Developer: Panic Panda
Publisher: Ultimate Publishing, Ultimate Games, PlayWay
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Meat Grinder: Hotdog Simulator – Review
We’re here again with yet another ‘horror game disguised as a job simulator’, but at least Meat Grinder: Hotdog Simulator doesn’t attempt to conceal what it is even for a minute. Made by indie dev Panic Panda, Meat Grinder is all about running a hot dog restaurant during the day and finding meat to put between those buns at night. Nothing groundbreaking, but for a short experience with some fun quirks, we can say that it was pretty enjoyable, and maybe something you’d wanna play during this Halloween season.
Story
In Meat Grinder, the main character is starting over in a new town by opening a hot dog restaurant. It’s clear from the start that he has his own demons haunting him, though as the game begins, these are still a big mystery. The more concerning thing you learn right away is that the previous owner of the restaurant went missing. The town you play in seems overall rather strange, with weirdly acting customers, not to mention the creepy guy who breaks into your bedroom at night to tell you that you can visit the graveyard for extra meat. Whether you take him up on this offer or not is up to you, but this short story always seems to end in the same way regardless of your choices, or how well you do at the ‘running a restaurant’ portion of the game.
Graphics
Meat Grinder has that chunky retro visual look that we don’t need to tell you is popular within the horror genre right now. We think it serves the atmosphere of the game well, straddling the line between scary and a bit goofy. But since Meat Grinder doesn’t take itself too seriously and pokes fun at its own premise, it works. The game contains a surprising amount of blood and gore, though of a cartoony quality. If you have a particularly weak stomach, you might be made queasy. Overall, the aesthetic wasn’t bad, and the surroundings managed to be visually creepy at times.
Sound
Sadly, we can’t say the same for the sound design. Music was notably absent in the game, and when there was music, it was overly loud and randomly discordant rather than scary. We played most of the time in complete silence, with some sound effects here and there that weren’t bad, but just kind of lackluster. While it did make the game feel even weirder than it already was, maybe that was the devs’ intention, it didn’t entirely work for us.
Gameplay
Meat Grinder is a horror adventure game that you can divide up into two separate gameplay sections: the ones that take place during the day and the ones that take place during the night. When the sun is out, you run your hot dog restaurant, turning the game into a pretty mundane job simulator with some scares. You get meat from your freezer, grind it up into sausages, cook them on the grill, and prepare drinks or fries. Customers come in and order their meals, which you then have to serve on a tray. You need to multitask to keep the restaurant clean at the same time, since people love throwing their trash all over the place. You also need to keep an eye on your supplies and order more if needed, since you can easily run out of things if you’re not careful. If you do a poor job at it, customers will not pay you properly, which in turn makes it hard to afford those before mentioned supplies and also the upgrades you can unlock. Since the upgrades make your life significantly easier, they’re a huge asset later in the game.
When night falls, however, things get unsettling. Meat is extremely expensive to purchase, so a much better way to get some is to head down to the local graveyard and dig up a body to take home. The body can then be cut up into pieces and turned into sausages. This is quick and completely free, though it comes with the risk of the cops catching you. This part of the gameplay is essentially a stealth section, where you need to get to the graveyard, dig up a body, and return to your restaurant, all while avoiding the roaming cop who will arrest you if they see you. However, in all honesty, this segment is so ridiculously easy that the sense of tension drained from it pretty quickly, and the one time we allowed ourselves to be caught by the cop on purpose, there weren’t even any consequences. They just take the corpse back to the graveyard, thus ruining your chance of getting meat that night, but we don’t have to go on trial for grave robbing.
Overall, both segments are enjoyable on their own, and the main factor that keeps the game interesting is atmosphere, which is good, and the jump scares. Not too few, not too many. Once you beat the rather short story segment, you can keep playing the game in a sort of endless mode to get all the achievements or just for fun.
Conclusion
Meat Grinder is a perfectly fine entry in the now long list of horror games that incorporate job simulator elements. We thought the controls and overall vibes were excellent, and that’s more than you can say for some other games in this genre. But the very short story still made us feel like there could have been more to this game than what we got. The devs are already working on a prequel though, so maybe they’ll surprise us.
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