What it is
Food Chain Magnate is a heavy economic game: everyone runs a fast food chain in a small town and tries to finish the game with more money than the others. You do it like a real company, with an org chart that grows turn after turn. You hire people and train them so they learn a better job, and each of them takes a slot under you and almost always wants a salary, whether they work or not.
The heart of the game is demand. At the start the houses in the neighbourhood don’t want anything, and the craving for burgers, pizza or beer is created by advertising, with billboards, mailers, planes and radio. When dinnertime comes, each house goes to the restaurant that can serve everything it wants at the best price, distance included. So the advertising you pay for can end up making money for an opponent, if they have the closest restaurant or the lowest prices.
On top of all this there are the milestones, little races to be first, which give you an advantage for the rest of the game. And the end isn’t fixed: it comes when the bank runs dry for the second time, and how long that takes is up to the players.
How it plays
To me it’s a game of chess disguised as a cards-and-resources management game. Instead of pawns, rooks and bishops you have the characters, and each one has its own job and moves in its own way. So you need to know from the very first turn where you want to get to, and always think at least two turns ahead: if you realise you’ve fallen behind when the others have already made their moves, catching up is almost impossible.
The tip I always give is to go last in turn order, whenever you can. In plenty of games the first player has the edge, not here: whoever plays later sees what the others chose and still has time to change plans.
The nugget
Splotter Spellen, the Dutch company that published it first, is basically two people: Jeroen Doumen and Joris Wiersinga, who also designed it. They say so themselves on their website: by day they work for other companies, and making games is their hobby. On their shop, in fact, Food Chain Magnate is almost always sold out, waiting for the next print run.
At our table
Here’s another one of my favourite games! Someone on Threads asked me whether it pays to go first: not here, you’d rather move last.
How long does Food Chain Magnate take?
The box says 120–240 minutes. At our table: 120 minutes at two, 150 minutes at three.
The box
Video tutorial
Show the video tutorials 2 in Italian
FOOD CHAIN MAGNATE - Tutorial The Real Oivalf ·YouTube
In which game did you realise that going first does not pay?
The ones where waiting and watching the others is worth more than the first move.
