Developer: DRAGO entertainment
Publisher: DRAGO entertainment
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Food Truck Simulator – Review
The first food trucks originated in the United States, where it has been a well-known sight for centuries. In Europe, its history is more recent and most of the time these food trucks are seen as something more prestigious. In Food Truck Simulator you play as a young guy who inherits the food truck company from his father and is tasked to make it great again. With the many ups and downs that lie ahead, you will enjoy a game that is like Cooking Simulator but on the go.
Story
The story starts with our young main character finding himself looking in an old family picture book. His father has recently passed away and he left you with his garage and food truck. As you are currently in a rough place, it seems like the perfect way to get back on your feet. It all begins with the help of old friends as you get to clean up your garage and fix the truck. After a while, you will meet other food truck owners, but not all of them are too happy to see you. The story progresses by meeting more people who have job offers for you and with the funds and prestige gained, you gradually expand your mobile kitchen and areas where you can sell the food. The game does well with its lore and background, and it feels like you are part of a community that helps each other out. But take into consideration that some actions will have consequences and not everyone will respect them.
Graphics
Visually the game looks like any other simulator game. The graphics are decent and there is some attention to detail but don’t expect a title that blows your socks off. There are a few different styles of trucks that you can have but all of them serve the same purpose. Driving around in your truck is pretty arcade-like and running over people will have them ragdoll all over the place, which remains funny no matter how many times this happens.
Sound
In a game where you meet many people, it is great to know that every important character is fully voiced. They will call you over the phone or speak to you in public and these interactions feel pretty natural. This gives really good character development and it also gives you a bit more connection to the main character. Turning on the radio while driving and cooking will make your job a blast and you can enjoy different genres of music as there are a few radio stations with each their own style. Of course, working in the back of a food truck can get loud with all the machinery, so here the music will also drown out this noise.
Gameplay
Food Truck Simulator is a management and cooking game where you manage your own food truck. You’ll have to keep track of your inventory and make sure you don’t run out of gas for cooking or fuel for driving. The game starts with a pretty impressive tutorial on how to rebuild your empire and how to purchase stock to start cooking. You buy these over the internet and if you pick them up quickly you’ll get a discount. There’s only one shop that does its business via the internet, other shops will require you to visit them to place your orders. Once you have everything to open shop, you’ll roll up to the first selling spot, and here is where you start to prepare the food.
Making food for the masses might sound easy but you need to get their orders right and finish them in a timely fashion. In the beginning, the game can be pretty overwhelming as more and more orders pour in, yet once you get the hang of managing your stock and workflow, things start to get a lot easier. One thing to really keep in mind is the freshness of items. Storing them in a refrigerator or freezer will have them stay fresh for a longer time. It’s best to not buy too much stock if you want to work with the freshest ingredients. If selling your own food isn’t cutting it or you are a bit short on cash, then you can always do a side job for a character. this gives an honest income and gets you prepared for getting back on your feet. After a while, however, customers will start to like your food and you will level up in prestige, allowing you to buy better equipment and expand to other food types. You will make burgers, fries, pizzas, and sushi.
Making sushi looks fun and straightforward once you learn it, as it has different stages like making pizzas, and is a nice change of pace from hamburgers. However, due to a developer oversight, there is a game-breaking bug once you need to cut the sushi rolls. Instead of cutting it by hand, you’ll need to complete a mini-game but as there are keybinding issues this mini-game isn’t working for many players. At the time of the review, the developers have promised us an update but so far no news. Sadly, due to this, progress was near-impossible, as the game didn’t allow us to remove sushi from the menu.
Overall the game plays pretty smoothly and the controls are especially nice. The truck controls a bit like a car would in an arcade game, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. You rush around your food prep area and making multiple orders at the same time does not prove to be a huge hassle. The controls respond nicely and placing the many items in the various locations feels like a second nature only moments after you first start the game.
Conclusion
Food Truck Simulator is a title that has all the right ingredients to become a fun game, albeit with some extra polish and bug fixes. You have a lot of freedom to manage your garage, truck, and stock, all while trying to find the best spot in town to sell your wares. Clients will come and go, and the more experience you get, the better materials you are able to purchase. The game has some really good things to work towards, which go hand in hand with the story driving you there. The graphics are somewhat decent and the sound design itself is of better quality. Sadly, the game could have gotten an even higher score if the sushi minigame didn’t suffer from game-breaking bugs.
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[…] so long ago we embarked on our first adventure cooking out the back of a food truck in Food Truck Simulator. Now, after all these months of hard work, we have finally saved enough money to open up our own […]