Author: Anne Ewbank / Source: Atlas Obscura
Food is an occasional subject in board games, but you can’t actually eat Candy Land. Game designer Jenn Sandercock, though, wants to bring food to the table in a new way, by making board games where eating is essential.
She’s created 12 edible tabletop games so far, all of which require a trip to the supermarket.Sandercock has the background of a video game character herself. An Australian, she studied mechanical engineering, computer science, and applied mathematics. For years, she worked for the Australian Defense Force on artificial intelligence and experimental aircraft. “I never thought games were a valid career option,” she says, though she grew up inspired by adventure games. Looking back, she realized she had been steadily designing games for some time. She remembers the realization she had nine years ago: “Oh! I’m a game designer. That’s actually what I do well.”
After that realization, she worked in the video game industry on high-production games such as L.A. Noire. As a coder and designer, she also worked on ambitious, solo video game projects in her own time. Around five years ago, she made her first edible board game (though in her opinion, it was only okay). “I’ve always liked baking and I’ve always liked games,” she says. Two years ago, after feeling inspired by an independent games festival, she decided to fully explore the edible game concept.
The result is The Edible Games Cookbook, a game manual she plans to fund on Kickstarter starting this June.The cookbook contains instructions for baking and assembling 12 edible tabletop games. The goofy game The Order of the Oven Mitt begins with chocolate cookie pieces—each topped with different candies—on a gingerbread checkerboard. Players have fondant avatars, or “squires,” and have to perform rituals to become knights. The game can be cooperative or competitive: Either squires collaborate to make sure everyone gets their preferred candy, or they block opponents from getting their favorites. But the chocolate tablets come with a price: to eat, you must perform…
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