A real-time board game about competitive restaurant owning.
Use your chef's power, cook recipes, and lead your restaurant to gastronomical glory.
2-6 Players, Ages 10+
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Less than 36 hours left to back ILLITERATI! We've unlocked 18+ Stretch Goals! Plus, meet our newest "finger lickin" chef: Colonel Absaloot Feast 👨🍳
about 2 years ago
– Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 02:07:32 AM
Hello Rival Restaurants Backers!
Our team here at Gap Closer Games has been busy the past few weeks managing the launch of our second standalone title, ILLITERATI. In case you haven't heard, ILLITERATI has been kicking some serious crowdfunding butt! As of now, we are on pace to become THE MOST FUNDED WORD GAME IN KICKSTARTER HISTORY! 😲😲😲
And it's all thanks to our 6,050 (and counting) backers, many of whom came from here--the Rival Restaurants family. Thanks to your efforts, all of ILLITERATI's Stretch Goals have been unlocked! From 10 additional books to 5 new villain cards to all-around better components, ILLITERATI has been upgraded to the max and we couldn't be more excited! If you haven't backed yet but would like to, it's not too late! But there's less than 36 hours left in the campaign (which ends on Thursday at 9pm PDT), so don't wait!
Also, an important word about the promo chef
Every deluxe copy of Illiterati is set to come with Colonel Absaloot Feast, The Glorious Eater. This is our way of saying thank you to everyone who backed both Rival Restaurants AND Illiterati. HOWEVER...
...that does not mean you need to back Illiterati just to get Colonel Absaloot Feast. In fact, just to make ourselves perfectly clear: do not back Illiterati just to get the promo chef. After discussing and confirming with our manufacturers and distributors, we've found a way to make our promo chef Colonel Absaloot Feast available for purchase a la carte! This means that any of you will be able to purchase the Colonel via our website (www.gapcloserpublishing.com) once he's available. We haven't set a price yet but our goal is to sell him essentially at cost (i.e. you're basically just paying for the cost of manufacturing and shipping).
Nevertheless, if you are at all interested in backing Illiterati, please do! We would love to have your support as we promote our next title and we're confident that you're going to love it just like you do Rival Restaurants!
We made a NEW game! (And psst…it comes with a SPECIAL PROMO CHEF!)
about 2 years ago
– Thu, Mar 03, 2022 at 12:02:24 AM
Greetings Rival Restauranteurs!
It’s been a while since our last Kickstarter update, reason being… we’ve been busy making a NEW GAME! We are incredibly excited to announce that our newest venture, Illiterati, is now LIVE on Kickstarter!
Illiterati is a real-time cooperative word game for 1-5 players.You and your fellow Librarians must save the world’s books as you battle against the Illiterati—an evil, secret organization that will stop at nothing in making the world illiterate.
At Gap Closer Games, we pride ourselves on making games that can “close the gap” between gamers and non-gamers, or in this case, word gamers and non-word gamers. In Illiterati, being good at spelling and having a decent vocabulary can help, but it takes creativity, strategy, and most importantly, teamwork to win.
Can you and your teammates work together, balancing each other’s unique book objectives, all while surviving the Illiterati?
With a lightning fast setup (yes, we learned from Rival Restaurants 😅), no down time (who likes waiting?), and a built-in difficulty mechanism that makes the game progressively harder, Illiterati is guaranteed to be a hit at countless game nights to come.
And unlike Rival Restaurants, Illiterati has a fantastic solo mode! So even if it’s hard to get the gang together, you can still fight the Illiterati with an incredibly satisfying one player experience.
One More Thing...
We know how much you love Rival Restaurants. After all, you were one of our very first backers! And so, included in every Deluxe copy of Illiterati is aspecial promo chef for Rival Restaurants!
We created Colonel Absaloot Feast as a fun way to introduce Illiterati backers to the world of Rival Restaurants. We also wanted to think of a way to show our gratitude to all of you who decide to back Illiterati! However, just to be clear, by no means should you back Illiterati just to get Absaloot! We don’t think that’ll be the case (Illiterati can more than stand on its own!), but we just wanted to set the record straight. We may have other opportunities for you to get Absaloot in the future, but we just won’t know for sure until everything is said and done.
Whether you decide to back Illiterati or not, thank you for being one of our original Kickstarter backers. The only reason we were able to even create a second game was because of your initial support, so thank you. Please check out our project page and watch our Kickstarter video if you have a chance! And be sure to share Illiterati with anyone you think might be interested in a co-op word game
Lastly, if you do decide to back Illiterati, please do so sooner than later so that we can build early momentum for Illiterati! Thank you Gap Closer family and we’ll keep you posted!
You may have heard the news that Jeff Bezos is stepping down as Amazon CEO. The same week we launched our store. Coincidence? You be the judge. Okay, so maybe Jeff isn't exactly losing sleep about this announcement... but that doesn't mean we still can't be excited!
As a startup board game publisher, launching our own e-commerce site has always been a big goal of ours. So, this represents a huge step in the right direction for our humble little team. It means that...
We have officially graduated from Kickstarter!
You and your friends can now buy Rival Restaurants and Back For Seconds directly from our website.
You can pick up the add-ons you've been craving (the Bento Box, custom-fit sleeves, deluxe upgrade packs)
We are more than just Rival Restaurants (at least, we're preparing to be). 😉
We are moving forward under www.gapcloserpublishing.com so that we can continue to grow the Gap Closer Games brand. As much as we love Rival Restaurants (and wouldn't be here without it), we want to position our company to grow along with our portfolio of games. And yes... that means we are cooking up something else soon. (Dang it, gotta stop with the food puns... 😅.)
If you don't want to miss out on our next big project, make sure you're on our mailing list!
Stay safe, stay hungry, and always be playing.
Only 36 HOURS left to back Rival Restaurants's Expansion: Back for Seconds!
about 4 years ago
– Tue, Mar 17, 2020 at 12:35:51 AM
FINAL CALL TO BACK THE (FULLY STRETCHED) EXPANSION!
If you're reading this, that means you were one of the 4,191 original backers for Rival Restaurants. To us, that means a lot. After all, without you, there would be no "expansion" for Rival Restaurants (because there would be no "Rival Restaurants" to begin with)! So, thank you.
Having said that, it would mean the world to have your support once more as we are in the FINAL HOURS for our re-print and expansion campaign. Already, we have 1,680 backers who are "Back for Seconds" for our all-new, all-exciting expansion. That's almost half of everyone from our original campaign!
But, for those of you who are still on the fence, here's why you should also be "Back for Seconds":
~ 8 powerful new chefs ~
~ 6 sizzling new restaurants ~
~ 50 delicious, all-new recipes ~
~ 15 game-changing Event Cards~
And in case you missed it the first time, we have a two player mode called "Kitchen Squad!":
More Chefs = More Combinations
Pit your best chefs against your opponent's in a highly strategic variant of Rival Restaurants. Read more about Kitchen Squad in our rule book.
Also, if you missed out on the Deluxe Edition last time...
Thank you again for being a supporter of Rival Restaurants and we hope to see you soon!
Always eating,
Team Gap Closer Games
Are you ready to MONEY and MOVE? The Rival Restaurants EXPANSION is launching TOMORROW at 9 AM PST!
about 4 years ago
– Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 01:20:16 AM
"BACK FOR SECONDS" will be live on Kickstarter at...
9 AM PST | TOMORROW | Tuesday 2/18
Hello to all our wonderful backers!
The wait is almost over! In less than 24 hours, we are going LIVE on Kickstarter with our expansion (Back for Seconds) as well as the reprint of the Rival Restaurants base game!
We are so excited to share everything we have in store for you! So excited, in fact, that we partnered with Quackalope Games to bring you this awesome video preview of BACK FOR SECONDS. If you want to see all the new chefs, restaurants, recipes, and action cards (some of which will need to be unlocked with your help during our Kickstarter campaign)...not to mention the brand new mechanic--THE EVENT DECK--check out this video! They did an amazing job capturing the spirit (and content) of the expansion and we hope you'll be as excited as we are about Back for Seconds!
That's it for now! See you all at 9 AM PST tomorrow!
