Manage your own internet cafe
Internet cafes are all the craze these days, with some of the most prominent Esports games finding the way to fame through these cafes. Internet Café Simulator puts you in the position of a manager running your own internet café; either to success or failure.
Managing your café means you'll be making critical decisions, handling money, and bringing in new customers to make your internet café the best choice on the market. Other games like Game Dev Tycoon & Euro Truck Simulator 2 offer the same experience but in different genres.
More life than Café
Like most simulator games, Internet Café Simulator doesn't hold your hand through the game but instead throws you into the fray to figure out the game's mechanics. You start in your apartment and are left to your own devices to spend your time as you want. From here, you can visit your café and start building your Internet Café empire.
You have several activities to do once you go to your café, including sweeping and clearing the floor, using the sales gun, or surfing the web to buy the wide range of items the game has to offer. Once you've made a purchase, items will be dropped outside in the cargo area for you to pick up and place the items in your café.
Once have your café is set up you will start receiving customers, and your business will grow from there. Internet Café Simulator, despite its name, is also a life simulator as well. Multiple elements in the game have you return to your home, eat, sleep and interact with the game in other ways outside of the café.
While there are no exact 'goals' in the game, you can expand and open more shops once you have the funds to do so. Increasing the variety of items offered in your café helps make your customers happier and more engaged too.
A similar ‘simulator’ experience
If you're a fan of simulator-type games, then you'll know what to expect here. The game's lack of direction actually benefits the mechanics in place as you gain a sense of fulfillment learning what does and doesn't work. There is a certain charm to the low quality, almost cartoon-like graphics that can often be overlooked while you spend time focusing on perfecting your strategy.
However, it quickly becomes apparent that the main gameplay loop is relatively dull. For example, the life mechanics don't feel like they have a place in the game, often taking away from the core experience that you'd expect from a game named Internet Café Simulator.
In comparison, Game Dev Tycoon places you only in control of the game development studio and has tightly knit mechanics that make it enjoyable, something that would improve the experience when playing the Internet Café Simulator.
Once you have placed a few machines, computers and upgraded your internal applications, the game quickly becomes repetitive. The lack of focus on the core mechanics hurt the overall game experience after a few hours.
Developer absence
While the game is enjoyable for a few hours, that enjoyment largely depends on the degree and severity of the bugs you encounter. When we played this simulator game, we encountered a few bugs that saw us lose money when purchasing items as no items were delivered. Also, there were customer bugs where the NPCs would walk through walls, get stuck, or not engage with any machines in the building.
Some users of the game have noted that some of the bugs have made the game unplayable. For example, some NPCs wouldn't interact at all, making it impossible to earn money.
The game has been updated numerous times since its release, but further development of the game has stopped despite prevalent bugs. While these bugs aren't game-breaking (aside from a few occasions), knowing what to expect going into the game helps set up user's expectations.
Looking to build your Internet café empire?
Internet Café Simulator provides a brief, enjoyable experience hampered by a few quirky bugs and a general lack of gameplay focus. We'd have loved to see the game focus more on the café mechanics than life mechanics. That said, the game is relaxing without the mental taxation of games that consistently require your attention.
If you're looking for something to play for an hour or two or a simulator that leaves you to your own devices, then Internet Café Simulator has something for you. Good luck growing your Internet Café empire!
