Coffee Tycoon Review

Just when you think there couldn’t be another type of business simulation game, another one comes along. Coffee Tycoon puts you in control of an emerging caffeine empire, with control over your franchise’s menu, workforce, and advertising campaign. Yet, the game doesn’t offer enough user customization, and enters a tedious repetitive cycle.

Coffee Tycoon starts you off by letting you choose the name of your company, the genre of your stores (new age, hipster, etc), and the five cities to play in ranging from New York to Los Angeles. Unfortunately, changing the type of store you own and where it’s located showed no observable difference in gameplay.

After completing your choices, the game starts with a screen explaining the simple to follow rules. Beginning with little money, your only duty is managing the work force which is divided into three groups.

The baristas serve customers and bring in the most money while also making customers reasonably happy, but have little effect on expanding your espresso-laden business.

Managers oversee individual stores and attract new customers, but have a lesser effect on making money and creating new cafés. Executives meanwhile excel at establishing new locations, but don’t increase revenue or effect inflow of customers as much.

By altering the percentage of each employee type, you change the amount of cash you rake in, customers you attract, and whether new stores are created or not.

The goal of Coffee Tycoon is to amass a clientele of one million, broken up into different levels. When you reach predetermined goals, you are allotted bonus money and customers, and wider control over the company. As your revenue increases, new additions to the menu are made available, varying from simple tea and hot chocolate to the Starbucksesque café macchiato.

A wider selection appeals to more people than basic coffee, and attracts more patrons. You can also increase profits by serving coffee-lovers faster using more reliable appliances or by widening advertising through magazines and newspapers.

Coffee Tycoon’s graphics are colorful and cartoonish, creating a fun atmosphere. The dull brown interface is lacking, and option for customization would be gladly appreciated. Music is limited to soft background ambience, but fits in with the café setting.

While this may sound interesting, all of the available choices don’t cause significant gameplay change. I rarely altered the percentage of each employee type working, and continued making money and expanding my business easily. While there are many upgrades to purchase, they all have virtually the same effect on business. The only things impeding quick success are randomly generated events, such as loosing stores when certain towns ban coffee-drinking. It’s fun to play around with at first, but soon becomes very repetitive and eventually a waste of time.

Ultimately, the player doesn’t have enough control of his own company. I’m surprised there are ways to control coffee prices, promotions, store cleanliness, and other options common to simulation games. As a beginner’s entry to the genre, Coffee Tycoon is ideal but otherwise falls short of better developed games.