Chocolate Factory Tycoon

Genre: Idle Game

Players: 1

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Review:

Chocolate Factory Tycoon is an Idle Game released on Nintendo Switch in 2024. In this game, players take the role of the owner of a combination cocoa bean farm, chocolate factory, and chocolate shop, overseeing every step of the process of making and selling chocolate, and gradually hiring workers to help automate that process and make your operation more efficient.

I should note that the game’s promotional art is highly misleading, and also probably AI-generated. To give you an idea why I suspect this, have a look at that art as it is presented on the game’s title screen:

See that random jumble of letters over the entrance in that image? Classic telltale sign of AI-generated artwork. And it’s a shame too, because the steampunk-esque sepia-toned chocolate factory in that image seems like it has a lot of style and character, but this is simply not reflected in the actual game, which uses colorful, basic 3D visuals like what’s shown in the header image at the top of the page. Which, to be fair, is sufficient for the gameplay, and fits the tone of the game well enough, but for anyone expecting anything like that image, you’re in for a disappointment. Oh, and perhaps more disappointing: the only sound in the game is an extremely repetitive upbeat music clip that you’ll mute within minutes of starting the game.

To its credit, the Idle Game gameplay does a mostly decent job both when it comes to basic interaction and providing players choices. Your little chef characters can (and to start, must) interact with every stage of the process – whacking trees to get cocoa beans, taking them to the conveyor belt, taking the processed chocolate from the conveyor to the sales counters in the chocolate shop, and manning the cash register to actually sell the chocolate and finally make some money.

The controls to do this are odd, and take some getting used to. Platers move their character using the right analog stick, with the left analog stick used for selecting choices in menus. When standing in the appropriate spot, your character will automatically do what’s needed in that spot, so you’re mostly just moving from one place to another and then standing in place to wait for each action to be completed.

When it comes to upgrades, you can hire workers to farm the beans, take chocolate from conveyors to the shop, and man the registers, as well as upgrading each of these to work more efficiently. You can add more trees to produce more beans, and you can also upgrade the registers and conveyors to work faster, as well as adding new chocolate sales counters and new conveyors to create new, pricier chocolates. And of course these upgrades mean adding even more workers and then upgrading those workers.

Overall, it’s a solid foundation to form the basis for what could have been a really great Idle game, but sadly that’s all it ever becomes – a foundation. All that I’ve described to you is all you’ll be able to do in this game, and you’ll only get to hire about a dozen workers and create about a half-dozen different chocolate types before you hit this game’s limit. And you’ll likely get everything fully-upgraded within an hour, maybe two.

It’s so disappointing to see a game that has such solid core gameplay, but which absolutely fails to build on that gameplay to live up to its potential. With more depth and options, a much longer campaign, and a better presentation, Chocolate Factory Tycoon could have been an outstanding entry in the Idle Game genre. As-is, it’s a great proof-of-concept that you’ll enjoy for an hour and then never play again.

tl;dr – Chocolate Factory Tycoon is an Idle Game where players run a combination cocoa bean farm, chocolate factory, and chocolate shop. The core gameplay here is solid, giving players a lot of options. Unfortunately, this game fails to build on that great core, leading to a game that you’ll finish within an hour or two. It’s decent while it lasts, but this game feels like such a huge missed opportunity.

Grade: C-

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