Like Gamewright, GoVenture has quite the history of creating educational products. GoVenture includes “software applications, educational games, simulations, mobile, apps, board games, card games, blended games, ebooks, and a massively multiplayer online game”, according to their official website. Today we’ll be looking at “Food Truck Entrepreneur”, a tabletop game revolving around delivering food to customers (and other places) to gain XP and claim victory. Before we begin I’m required by FTC regulations to disclose that I was paid to cover this game, however any and all opinions are my own.
1-4 Players, Ages 8+, 30+ Minutes Average Play Time
Components
I received the HOME version, which is the standard retail copy of the game. There is an EDUCATION version which includes extra materials like lessons, activities, accounting sheets, and so on.
My press / retail copy included food pieces, truck pieces, & business cards of different player colors (each player will receive a set of the same color), a game board, loan cards, money, a traffic cone piece, action cards, employee cards, and a closed for construction card. There are also two easy reference instruction cards. You can see them visually via the video embedded at the end of this article.
Gameplay
The goal of “Food Truck Entrepreneur” is to reach 10 XP without a loan (players start with one). The first player to do so wins the game. To earn XP, players will sell food to customers, make 4 donations to the food bank, or pay $8 to the bank (limit once per turn). You can either serve 3 customers who prefer your food or serve any 5 customers…either way they have to be in the same location.
The youngest player takes the first turn. On the active player’s turn, they will:
1) Play one or more action cards they may have acquired from previous turns. (optional)
2) Buy 1 XP by paying $8 to the bank. (optional, limit 1 per turn)
3) Move their truck (optional) and do the actions located there. To move, that players rolls two dice but only the higher number is observed. The player may move that many spaces. Employee cards may add bonus spaces. Traffic cones stop movement and can be passed on the next turn.
The general gameplay flow is buying food at the market to then sell to customers. The market allows players to buy food at the price indicated on their business card. Trucks cannot carry more than 6 food. Any truck that stops at the market removes the “closed for construction” card from the board (these typically start on the industrial sell space but can be randomized by players).
Trucks then sell food at one of three sell locations, again via the price on the business card. When selling food to customers, that player rolls two dice and assigns food to the customers with the matching numbers (money isn’t earned until that player visits the bank space). Players only assign one food per die value and a customer cannot have more than one food token. If doubles were rolled, the player can either serve 2 customers of that value or choose any 1 customer to serve regardless of value.
It’s worth mentioning that customers have a preferred food type. A player’s color will determine what one type of food they can sell, be it tacos, ice cream, and so on. However, just because a customer prefers a certain food does not mean they won’t buy what you’re offering. There are varying bonuses for completing sets at the SAME location:
1. Selling 3 of your food to customers who prefer the same type (your food and the customer preference do not have to match) earns the player $2 extra.
2. Selling 3 of your food to customers who prefer your type of food (your food and the customer preference matches) earns the player 1 XP.
3. Selling 5 of your food to any customer preferring any type of food earns the player 1 XP.
A location with a “closed for construction” card present is off limits.
The bank space allows players to collect money from customers, pay bills, and change employees. While stopping at the bank allows you to earn money from customers, you’ll have to pay the truck cost on your business card, pay the employee cost on your employee card, and pay the loan interest on your loan card. Once you pay off the loan principal you’ll no longer have to pay the interest (and can potentially win the game).
The cater event space is like the modified “Free Parking” space on a Monopoly board. Money used to buy action cards, pay beep beep fines, and dice roll fines is placed on the cater event space. Anyone who lands here can collect all the accumulated money.
The food bank spaces allow a player to place a food on the food bank they land on or pass to purchase one action card by paying $1 to the Cater Event Space. Once you’ve donated 4 food, you earn 1 XP.
Players continue taking turns until one player reaches 10 XP and has paid off their loan. That player wins!
While the above doesn’t cover all of the rules found in the rulebook, it should give you the general idea as to how the game is played. To see the rulebook and other rules I glossed over, head on over to the official website here:
https://www.goventure.net/ftbg
The Review
At its heart, “Food Truck Entrepreneur” is a pick up and deliver game. It encourages players to maximize their moves efficiently while keeping an ever-fluctuating bank account in mind. For example, money is only earned when you get to the bank space, but this also results in paying a bunch of fees. Ideally, you only want to stop at the bank when you’ve sold your maximum hold of 6 food to get the most out of the visit.
Along those same lines, I like the idea of earning XP via donating to a food bank. If you have excess money for multiple market trips, the food bank is an easy way to earn some XP if you camp out there and donate every turn. You could also deliver your last remaining food in stock to a food bank in order to empty your inventory as you’re passing by. That said, you can potentially serve more customers in one turn (2 dice = 0-2 potentially served customers) so there’s a risk / reward situation that changes as customers everywhere start getting food tokens placed on them.
I also like the addition of the employee cards and the ability to swap them out for different benefits. I don’t like that your starting $1 employees don’t have any abilities at all. It would have been interesting though to be able to buy food of any type to corner the market or to target specific customers, buy storage to hold excess food, and other more advanced ideas but I can see why they didn’t want the game to be too complicated. As a house rule I intend to allow 2 trucks per player in a 2 player game to see how that goes.
There’s a little bit of “take that” in this game but I think some house rules can easily resolve this if it’s not your thing. There are certain action cards that send other trucks to the garage space, for example. Simply remove those cards and others as you see fit. I found the “beep beep” rule to be a bit convoluted and unnecessary for a game like this. Little kids will have enough trouble math-ing out their route and delivering food to appreciate the silly call-out rule. Luckily, the rulebook lists this as “optional”.
Speaking of the rulebook, it’s disorganized and incomplete. There isn’t a table of contents or components page for example, the latter of which is a staple in “Ameritrash” / “Eurogames” alike. How many components / pieces should I have upon opening the box? *shrug* I can’t tell. In case you’re curious, I counted 18 food pieces per player color. The rulebook is organized in such a way that is not at all user-friendly. I expected the “ON YOUR TURN” section to be followed by the details of the three steps to a turn. Instead it’s followed by an overview of Money, Business, Food, Action…oh there, action cards! That’s the first step to a turn! When you have to flip back and forth repeatedly to see how one piece of information relates to another in a rulebook, there’s a problem.
There’s a particular rule that is too subtly mentioned in the rulebook and I had missed it originally until I saw it mentioned on one of the overview cards. I mean, I checked the rulebook three times and on that third try finally found the answer. “When do the food tokens come off the customers?” In this case, when you get paid at the bank. It wasn’t mentioned in the “sell food to customers” section where I expected it to be, rather it was mentioned in the bank section. My point kind of drives home the problems that I had with the rulebook.
I do appreciate that there is a solo mode…you essentially play the game yourself with one truck and every time doubles are rolled, an AI score marker goes up by one on the XP track. You’re competing to get your victory conditions met before that happens. You can also play a shorter multiplayer game by earning double the XP as you play, which is nice.
I’m on the fence with this one. It’s not a bad game, but I didn’t feel that it was great either. If a seasoned tabletop gamer can get frustrated by the rules then I can only imagine what they’d do to their actual core audience (casual / family gamers). The retail price for the HOME edition is around $50…also not ideal for a game of this caliber. I expected this to be more along the lines of “PAN AM” and other similarly heavy on the plastic games and thus consequently priced between $20-$30.
I can appreciate the attempt, but there are other pick up and deliver / educational games out there that teach basic math and other concepts for half the price. It’s also quite heavy on the dice rolls and there is very little dice mitigation / manipulation to prevent consistently bad / unlucky rolls with regards to both movement and selling to customers. I own over 750 tabletop games and this one just didn’t “WOW” me in any particular way. “Food Truck Entrepreneur” is a pass for me, but I think it’s because I’ve been spoiled by some really well-developed games. While I probably wouldn’t come back to this title, certainly check out the game for yourself and GoVenture’s other digital products.
TL;DR: “Food Truck Entrepreneur” is a fairly casual and dice-heavy pick-up and deliver game that is priced a bit high and doesn’t offer much to the seasoned euro-gamer. Games can be a little long if you don’t employ the “faster game variant” found in the rulebook, which consequently needs a little TLC. Casual gamer families may enjoy this one if the price tag is acceptable.
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Final Verdict: 5/10 (Average)
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