfire upwards from a relatively narrow base. This limits your placement options right from the start, placing components wherever they will fit. But in Barbecubes there’s more space to place from the get go, so it’s a slower burn before you to get into tricky positions and risk ‘nudging’ other food on the grill.  You also get more agency on how to place and orientate the food – as long as it meets the grill conditions on your card. I personally like to place food pieces in precarious ways (standing burgers upright and chicken legs on their bones) to add a bit of jeopardy. And if an opponent isn’t careful when the grill is full, these precarious portions can easily topple off.

It takes more time to light a barbecue than to set-up and teach a game of Barbecubes, with such a simple gameplay it can be played by anyone young and old and from my experience everyone has a good time playing it. It also has a simple but effective aesthetic. I love the choice to pixelate the food items, which not only look fun and appealing, but also feed into gameplay tactics by giving you little ledges to hook onto the bars of the grill.

Switching between your dominant and non-dominant hands to place food on the grill adds more placement perils – another carry-over from Tinderblox and still one of my favourite design elements in these games. For those of us who are not ambidextrous, it’s ridiculous how hard it feels placing the food with our least favoured hand. But it caused a lot of laughs when playing with friends over some beers (that and arguing over who is making the table wobble on purpose!). 

With a small tin and an almost-as-small table footprint I think you would struggle to find a table that Barbecubes couldn’t fit on, making it the perfect game to take out and about with you. This is always a win in my book. 

You will need some fine motor skills to enjoy Barbecubes and if that’s something you feel you may struggle with then it might not be for you. 

What we like:

• It’s a sizzling little filler game that carries through the fun and tension of the Tinderblox but with a fresh format.

• It’s super approachable and quick to teach so perfect for playing with your gaming and non-gaming friends and family.

• The tin is small but mighty and is perfectly sized to take out with you.

• Simple, fun aesthetic – we love the pixelated food items!

• Compared to Tinderblox, it gives you more agency in how you orient and place your food pieces – for me this is a welcome change to the game.

Considerations:

• Barbecubes might not be for you if you struggle with fine motor skills.

Verdict:

Barbecubes is a brilliant continuation of Rob Sparks’ (and Alley Cat Games’) small tin dexterity games, carrying through the fun and tension of the Tinderblox but with a fresh format. If you’re a fan of Tinderblox, you’ll probably enjoy Barbecubes as well, and in my opinion they feel different enough to own both.