Review: Computer Game Coffee Tycoon; Is It Worth It?

Coffee Tycoon has to be the worst tycoon game of all time. It even has several spelling mistakes in the game and poorly worded events! Luckily, you don’t really need to read with this game.

Useful tip: To exit fullscreen mode, you need to Alt+Tab to another window. Coffee Tycoon will automatically change to windowed mode.

GAMEPLAY:
To win, you need to reach 1,000,000 customers.

You start the game by naming your store, picking one of logos, and selecting from a list which city you want to open your coffee store chain in.

There is hardly a tutorial, but the game doesn't NEED one. Arrange the percentage of work that the baristas, managers, and executives will be doing for the day; click the "Start Day" button; if you wish, read the random events that occur; click the "End Day" button when it's red and glowing; repeat until you have enough money to buy new recipes or upgrades (then buy them); repeat until you have a million customers or until you get bored and quit. There is no time management or strategy involved at all.

Click to enlarge.

As the player, you only have control over the employee work ratio and the order you buy recipes/upgrades. That means no setting prices, customizing your store, or any of the other features one has come to associate with the Tycoon series.

• Ignore the comments at the bottom of the Employees tab; they repeat from a small selection and often do not relate to your actual standing in the game.
• The happiness (or lack thereof) of the customers is affected by what you've purchased, but differences are only seen later in the game.
• The random events are often negative (loss of money, stores, and/or customers).
• When the random event is positive, it usually isn't enough to balance out the negative events of the day (ex: lose ~$150,000 and gain ~$80,000, lose 755 stores and gain 250 stores).
• How much you lose/gain from the random events appears to be from a percentage range of how much/many you have.
• The random events, customer quotes, and coffee related facts repeat throughout most of the game. The further you progress the less likely you are to get the facts and the more likely that a few new random events will appear.

Really, how many times can my company buy jets? Or employees unionize (and why do you lose customers over this)? Or the company name be misspelled on cups? Or accountants embezzle funds? Or the executives want more golden faucets in the company bathrooms?! You'd think these events would be fairly rare, but I've had them happen multiple days in a row and sometimes even multiple times on the same day!

For an actual example of how the events affect you: in a 14 game day period of time I dropped from ~$30,000,000 to ~$4,000,000, ~85,000 to ~79,000 customers, and ~77,000 to ~65,000 stores. In those 14 game days (without buying anything), I lost $26,000,000, 6,000 customers, and 12,000 stores.

Another 7 game days later and I'm down to ~$1,800,000 (lost over $2,000,000), 73,000 customers (lost 6,000), and 55,000 stores (lost 10,000).

• "A fire breaks out in the store!
  -2799 Stores"

Wait a minute... there was ONE fire in ONE store and I lose 2,799 stores?! (Okay, I admit that this is one of the poorly written events that has irked me.)

• "Executives all go to a football game and charge it to the company!
  +391333 Money"

Uhm, shouldn't I have lost money then? Wait, no, nevermind. Thanks for the cash!

• "Your Managers demand bonuses!
  - _____ Money"
• "The Baristas earn a bonus!
  +_____ Money"

How does that make any sense?


VISUALS:
The only change in the visuals is the weather outside (random) and how many customers crowd into the store (caused by progressing within the game). The customers are animated to drink from the cups they are holding. The same model customer can be in your store multiple times, but at least their clothes, skin, and hair are different colors. You can preview all your potential customers under the "Customers" tab.

Click to enlarge.

Even when you change the percentage of work assigned to your employees, the number and position of the employees behind the counter does not change.


SOUND:
As for the background sound... it's repetitive, loud, and becomes obnoxious. I muted the game through my computer's sound controls.


FINAL THOUGHTS:
This game was so difficult to succeed at that I actually downloaded a cheat engine to give myself money. Cheating is very much against my nature, but this game is based purely on luck and coded to have the odds stacked against you!

Just about anyone can play this game! Reading is hardly needed and there is no strategy to speak of.

Should you win, you get a screen that says "You Win!" and a button to return to the main screen.

Overall, Coffee Tycoon gets 1/5 stars. I can think of a few worse ways to waste time, but not many.