Ham’s Sandwich Shop Review – The Hero We Deserve

Cute, abstract, simple to learn, harder to master, Gigamech Games brings Ham’s Sandwich Shop to the masses. As the board game industry ventures towards the newest, hottest games around, sequels, and well known names, the more that smaller unknown games slip through the cracks. Developed by Little Rocket Games, and art by Graphic 335, Ham’s Sandwich Shop has an adorable aesthetic which can deceive players into thinking oh it’s just an easy game that offers only the most basic of games rather than depth and strategy.

With that said we can venture into Ham’s Sandwich Shop and learn what it really takes to make the best sandwich, and whether some hamster’s are going to eat our ingredients or not. In Ham’s Sandwich Shop you can play either two or three players. Each of these player counts offers different strategies as the player count may affect the ingredients. All players are given a stack of hamsters in a color. These player hamsters have either ingredients or food crumbs on them. The game’s flow is a simple one: move the chef token(hamster) up to three spaces in front, and then take an ingredient and place it on one of three sandwiches. These three sandwiches are the way players will provide the chef with what they desire in the game. What the chef desires gets determined by the ingredients immediately in front of him. 

The trick here however is around the circle of food that makes up the board, there are tokens(seeds) that get placed between equal amounts of the ingredients. When one of the seeds is passed that player takes one of their hamsters and places it on a sandwich facedown where the other player(s) cannot see whether it has an ingredient or not. The hamster in this case could also have the crumbs I mentioned earlier which lets the hamster eat the ingredient below it thus nullifying that ingredient as far as a sandwich would go. Play continues with players choosing to make sandwiches out of one of the three in the middle thinking it is the kind of sandwich that the chef is after. If a player is correct they get a gold star, if the player is wrong they get a gray star. First player to three gold stars wins, if you get two gray stars then you lose. 

The ever changing sandwich, and the ever changing ingredient pool that is available makes Ham’s Sandwich Shop one that is particularly difficult to master in a way, but offers a nice light game with some rewarding choices. It is here in that continuously changing board, and continuously changing sandwiches, accessible by all players mind you, that makes this game one of the more fun games that has hit my table recently. What can be frustrating is just when you are ready to make a sandwich and the ingredients change and makes the sandwich you were working on incorrect, or when players eat ingredients with their hamsters and you take a gamble on whether or not you’ll make the correct sandwich. Losing after gaining two gray stars can feel a little harsh. Between that and the first to achieve three gold stars win condition games move along fairly quickly and don’t overstay their welcome. Let’s not forget about the aesthetic and how adorable the hamsters are, how nice and vibrant the food pieces look and how easy setup and teardown is. 

At the end of the day Ham’s Sandwich Shop offers a cute but fun experience with hamsters and food pieces that are adorable. It’s here that the game thrives initially but offers a much deeper experience for those that are looking for a more chess-like tactical challenge. 

Pros 

• Short play times
• Adorable aesthetic with fun pieces
• Easy to learn

Cons 

• Losing by way of gray stars can feel bad