One Of The Friendliest Finds On Xbox
About halfway through my Fruitbus career, I accidentally made an extra smoothie. There’s no bin on the Fruitbus, so I was in a panic. What do I do with an unwanted smoothie? There were no bins outside either (I later found out that some could be found near petrol stations), so I was facing the prospect of an eternity with the smoothie staring at me from the dashboard. I eventually made the decision, with regret, to leave it on a beach, ruining a beautiful view. As I reversed away, the smoothie was lit up in my headlights and I felt an oddly profound sadness.
Bit of a weird story that, but it speaks to what I like most about Fruitbus. The world is idyllic, a paradise where the biggest problems are some unpainted statues and a hole in the belly where a sandwich should be. It’s beautiful, too: an archipelago of beaches, jungles and volcanoes. Most of all, it’s a community space. Everyone helps everyone else, and here I was, abandoning a smoothie on a beach.
A Smoothie Criminal
Fruitbus is very careful to set up this feeling of community. You start with a rose-tinted memory of your Grandma, who first owned the Fruitbus. It’s almost funny how Fruitbus dances around the words ‘dead’ and ‘funeral’, because Grandma has clearly conked it – her urn is next to you in the passenger seat – but the characters don’t want to say those words. Everyone you meet is lovely but somewhat depressed, so you have to rekindle the feelings of joy and community through the power of a garlic and lemon salad. Bringing everyone together is your goal.
What initially surprised me about Fruitbus – and initially bounced me off it, if I am being honest – was how much it skewed towards realism. This is, after all, a game with giant sheep asking you to make smoothies. But there is a very 1:1 approach to doing everything in the world. If you want to drive the Fruitbus, you have to open the door, turn the ignition, pull up the handbrake and start driving. If you want to go somewhere, you have to orient via a map, pick a direction and drive all the way. If you want to make a salad, you need to place down a bowl, pick up a knife, pick up some fruit, chop the fruit, place it in the bowl, carry the bowl to the punter.
None of these actions are agglomerated in a button press. Each of them requires you to use your two independent hands (or paws – you’re a bear) with the LT and RT button. If you have something in your hands already, then you will have to drop it or stash it in your backpack (the Y button). Your backpack has a limit to what you can carry, so you’re cycling fruit and tools between it and storage in the bus.
An Awkward Opening
In the opening stages, you need to commit to learning these controls. At times, it can feel like a ragebait game, aiming to antagonise rather than be helpful. Choosing a tool from the backpack is erratic and works about 50% of the time. Actions are oddly inconsistent: you need to place down some things, like bowls (with the B button) but other things don’t need to be placed at all (serving customers). Simple actions like putting fuel in the bus and paying for things in the shop are about three steps more than they needed to be, and all of them are idiosyncrasies that you have to learn.
I will fully admit to disliking Fruitbus at the start for this very reason. It’s almost obtuse in its determination to make everything believable. But a couple of realisations broke the funk: the customers will wait all day for their food if they want, and you don’t have to serve them at all. Being late or negligent isn’t a punishment at all. They also don’t go to sleep, so you can serve them at night time, should you wish.
Suddenly, all of the time pressures melted away, and I could learn whatever the game was doing at my pace. I could enjoy the game loop of Fruitbus at my leisure.
Explore, Cook, Serve, Repeat
And what a lovely game loop it is. It reminds me a lot of Bugsnax, from the authentic controls to the idyllic locations and the explore-forage-deliver game loop.
My game session would go something like this: I’d rock up to a location for a spot of foraging. With my sucker-gun in one hand (for those hard-to-reach fruits), I’d hunt around a new location for rarer fruits (no thank you, apples and oranges, the most common of all fruit). If there were pineapples or mangoes, for example, I’d fill up my bag as much as possible, then lug them back to the bus. On the way, I’d keep an eye out for collectible starfish.
In the bus, it’s sorting time. You can be as methodical as you want for this, but I liked some colour-coordinated storage bins. Red fruit in one place, yellow in another, and a bin in the corner for brown.
Ready, Steady, Cook
Then it’s time to open the awning to sell some meals. The generic sheep are there for moneymaking – cash can buy tools, cosmetics and some wondrous benefits – while quest-flavoured NPCs can be slowly convinced to come to a gathering that signals each island’s endgame. Once they are all fed, it’s time to prepare to leave, which is no small action either. You need to buy stock, refuel the bus, and make a decision where to travel next. What’s the big objective: is it to save up for passage to the next island, or are you hunting for an elusive fruit?
A Saucy Mix of Foraging, Cooking, and Calm
Having leapfrogged the initial controls and physics hurdles, Fruitbus became a glowing, homely light on my Xbox dashboard. I still love to dip into it, achieving a little something and spending some time with the communities there. I might focus on foraging, or collecting the remaining starfish in a location. There might be a nook that I don’t think I’ve explored yet. Or I need more pineapples.
This is Fruitbus’ specialty. It doesn’t demand anything of you. Its customers will happily wait weeks, if not months for you; they don’t mind. You can do whatever you want. And that’s Fruitbus’ secret sauce. A warm community spirit without expectations.
Well, apart from an expectation that you recycle your smoothie cups. I may have faltered there.
Important Links
All Aboard the Fruitbus on Xbox and Switch – https://www.thexboxhub.com/all-aboard-the-fruitbus-on-xbox-and-switch/
Buy from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/fruitbus/9mxmbxs4jgc8
