A Bland Take On The Tycoon Genre
Roblox calls them ‘Tycoon’ games, which seems as appropriate a name as any. You might have seen a growing number of them on the Xbox, and certainly on mobile and Roblox. They have you running around, standing on hotspots that represent an action – buying, selling, fixing or making – and then generating cash. That cash buys more hotspots (and upgrades of hotspots), until you need automated helpers.
Soon, your tycoon-empire is massive, the cash-piles gigantic, and pretty much everything has become automated. You never really do any work: you just dictate what is done. It is – depressingly – what it must feel like to be a modern-day billionaire.
More often than not, these tycoon games feature faceless, neon stickmen, and the games tend to be made by CrazyLabs and/or published by QubicGames on Xbox. Tentpole examples include Dig Deep!, Aquarium Land, and – now – Buffet Boss.
An All-You-Can-Sell Buffet
The fantasy that Buffet Boss is selling is a rags-to-riches tale where you start as a dishwasher and move on to becoming the titular Buffet Boss. In between, you will be a barista, ice cream maker, chef and even sorbetier (a new word that we learned through the game). And it very much follows the pattern we mentioned: work, make cash, level up, automate.
The first of three businesses has you working in a fast-food restaurant. You clear tables and bring the unwashed dishes to a robot who pumps out clean plates. Then you take those sparkling-clean plates to the server, who dishes up pizzas. Round and round you go, pocketing a little bit of cash.
But things start happening. You earn enough cash to upgrade the robot (typical late-stage capitalism: assuming that we would spend our disposable cash on our work). More dishes can be washed up, and faster. More cash comes in, which can be spent on constructing more tables for the punters. Suddenly, you’ve levelled up, and new things unlock: upgrades to your character, allowing more carried plates at once; new jobs, including the manning of a hamburger and fried-chicken station; and new areas, including a coffee shop and expanded seating.
Most pertinently, you can start employing people. Lackeys can do the dishwashing, clean the tables and chop up chicken. You can even pay someone to pick up all the cash for you (we’re fairly confident that they skim off the top). Crazy Labs are self-aware enough to lean into the cynicism: the staff all wonder if you even know their name, and bemoan the fact that they were CEOs once.
Show Me The Money
Before long, you can stand still and watch the money come in. This is the uber-goal for tycoon games, and is the point where you can consider things done. Buffet Boss knows this and offers two businesses out of the box – a Mexican restaurant and a bakery – plus another as DLC. Each of them presses the reset button. You have to start from the bottom and work up.
I quite like this brand of game, but I’m not blind to their limitations. For one, they are almost all the same. They reduce vocations and hobbies down to hotspots, minimising them so they’re nothing like the original action. If you like the idea of making the component parts of a burger in Buffet Boss, for example, then – sorry – it isn’t going to happen. You’re collecting cheese and meat, apparently the only two ingredients, and pumping it into a burger-making machine. Even then, that process soon gets automated.
By reducing every action to standing on glowing squares, all of the variety has gone. Every tycoon feels the same. About the only thing that differs is the name of the stuff you’re building.
Buffet Boss is a particularly egregious example of this, because it ditches any minigames that might have done the bare minimum of adding, you know, gameplay to proceedings. We think back to Aquarium Land and the stealth minigames where you sneak past sharks. Buffet Boss doesn’t bother. The closest it gets to variety and interest is a cash-shower that spaffs money everywhere, and takeaway drivers that request particular foodstuffs. Neither count. Not really.
Finding Fun In The Piles Of Cash
You also have to be interested in numbers going up. Often, it’s the only payoff. There are no feats, cosmetic unlocks or collectibles. There’s no gameplay, no reason to pay attention or take advantage of something new. It’s the gaming equivalent of a reward-escalator, as you are high-fived every five seconds for doing very little indeed.
For a lot of people, that’s gaming hell. But let us try to sell you on the positives. To vibe with a tycoon game, you need to see it as a form of relaxation. You can fall into a routine that involves little or no brain-power. You might circle between picking up cash, collecting tips, filling up ingredients and then clearing dishes – before starting all over again. And you’re rewarded for that complete lack of thought. Numbers go up, stuff gets upgraded, and depressed workers turn up.
There’s also a neat-ish ramp to the pacing. You begin by doing everything manually. Stuff is onerous, and needs constant upkeep. But the reward is laziness. You begin to rely on other people and the game eases up on you. You earn your retirement, which is satisfying in an odd way.
A Poor Example Of A Tycoon Game
I’m not going to try to oversell Buffet Boss. It’s basic to look at and play, and never feels like you’re preparing food – everything is reduced to standing on squares. It’s even a poor example of a tycoon game, with less interaction than the average.
When it is successful – if it is successful – it’s because the tycoon ‘core’ is so addictive: going from manual work to automation gives a sensation of relief, and there’s a nerdy joy in watching numbers go up. But that success is not because of Buffet Boss. As an example of a tycoon game, it’s reheated leftovers.
Important Links
Buy Buffet Boss – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/buffet-boss/9p26hcbxjxl2
There’s a Complete Edition too – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/buffet-boss-complete-edition/9nk8gbtw1cdl
