Tea Time Hopping Race（午茶跳跳）

The Game

Tea Time Hopping Race is a name I came up with. The original name is in Chinese, and in order for me to create an entry for the game at www.boardgamegeek.com, I need to come up with an English translation. It's not a literal translation, and hopefully I'm doing it some justice. 

This is a family game from Taiwan. Bunny and Chick (I came up with these character names too) are competing. Every player supports one of them, but we only know who the start player supports. The loyalties of the rest are unknown and will only be revealed at the end of a race. Bunny and Chick will have three races. During a race the players play cards to make them advance. You will have opportunities to gain cakes (which are worth victory points). Whoever helps one of the characters cross the finish line earns a cake (even if you are not on its team). Then all its supporters share the prize as evenly as possible, in player order starting with whoever pushed it across the finish line. This sounds like a team game, but it is not one. Among those supporting the same character, you will compete to try to get more cake. Everyone wants to be the finisher. After 3 races, there will only be one winner - the player with the most points on the cakes collected. 

The tin box is beautiful, and can be mistaken for a cookie tin. 

The race track is created using cards. This character here is Bunny. The arrows on the track means if you land there, you must move backward or forward a specific number of steps. 

These cards are used to randomly determine which character you secretly support. The cards are shuffled and dealt out at the start of a round. The start player uses a different card and freely decides who to support. The rest are randomly assigned. It is possible that every player supports the same character. That doesn't necessarily make the race less interesting. 

Some spaces on the race track have a plate, and you place a piece of cake on these plates. When you make a character land on a cake, you claim the cake. This character here is Chick. 

The is the card back of the support card. A support card tells you who you secretly support, Bunny or Chick. You don't reveal this card until the current race ends. 

Before a race starts, place five cakes at the finish line as the prize. Whoever helps a character cross the finish line claims one cake, even if he or she is not a supporter of that character. After that, starting from the player who crossed the finish line and going clockwise, every supporter takes turns claiming a cake. Some may end up claiming more than one if there is enough. If you happen to be the only supporter of a character and it wins, you may be able to claim all five cakes! Being alone is not necessarily bad. 

The Play

This is a simple game. I would classify it as a children's game too. You have a hand of three, and every turn you just draw a card and play a card. Most of the time you play a card to move the character you support, but not always. The game may seem simple, but there is some subtlety in the competition among supporters of the same character. Ultimately this is not a team game. It is still everyone for himself / herself. Sometimes you don't want to advance your own character because it will set your teammate up to cross the finish line. Also sometimes you advance the other character because you want to claim a cake on a plate. 

I played with my wife Michelle and younger daughter Chen Rui. I was a little surprised when I managed to win in a 1 vs 2 situation, and my character was Chick, which has smaller cards. Being the sole supporter allowed me to claim many cakes. Then in the final race, although Michelle was on the same team as me, she played to let Chen Rui (on the opposing team) win. She felt I was too far ahead and it was impossible to catch up, so she decided to do something crazy and see whether she could make Chen Rui win instead. Unfortunately for me, it worked. 

Absolutely lovely cakes

This card lets you decide who takes the next turn. If you know who the opposing team members are, you can play this to skip over them and let your teammate play next. 

The point values are mostly between 2 to 4. 

The Thoughts

Tea Time Hopping Race is cute and well produced. It's a great gift for non-gamers and families. It's not the kind of game seasoned gamers pick to play, but I must admit I really enjoy the art and the  production.