Coffee Bar Simulator is a cosy café-management game, developed by Digital Melody and published by Games Incubator and PlayWay S.A. The premise is simple enough. Open up your own coffee shop, serve customers, and try to keep your tiny business running smoothly as rush hour hits. I played it on PC, and the game runs well with stable performance and quick loading times.
A Relaxing Cup of Boredom
As a newcomer to simulation games and someone with actual experience working in coffee shops and restaurants in the past, I really looked forward to playing Coffee Bar Simulator. Unfortunately, the game quickly became a monotonous stream of mouse clicks that didn’t demand much brain power.
It is only after I reached level three and the prompts stopped telling me what to do that things got a little… bizarre. The game is, in fact, so dull and tiresome that it pushed me to create the worst coffee experience imaginable. Grab a cup of coffee, it’s about to get wonky.
Gameplay
The game gets straight to the point as you open up a coffee shop, simply called Coffee Shop, on a street with no name, and blurred-out surroundings that resemble a city. A few initial goals/prompts will guide you to get started. Easy things like how to open boxes, how to replenish your coffee machine, how to purchase items online, and how to work the register, among other basic functions.
Once your business is ready for the public, you can flip your closed sign to say open. This is when NPCs, all dressed in their best corporate slave outfits, drag their feet into the coffee shop, looking for an early dose of caffeine. Gameplay can be a little stressful at first, as coffee addicted cubicle crawlers storm your little haven. Unfortunately, this is the most excitement I got out of the game.
After the initial, and admittedly enjoyable, five minutes of Coffee Bar Simulator, the game quickly becomes unbearably repetitive, elementary, undemanding, and ultimately boring. With a single click of your mouse, you serve up cake, brew coffee, and make orange juice for a customer. Then you serve the next customer, and the next, and so on, until your shift ends at 10 PM.
Mechanics
The gameplay leans heavily into simplicity, but the kind of simplicity that exposes the game’s limitations. Core mechanics like movement lack precision, which makes navigating the shop feel slightly off, and interacting with objects can feel clumsy. For example, instead of carefully placing boxes where you want them, you end up tossing them and hoping they land somewhere useful.
Nearly every other action, from brewing a coffee to grabbing supplies, happens with a single click, greatly reducing the sense of involvement. As a result, most of your shift as a barista boils down to standing at the register, ringing up customers, and rushing to restock whatever immediately sells out. It creates a straightforward loop, but one that never fully develops into something deeper or more engaging.
Graphics and Audio
Graphically, the game has a distinctly early 2000s / late 90s-era look. Reminiscent of my favourite childhood games like Spider-Man (2000) or Driver (1999). Regrettably, I don’t mean that in a charmingly retro, romanticised, and nostalgic way. The visuals feel flat, generic, and lacking any personality. The art style is so stripped down that it doesn’t even feel retro.
The tune that plays in the background, although amusing and relaxing, becomes repetitive fast. It sounds like elevator music that doesn’t bother anyone but also just doesn’t add anything to the game. It’s just there, circling endlessly, not offending anyone but also not complementing anything. It’s as generic as the game’s visuals.
Longevity
Like most simulator games, Coffee Bar Simulator can be played again and again. Many people find them soothing, relaxing, and they help to unwind. Although in this case, I don’t see why anybody would want to. The repetitive nature of the game is mind-numbing, with its low-effort goals and uncomplicated daily routine.
Every in-game minute is a little less than a real-life second, so an in-game day from 6 AM to 10 PM lasts about 12 real-life minutes. During this time, all you have to do is click away at the register and sell cake, orange juice, and coffee. Like most entrepreneurs, you still have to get on your laptop and work on your after-hours duties, such as restocking, diversifying your cake offerings, and maybe request a bank loan or two.
Welcome… to the Coffee Shop of Hell!
So, once the game started to bore me to death, I started experimenting with it. What would happen if we didn’t achieve any of the setup goals? How about if we don’t clean up our coffee shop? What if we sold all items at the highest price possible? What if I don’t wash the dishes, and consequently can’t serve any more pastries or orange juice? Or even worse, what if I can’t repay the $2500 loan I took out from the bank? Will customers stop coming in? Will I consequently have to declare bankruptcy? In other words, are there any consequences to my actions in this game?
None! Nothing! Nada! It didn’t really matter how dirty my coffee shop got with clustered boxes blocking the entrance, or how much coffee was spilt on the floor, or that I was serving the most outrageously expensive croissant at $14 a pop. I’ve been to a bakery in Beverly Hills in L.A., and not even there do they sell $14 croissants. These coffee addicted NPCs kept coming back for more. You don’t need a Master’s Degree in Economics to understand basic principles of the market. If customers find a cheaper coffee shop, they will most definitely stop going to yours.
What about my fancy marketing skills? Did any of the signs, chairs, flowers, and lamps I purchased have any effect on the number of clients per day? Again, I witnessed no noticeable difference between before and after decorating and expanding my shop. What’s more, expanding the coffee shop felt pointless. I couldn’t expand my work counter, I couldn’t hire a second barista to help with the lines of customers, and none of the NPCs sat down on the chairs that I had bought.
It begs the question, what is the point then? Why expand my shop? Is there a reason to decorate? It’s just a mindless and repetitive click of the mouse.
Final Thoughts
Coffee Bar Simulator lacks depth or complexity. The game is too simplistic and doesn’t dig deeper into any of the aspects that could have made this game at least somewhat interesting. From an entrepreneur’s point of view, it doesn’t challenge players to take business-savvy decisions to stand out from the competition. Things like lower prices compared to market averages, better indoor decor and seating to create a better atmosphere, higher-quality products, and cleanliness all have zero impact on customer behaviour.
The same five NPCs will come back to your coffee shop, no matter how dirty it is, no matter if you have the most expensive coffee in the city, no matter if you decorate your coffee shop or not.
Coffee Bar Simulator gets monotonous and dull after just 15 minutes of play. It feels more like a demo, a Beta, or an Alpha, even, rather than a complete game. Accordingly, I can’t rate it, and I won’t dignify it with any of our Thumb Culture Awards.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
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