Review of Food Chain Magnate Special Edition – A Production-Only Deep Dive

For anyone who has read more than just a few of my reviews, it will be obvious that I’m a fan of Dutch design duo / independent publisher Splotter Spellen. Their games often may not be up to modern expectations when it comes to “bling” (or even art style) and most of their titles are either hard to get or quite expansive, often both. But in terms of innovation and clever game design, it’s simply outstanding what Jeroen Doumen and Joris Wiersinga have put out over the course of the last decades. Among my favourite games of theirs are city builder / civ-lite Antiquity, route building / time manipulation craziness Bus, “we’ll melt your brain” spatial puzzle Horseless Carriage, and the brilliant economic game Indonesia. Sadly, the widely popular Food Chain Magnate never managed to win my heart. I really like the idea of it, but when it came to actual plays, I consistent had a dreadful time. And yet … when Lucky Duck Games announced they would do a crowd funding version of a Splotter game…