Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
I adore this little game. Absolutely adore it. Le Chocolat, from designer Mashiu, is a quick two-player I Split-You Choose game that comes in a box smaller than most chocolate bars on the market. It has lived in my bag for months now. It’s perfect for when you need a quick gaming snack, a little shock to your blood sugar levels. From setup to teardown, it takes less than ten minutes, and most of those ten minutes feel like a high-wire act. All you can do is fall.
This tiny box is full of squares of chocolate, most of which have one kind of filling or another. Pistachios, cashews, oranges, raspberries, all the hits are here. During setup, you toss and turn the pieces about to randomize what’s face-up and what’s face-down, then form them into a 5 x 7 chocolate bar.
You take turns splitting that bar along any line. If a break results in one or more sections with three or fewer pieces, you must take one of those sections and add it to your scoring pile. The different mixin’s score in different ways, as determined by a randomly chosen scoring card at the top of the game. Every filling is worth points; it’s a question of how they score. Perhaps sets of Pistachio and Hazelnuts are worth something, Almonds score for majority, and Raspberries are worth negative points.
Like many I Split-You Choose games, skill in Le Chocolat comes down to not making mistakes. Playing poorly will hurt you more than playing well will help. But there is some skill mixed in here, mostly in figuring out when it’s better to risk taking face-down pieces or not. You know the distribution of the pieces—save for one random tile that’s left off the board each game—and can make reasonable assumptions.
You’re not always right, and that will bother some people, but to me, that’s part of the fun. I do find that I prefer the games with more face-up tiles; they have that knife-fight quality that I love to see in a quick two-player game. Le Chocolat isn’t ground-breaking, but I don’t need a game to be that. It’s such a simple little game, and such a pleasant way to pass the time. I’m always happy to take another bite.
Le Chocolat details
- Designer: ましう (Mashiu)
- Artists: 別府さい (Sai Beppu)
- Publishers: Allplay
- Release Date: 2026
- Player count : 2
- Age range : 7+
- Time range : 10 minutes
- Mechanism(s): Hidden Victory Points, I Cut, You Choose, Set Collection
- BGG Geek Rating: 6.25524 - converted to Meeple Mountain scale: 3.0.
- More articles about Le Chocolat.
