Definitely not fried chicken is a business management sim that sells a less child-friendly product as its business. Indeed taking after Gus from breaking bad, your chicken shop is actually cooking up a great deal more than a full stomach. (Unless of course, there is a mechanic to smuggle drugs in tied-up condoms that I’ve yet to encounter.)
The tutorial starts off with you having been hired to set up the Major’s chicken shop. Teaching you the basics of laying down items, setting rooms, and hiring and scheduling staff. All of which will be needed for when the Major, who is in no way affiliated with Colonel Sanders of KFC fame, despite the matching outfits, gives you the boot.
Now it’s on you to set up a rival ‘Chicken shop’ and presumably, later on, take your revenge.
It’s a fantastic setup, with tongue-in-cheek humour, blatant referencing, and a solid introduction to how to proceed with the game.
Now I’m enough lines in to hopefully not be bumped down for the SEO, it’s drugs, you’re selling drugs. You start off with the ability to grow marijuana (the devil’s lettuce). And means to ship it around the city. With later upgrades allowing you to sell more hardcore substances, and various fronts to push it from. Meth, unsurprisingly given the clean breaking bad influence, is favoured to have a chicken shop sell.
Aesthetically this game rocks and the blocky design of the Major and your workers looks top. I probably use this term too often in my reviews, but it has a low-fi vibe, touted by other indie games such as Unpacking.
You can equip your workers with costumes that brighten up your illicit business empire such as a full chicken outfit. This outfit was first introduced to me when a bunch of the Major’s goons rocked up to shoot up my staff and equipment. Word of advice. Don’t overspend before you make your first delivery, trust me on that one.
The gameplay itself is strictly management, with no personal control over characters. But you can set bear traps to at least hinder any attackers. Your staff will make use of facilities on their own, however, they will stand and die at their workbench if you forget to include a fridge in your kitchen. Always be sure to see what they’re suffering from to prevent these untimely workplace accidents.
The problem with this is that once you have set things up, there isn’t a great deal to attend to. And my biggest issue with that is that money doesn’t roll in quickly at all. So once I’ve made my setup, I’m basically at the mercy of time before I can interact again and buy new features to play with. Placing it in quick time, and sitting back, just occasionally adding a new client to the delivery round, and yet I never made back enough money to buy anything interesting.
This game is in early access, with there being a lot of features currently not available. At the time of writing in January 2023. So I expect more advanced functionality to come with further updates. I’m hoping it will also get a nerfing to make money come in more easily. It would be easy enough to counter this with more attacks on base etc. But would make the game a lot more exciting to play.
Overall, this game has a lot of potential to be a great business management sim. The writing is fun. The gameplay is simple enough to pick up quickly. The building is satisfying. There are pieces here that are worth keeping an eye on. It does need some changes to the earning speed to improve player enjoyment, in my opinion, but with this being only in early access, there is plenty of time for this game to shine.
Enjoying our work? Give us a follow everywhere and tell a friend!
GAMING. POSITIVITY. GOOD TIMES.
Comments