If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to play as Willy Wonka if he, instead of his usual demeanor, had the excitement level of a certified personal accountant, then Chocolate Factory Simulator may be a game of interest to you.
Chocolate Factory Simulator is available on Steam and finds players running a gourmet chocolate factory catering to high-end and discerning customers.
In the simulation, you play as a chocolatier in a steampunk world, and you’ll be combining the use of cooking implements like mixing bowls, saucepans, and a mortar and pestle to create chocolate with the help of some big machines and mixers that will mold, wrap, and ship out your chocolate to customers.
Plot Ahoy!
There isn’t a whole lot of plot or story going on in Chocolate Factory Simulator. All of the machinery around you is gorgeously and intricately designed, really leaning into that steampunk visual flair, but you don’t really get to go outside of your business. Once you’ve finished the chocolate for an order and packaged it, you send it away in an air balloon that gets caught by a passing airship, really giving credence to the whole steampunk environmental visuals. The world outside of your business is beautiful looking, almost like something out of Bioshock Infinite. You don’t actually get to see or do a whole lot with that information, which is fine given that this is a title about being a chocolatier. You’re here for the cocoa, not the commute!
Review Notes
When it comes to making your chocolate, you do almost all of it by hand. There is a high level of interactivity, and it’s definitely fun at first to grab the cocoa powder, sugar, cocoa butter, and other ingredients, and pour them into your pot with the appropriate measurements. The first couple of times you make a bar of chocolate, Chocolate Factory Simulator guides you along which functions as the tutorial, but after that you’ll need to pin the recipes from your recipe book and properly ratio out your ingredients yourself. You’ll need to heat the chocolate to get it nice and melted, which occurs at different temperatures depending on your ingredients and additives.
You can let the chocolate cool, then heat it back up to temper it and give it a smoother finish. After tempering your chocolate, you’ll need to pour it into molds, use the molding press, and then wrap your chocolate for your customer- it’s an easy enough process to get the hang of. After doing your first bar, you’re introduced to adding almonds into chocolate, which requires you dispense almonds, crush them to the required consistency, and also adjust the ratios of other ingredients to compensate so your end product is still a 100-gram bar of chocolate, for example.
The level of interactivity in Chocolate Factory Simulator is enticing, especially at first. You have various machines and do-dads to help you in the chocolate making process, but you’ll also need to do maintenance on those machines when you’re in between orders.
There doesn’t seem to be a time limit on orders, so it appears as if you can take as long as you like to fulfill any requests that come in. And as you are able to complete orders, you’ll earn money you can spend to buy ingredients, decorations, and various other things you may need. The actual process of making chocolate is so simple that getting 100-105% on order completion is very, very easy, so this is more of a cozy game to relax with that doesn’t require much multitasking at all.
The downside is that you’ll be doing the processes of making chocolate basically by yourself; there’s actually very little automation in this title, especially at the start. You can, eventually, buy parts to upgrade your helpful robot friend Nougat, but the parts to let him move and carry things take a while to get because they’re gated behind reaching a higher reputation level which is achieved by fulfilling chocolate orders. The robot can do a few simple tasks, which will really help you out, but you’ll be managing every small step along the way of making your delectable treats for a good, long while.
The word “Factory” in this game’s title is slightly misleading, given the level of automation you’re able to achieve. I assume the developer put factory in the title to explain the delightful steampunk aesthetic of the game, but if you were expecting to be able to manage an expanding factory…this is not that game. This is a simple, cozy title where you measure out ingredients, and while you do have a robotic helper who can streamline some processes, you’re still going to primarily be the one crafting the artisan chocolates that your patrons order.
The good news is that you’ll continue to unlock new stations to design your chocolates, apply toppings, and design new packaging for your products. There will also be events that pop up throughout the world that can have effects like lower ingredient prices, making it ideal to stock up on cocoa when there’s a surplus of it being sold at lowered prices. After acquiring enough reputation, you’ll be able to make larger and larger batches of chocolate for sale, bringing in more cash, and unlocking more rooms in your chocolatier.
TLDR
Chocolate Factory Simulator is effectively everything it says on the tin: It’s a great looking steampunk chocolate game where you’ll be spitting out more bars than Eminem while putting legally distinct M&Ms into your chocolate bars. This is a reasonably detailed title about making chocolate, doing repetitive tasks to earn money, new machines, and some methods of automating a portion of your processes.
If you don’t mind micromanagement, realism, and basic math to figure out weight ratios, this absolutely can be a great simulator to relax with after a stressful day. If you like all that, then Chocolate Factory Simulator may satisfy your sweet tooth for a new flavor of simulation.