McJohny's
McJohny's Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Goal of the Game
Your dream, and the dream of everyone who dons a McJohny's paper hat, is to get 10 little crabs and buy a trip to Crab Island, thus ending the game. You can see what else is in the gift shop on the last page of the rules.
Overview
Briefing
- Manager gives each player a role to play, passing out the appropriate game boards, and decides who will be the VOLUNTEER.
- Players gather the tools for their ROLE.
Shift
- Manager reveals the DAILY CRAB SPECIAL and flips the HOURGLASS.
- Everyone tries to their task to the best of their ability.
Payout
- When the hourglass stops and someone announces it, all players must STOP WORKING.
- Sum up how many customers are satisfied (volunteers are subtracted) and reward yourself some little crabs as specified on the PAYOUT TABLE.
After the payout, clean up your mess and pass the manager token to the next player around the table. Before the next shift, the new manager again chooses who will do what task and who will be the volunteer.
First Shift
The shift starts in just a minute, so let's get all the employees to their stations. You've proven that you can read a manual, so you can be the manager. Your first task is to give every employee one task that they will focus on during the shift. Do this by passing out game boards to each player. They can find instructions for their specific task on the back of the game boards. Meanwhile, let me show you how to lead a crack McJohny's team.
In this kitchen, the work is fast and furious. Everyone has to cooperate and work like a well oiled machine. EVERY SHIFT, there is one "Crab Daily Special" and 4 customers we need to satisfy. Union regulation 7/42 §12 4.36 stipulates that each shift at McJohny's lasts only 1 minute, measured by this hourglass. When anyone notices the time run out, he can shout "end". This is not obligatory, but when the shift end is announced, everyone must stop working immediately. After that, the payout is distributed according to how many customers were satisfied. During the shift, you are free to adopt any managerial style. Encourage with a soothing voice, cajole and beg, or just scream at your underlings. But you are never allowed to touch anything. Your role is simply to provide leadership and motivation. But not to worry, union regulation 4/2 §23 5.76 stipulates that everyone is going to get a turn at every shift!
Oh, and one more important bit. Even though McJohny's is famous worldwide, sometimes we don't have enough money to pay all our employees. So BEFORE EACH SHIFT, it's important to choose who will work for free. We call him the slav, er, the volunteer. Sometimes employees can be shortsighted and become resentful at having to work for free. When this happens, they can try to sabotage the quality of our famous McJohny's food. While there's little you can do, you need to try to keep it from affecting "the McJohny's experience" for our customers.
Ok, and one final thing. Employee bonuses come straight out of your payout. So if they do really, really well, don't expect much in your pay envelope at the end of the shift.
It may happen that you try your best and not all customers are satisfied. Hey, that's ok... to a point. If we ever get too many complaints, however, one of the volunteers always rats us out to the boss - after which we get no payout and he gets a big reward. The restaurant serves 4 customers at a time (each with his or her own color). Customer satisfaction is increased by the employees doing their jobs well - as defined on their game boards. Each task adds to the final total satisfaction for each color. The volunteer also tries to do his job well - however at the end of the shift, his score will be subtracted from the final result of each customer.
When the SHIFT IS OVER, you count up how many of your customers were satisfied. A customer is satisfied if the sum of the satisfaction in his color (minus the volunteers result in the same color) is equal to or greater than the value printed on the "Daily Crab Special" for the shift. You can use these satisfaction tokens to represent how many satisfied customers you have:
Satisfaction tokens: four satisfied (tick) tokens and four unsatisfied (cross) tokens, in the four customer colors (yellow, red, blue, green).
The payout is in McJohny's little crabs, which happens to be the only valid currency in the McJohny's gift shop. It's different for employees, manager and volunteer.
Payout table (columns: employee, manager, volunteer; each row is marked by a row icon showing the satisfied-customer tokens, as printed):
| Satisfied customers (row icon) | Employee | Manager | Volunteer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Four ticks | 2 little crabs | 0 | 0 |
| Three ticks | 1 little crab | Employee portrait followed by "×" (see note) | 0 |
| Red row, two cross marks | 0 | 0 | 3 little crabs |
Note on the payout table: the Manager cell in the three-tick row shows an employee portrait followed by a "×" symbol. The booklet does not spell out in words what this multiplier counts, so it is transcribed here as printed rather than interpreted. The row icons are pictures of customer tokens, not text labels; the descriptions above follow the icons as printed.
Employee Guide
McJohny's is an equal opportunity employer, which means we give you an opportunity to do every single job in our restaurant. In fact, each shift you'll probably be doing something different. Here is the explanation for each. We explain what components you need, and how to perform the job to (hopefully) make satisfied customers. Sick of looking at rule books? You can also find instructions on the back of each task game board.
1/ Burger Master
Components: 40 Burger Master cards, 1 Burger Master task board.
"Bun, salad, crab, dressing, bun, bun, salad, crab, dressing, bun..."
Shuffle the cards and place them here.
Anytime during the shift you can draw up to 3 cards and also discard any cards here.
On the kitchen table there is space for 3 meal trays. You can place 0 card there and then create the series with cards of the same color (1, 2, 3 and then 4). You can have same color on other trays. You can discard cards from the tray. If you run out of cards, place the discard pile where the draw pile was and continue.
Customer satisfaction: You increase customer satisfaction by the value on the top card in customer color.
2/ Delivery Boy
Components: 24 delivery boy road tiles, 1 Delivery Boy task board.
"If you run out of oil, use some from the kitchen."
Draw one tile and place it, so its edge connects to another tile (or the restaurant tile). All adjacent edges have to connect. The road doesn't continue over holes or obstacles.
Customer satisfaction: Unconnected customers get nothing. The length of the shortest completed road to the customer corner, minus 1, is added to the satisfaction. End of the road has to cover corner spot and connect the corner.
"The longer the trip, the saucier the crab."
3/ Grill Cook
Components: 11 grill cook crab tokens, 1 Grill Cook task board.
"If it falls on the floor, just pick it up."
One by one throw crabs, trying to land them on your board. You must throw them shoulder height. You can throw them as many times as you like. If the crab falls on the intersection of the quarters or the edge of the board, you can push it so it's entirely on one part of the board.
Customer satisfaction: Customer gets +1 for each crab entirely within his quarter. (+3)
4/ Packer
Components: 18 packer pieces (food item tiles), 1 die, 1 Packer task board.
"Use the force!"
Throw dice and place the appropriate food item into one bag. You have to slide it from top so it's whole in the bag and doesn't overlap other tiles in the process. If you roll a food item that has already run out, choose any other.
Customer satisfaction: Increase satisfaction by 1 for each completed row in his bag. (+1)
5/ Saucier
Components: 6 dice, 1 Saucier task board.
"It's like mixing poison, well the result should be different."
Throw all dice and either:
1/ Add one die to a column. If there is a die there already, then the new value has to be one greater, OR!
2/ Take back all the dice in one column.
Customer satisfaction: Satisfaction increases according to the number of dice in the column (value under it) and gets +1 if there is 6 dice in the column. (+5)
Number of Players
Rules adjustments for different numbers of players:
-
3 players: Manager chooses a task for himself and plays as a volunteer. The payout table is different:
Satisfied customers (row icon) Employee Manager Four ticks 2 little crabs 0 Three ticks 1 little crab 1 little crab Red row, two cross marks 0 3 little crabs The 3-player table as printed has two payout columns (employee, and manager); its headers show the employee and manager portraits.
-
4 players: No adjustment to the rules.
-
5 players: Values on the speciality card are doubled.
-
6 players: Manager chooses 2 volunteers.
Components
- 40 x Burger Master cards
- 12 x specials cards
- 7 x dice
- 5 x task boards
- 4 x satisfaction counters
- 1 x manager token
- 2 x volunteer tokens
- 24 x delivery boy tiles
- 11 x grill cook crab tokens
- 36 x little crabs
- 5 x little crabs of 5
- 1 x minute hourglass
- 1 x rules
- 18 x packer pieces
- 1 x double token for 5 players
- 1 x token to give to your friend
- 3 x cards to give to your friends
Gift Shop
The gift shop on the last page of the rules lists ten items, numbered 1 to 10 on their price tags. The price legend on the page reads: 1 = one little crab, 5 = one little crab of 5. Item 10 carries a badge printed "MAIN PRICE".
Translation note: the gift shop items are illustrations and carry no English item names in the booklet; only the price numbers and the legend are transcribed.