Food Truck Tycoon
Developed/Published by Baltoro Games
Released for Xbox One (8/31/2022)
Also on Switch
Intro
Food Truck Tycoon was originally released for the Nintendo Switch back in February 2019, so it was a tad strange seeing it receive an Xbox One port several years down the road in late August 2022. Developed and published by Poland-based Baltoro Games, let's dive right into this piece of digital software titled Food Truck Tycoon and see what it's all about...
Presentation/Graphics
Food Truck Tycoon features menus that function well-enough, though it's not the most attractive layout you'll lay eyes on, with several options in the center and some others crammed on the sides. The in-game graphics are composed of simple 2D artwork that, while decently drawn, look like some clip art you'd see in an old workplace PowerPoint presentation. While leaning on the generic side, it's easy to distinguish what everything is so the graphics serve their general purpose well enough. The sound design is about what you'd expect and while you'll hear the same handful of sound effects over and over, none of it is too irritating or grating. The music, like the sound, does a good job of just simply being there and staying in the background. Overall, Food Truck Tycoon has a solid presentation but is quite basic in every way.
Gameplay/Controls
Upon seeing the name of the game, my first thought was that you'd be managing a chain of food trucks or something of that nature, but the gameplay is much more simple in that you just play the cook serving the customers. If you're in the mood for something simple, this might not necessarily be a bad thing. Things start out simple at first, having you serve only hot dogs and sodas, but the game will progressively add more items to mix things up a bit. By the end of the game, there will be several varieties to add to the food you'll have to serve up in order to ramp up the challenge. Customers have a "happiness meter" that slowly drains the longer you take to serve them and the faster you deliver their order the bigger the tip you'll receive.
Each level has a dollar amount that determines your star-ranking (1-3) and all of your accumulated money can be used to purchase upgrades and cosmetic improvements to your work area. It's a simple gameplay loop but in this case it works well enough to give you some incentive to push forward. For a cheap simple game, there's a decent amount of content for you to play through including 60 main levels and an additional 45 special levels with an added amount of variety to the orders. Considering the game retails for $4.99, there's a good amount of levels to play through in Food Truck Tycoon.
Closing Thoughts
It's easy to just dismiss Food Truck Tycoon as shovelware at a glance and ignore it, but after spending enough time with the game to obtain 100% of the achievements I can say it was a decent time. It's one of those games that's good to unwind with at the end of a hard day or if you just want something simple to kill some time with. While it's not something I'd brag about playing to other people, I'm not ashamed to say I killed several hours playing this game and don't regret it. This definitely feels like it would have been right at home on the Nintendo Wii with its motion controls or the DS with it's stylus & touch-screen interface, though the Switch seems like a great place for these types of games as well and it's nice to see the Xbox store got a port for this one, even if it took a few years for it to happen.
Final Verdict: Food Truck Tycoon is a simple food-service game where the objective is to serve the customers quick to earn tips which can be spent to purchase upgrades. Decent sound/music design and 100+ levels make for a solid value if you're in the mood for a good basic time killer.
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