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I’ve often heard that small-time, local food trucks typically offer a much more enjoyable dining experience than most massive restaurant chains. I can’t speak to that in either direction. What I can tell you definitively, however, is that Drago Entertainment has released an enjoyable game that lets you simulate the experience of running such a food truck. Food Truck Simulator does exactly what it says on the tin, and does so pretty well. Food Truck Simulator sees you play as an unnamed man who wants to follow in his late father’s footsteps by revitalizing his family’s food truck.

Your character grew up closely watching his dad at work and helped to run the food truck whenever possible. That ensures your character knows a thing or two about operating a food truck, especially since you don’t have to do so entirely alone. Clara, a longtime friend of your family, frequently contacts you and helps however she can. Clara walks you through the basics of everything you need to know, which constitutes the vast majority of Food Truck Simulator’s tutorial. Her advice is very valuable, so you’ll want to pay close attention to what she tells you.

Clara owns a local restaurant supply store, and your dad had a long-standing deal with her. If you order supplies from Clara via your office computer and then drive your food truck to her store to collect your order within a certain time limit directly thereafter, she’ll give you a substantial discount. You can buy supplies from Clara’s store in-person if you run low while out and about, but this will be more costly. If you manage your money well, Clara will easily keep your food truck well-stocked.

Not long after you get your family’s food truck back in operation, you discover that your childhood friend Dennis is running his own food truck. You only find this out when you unknowingly happen to open your truck for business in the same high-traffic spot where Dennis usually plies his trade. Despite your friendship as children, Dennis doesn’t exactly view you and your truck as friendly competition. That same night, while you’re asleep, Dennis breaks into your garage, vandalizes your truck with graffiti reading, “That was my spot,” and then sets the garage on fire.

You manage to escape the blaze with your priceless family photo album intact, but everything else (including your food truck) is entirely totaled. In a single night, you’ve found yourself with nothing to your name except that photo album, a torched garage/office/living space, and a little money you had saved up. Clara steps up again to help you pick up the pieces. She offers to argue your case to your insurance company on your behalf to get them to reimburse you for the damages. That process will take time, though, so she also sets you up with a job in the meantime.

Clara puts you in contact with Luciano, a (very stereotypical) Italian fellow who runs his own food truck. Luciano offers you a job helping out aboard his truck whenever you need work, even after you’re back on your feet. You manage to do so well during your first shift working for Luciano that he gifts you an unused food truck he had lying around. Your new truck is also better-equipped than your previous one was, which lets you prepare and sell a larger variety of foods than you could before.

That brings me to my list of likes and dislikes about Food Truck Simulator. Most of the processes involved in preparing any foods on your menu are intuitive and easy to perform. Others, however, could present accessibility issues for certain players. For example, you’ll frequently need to cut things like tomatoes and hamburger buns into multiple pieces. The controls when doing this tend to require some precision since Food Truck Simulator demands that you cut most foods into multiple “valid” slices before you can use them. I’ve experienced a fair bit of difficulty and frustration because of this.

You’ll also usually have to keep track of several “moving parts” all at once, so to speak. For example, you’ll need to cut up pizza toppings while you’ve got a burger or two on the grill for a separate order. In this and similar situations, you’ll need to make sure nothing is under- or overcooked and every item your customers order is properly assembled. You’ll have to make sure you don’t run out of cooking gas and frequently replace frying oil. On top of all that, you’re also required to fill each customer order within a certain time limit.

Having to monitor so many different things and efficiently manage my time while doing so has often become overwhelming for me. Then there are other potential roadblocks like making sure your cutting board is empty whenever you need to use it. You’ll eventually gain access to a tray and storage drawers that can hold individual slices of most foods that require cutting, so that your cutting board is less likely to be cluttered. However, these aren’t available to you right at the start of the campaign. These mechanics being introduced later on doesn’t make sense to me.

Before I was allowed to use trays and food storage drawers, I had to manage multiple slices of certain foods individually. This is difficult, tedious, and nonsensical because I’m somehow expected to believe my character’s hands are entirely full when all I’m holding is a single tomato slice. Food Truck Simulator dropped the ball on this aspect of its campaign. One area in which Food Truck Simulator definitely didn’t drop the ball, however, is in the quality of its voice acting. I wasn’t expecting a title in this genre to have much voice acting at all, let alone excel at it to this degree.

The voice acting is slightly let down by the fact that the spoken dialogue doesn’t always perfectly match the subtitles, though. Relatedly, I’ve also noticed a couple of minor spelling and grammatical mistakes in Food Truck Simulator. I probably only even noticed these issues because I’m notorious for nitpicking small details like this. The few such errors I’ve seen within Food Truck Simulator are much less severe than I’ve encountered in other games, so I won’t give its developers too much grief. Oversights of this nature don’t make or break games for me, and that’s still true in this case.

I like that Food Truck Simulator doesn’t require players to drive perfectly, or even remotely safely. There don’t appear to be any penalties for damage you cause to city property, other vehicles, or pedestrians, so you’re free to drive like a maniac to ensure you don’t miss out on any business from hungry customers. Some creative liberties can be taken when developing simulation games of this ilk; this is one design choice I wholeheartedly support. With that all being said, I can easily recommend Food Truck Simulator unless its sometimes finicky controls and/or its management requirements might be problematic for you.

A PC review key for Food Truck Simulator was provided by Drago Entertainment for this review.

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