Chocolate Factory Simulator

As the name implies, in Chocolate Factory Simulator, you run a chocolate factory. Make chocolates, ship them out, make money, buy more ingredients, repeat. As you progress, you’ll unlock more tools and machines that’ll either help you make more chocolates or make them fancier. Taking place in a mildly fanciful steampunk world, it’s time to make a lot of chocolate.

Find it on Steam.

Alright, despite calling it a chocolate factory, you do act more like a bespoke chocolatier. You don’t really ship out whole boxes of chocolates for stores to sell. Instead, you take orders from individuals with very specific requests. You make it, and send it to them directly.

The making of the chocolates is decently involved, and if you’re not careful, you can easily make mistakes. You need to mix together ingredients in the right ratios, cook it to the right temperature, let it cool, and then temper it. You can make six different kinds of chocolate. They’re all real world stuff, so don’t expect anything fantastical.

You need to turn knobs on each machine, flip levers, keep an eye on things and more. It does have a fun tactile feel to working everything. Though if you don’t want to work the mouse so much to do anything, the game does provide shortcuts to set things as well. You also need to do maintenance on your chocolate-making machines to make sure everything is running well.

As you get better, orders get more complex. They’ll want you to add mix-ins to the chocolate. Or fill the chocolate with things. And then things get ridiculously decadent when they start asking you to top the chocolate with icing. Yes, you can slather chocolate icing onto your chocolate.

And you get to design your own chocolates as well as the packaging. While it is mainly simple placing of premade shapes, it is still pretty nice and involved. If you try, you can make some pretty spiffy designs. I am not that artistic, but I did try.

The setting of the game has a fun steampunk vibe with airships in the skies and tubes running all through your factory. The customers all have a fun look as well.

Unfortunately, the game can feel lonely. Your factory is high up away from street level, so it feels isolating. There isn’t even a way out! You’re sort of trapped in there with no front door to leave. The only other character you see in person is your robot assistant. Aside from him, all your interactions with customers are through the phone. You only know what they look like because the game shows you, but in-game, you really only hear their voices. Also, there’s no real story mode to the game. The customers feel static and repetitive, especially since they don’t have different images for different emotions. Now that in itself isn’t a problem. I’ve played other simulator games where customers had a similar level of characterization, but at least they were interacting with you face to face, and that really helps in connecting with them.

There are also random events that can happen, but they are simple things that I don’t really pay attention to. Maybe sometimes some ingredients cost more or are unavailable. The events happen frequently and don’t really change the way I do anything.

Chocolate Factory Simulator has solid chocolate-making mechanics and a fun vibe. All of the stuff is based on real chocolates. I don’t know if they work in real life, but with a bit of modification, they might. The game does feel isolating, but the developers are still working and adding new stuff. There are two parts of the factory that aren’t open, yet, and one of them is a staircase down, maybe to street level?

Find it on Steam.