In Vegetable Stock, manipulate the market for carrots, tomatoes, corn, broccoli, and eggplant. The game has six rounds, and every vegetable starts with a different starting market value. Each round, display one more card than the player count, from which players choose one vegetable card for their personal “portfolio” (leaving one card behind). Cards depict three vegetables, which can be all different, all the same, or mixed with one or two of the same vegetables. The card not chosen raises the stock price for the vegetables depicted. Once any vegetable’s value reaches the top of the market, it crashes and returns to zero value. The strategy is to choose vegetables that you believe will be worth more after six rounds and leave cards behind deliberately to time market rises of their vegetables to get the highest value without crashing before the end of the game. At the end of six rounds, the game ends. Tally scores based on the stock price of each vegetable, multiplied by how many of them are in each person’s portfolio. The player with the highest valued portfolio wins! For 2-6 players with a gametime of 10-15 minutes.
This clever game contains pattern and color matching, as well as price/quantity market value timing. There is a measure of luck with available cards to collect each round on your turn but enough strategy with price forecasting and market timing to hold the attention of all ages. There are variant rules to increase complexity and provide variety between games.