Life Is Like A Box Of Chocolates

There is very little better in this world than good chocolate! There is a reason why it has become a staple in the world of gifting and why Easter is still in the heart of every atheist. Chocolate releases dopamine and serotonin and other such endorphins that make us feel good and so makes the perfect theme for a board game. 2019’s Chocolate Factory puts us right in the heart of the process and presents us with the process of building, running and developing a factory sometime in the heyday of Chocolate manufacturing.

Wonks-Vision

The first thing to point out is the sumptuous looking production. Designed to look like one of the classic factories you might have found in the English midlands in the late 1800s. With dual-layered player boards, gorgeous artwork that really immerses you in the world of the Victorian chocolatier and little wooden chocolates for days! Each type of chocolate has a different little piece.

There are yellow wrapped chocolates, red wrapped chocolates, blue chocolate boxes not to mention two types of Chocolate bar (fingers and chunks). And all that before even mentioning the little cocoa nibs and blocks of basic chocolate. The only disappointing component after all that trouble is coal. With everything else feeling quite deluxe, the coal is represented by simple cardboard tokens. But if that really annoys you then there is a deluxe version that adds lovely little resin pieces to replace them. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s talk a little about how the game plays.

A Factory Line

Each player has their own board representing the production line of their factory. The neat little mechanism here is that with every turn that goes by you move little tiles across your conveyor belt gaining a real sense of progress.

The game itself takes place over seven working days with each day made up of a morning, an afternoon and an evening shift. Each round will start with a machine tile and employee draft. You will select a machine upgrade which gets added to empty slots on your production line or can cover an existing tile. These will allow you to perform different actions from turning cocoa into chocolate or processing chocolate into bars or sweets.

However these actions will take coal to run. This makes for an interesting decision when drafting. Do you focus on filling your factory with lots of machines that do small actions or fewer that do big expensive ones. You also get to draft a temporary employee you can have for that one day. They will offer certain power for your shifts that round. One might allow you to use machinery using less coal or others might allow you to create double the amount on a single turn. Each shift of the day will see a cocoa nib entering your factory line.

As they move along the conveyor belt you can burn coal from your personal supply to take actions that create different types of chocolate. Be careful though, every player gets the same amount of coal each day and the only other way to get it is to trash chocolates you have already made, therefore making them unusable for the sales part of the round. Coal is tight in this game so you really have to think carefully about what machinery you do that shift and most importantly the order in which you use them. The drafting system is great as well. At the beginning of the round there will be an equal number of machines and workers for your player count and on your turn you get to choose either one or the other. So deciding whether to take the machine you really want or the employee you really need is a tough decision.

Sales, Sales, Sales!

At the end of each day, any chocolate you have made and has been moved to your storehouse, can potentially be sold. There are two main ways to sell your goods. You will always have three personal contracts which will range from easy, through to medium and up to hard. Each time you have enough to satisfy one you can discard chocolates from your storehouse to get the listed monetary reward. Satisfy the easier ones to get small bursts of income early on or hold out for big payouts later in the game.

Once one is complete you can draw a new one to replace it and so your options are constantly changing. The other option, and perhaps more interesting is selling to the big stores. There will be six cards dealt at the beginning of the game in the central area and each will ask for a different set of chocolates. What is great is there are multiple options here dealt randomly and so each game will have different demands. For each delivery you make of the required chocolates you get to move up that store’s particular track and if you can manage to be ahead of everyone else by the end of the game you get rewarded. For each store there will be a second and first place bonus and so forgetting about them can cost you big time.

Eating It Up

Chocolate Factory is crunchier than it first seems with lots of meaningful decisions to be made along the way. The main actions are simple but deciding how to develop your production line is a really interesting puzzle and based on what contracts come up will dictate which routes you take. This offers so much replayability. Not to mention, moving those tiles along your conveyor belt and getting that sense of movement and progression is so satisfying. You even do what I do and add a little bowl of chocolates to the table to reward yourself for each sweet contract you complete just to be as immersed as possible!

This blog was written by: Dan Street Phillips