Welcome to the world of disco, seen through the digital eyes of Disco Simulator – the latest from Games Incubator, and currently available to play via the Steam Next Fest. I was given an early look at this one but just got around to the tippety-typeity bits.
Life begins at Martha. That line about it beginning at 40? All a lie. No, as a former banking industry employee, she knows how to manage her money and starts her career change with a bit more in the bank than Sylvia and Greg. Who are these people? You don’t need to know as they aren’t in the demo.
The Disco Simulator demo allows us to tinker with a starter club where you must complete each objective to win. In the proposed Creative option for the full game, you can go balls-out until you go bankrupt. Martha would never go bankrupt, though. She’s a catch.
Disco Simulator Demo
All that finance management doesn’t pay off when you’re tasked with kitting out a large tiled space without any furniture. Sure, anyone can buy furniture and place it, but the lack of a tutorial had me longing for the day of cashing cheques, helping old people, and refusing loan applications at the bank.
Thankfully, I’m a clever ol’ sausage and was able to follow the objectives of buying and placing a toilet in the centre of the room, laying down a lavish rainbow-infused dancefloor, and hiring a knucklehead bouncer to scare off scum with his bald head. I thought discos were supposed to be lively? First impressions are disappointing.
Disco Simulator kicks in when you open up. Obviously. With my stations built to house cleaners, bouncers and a bartender, it was time to open the doors and watch NPCs awkwardly stand on the dancefloor without moving, punters heading straight to the toilets, then leaving, walking through the bouncer’s desk, and then standing at the cleaning station.
Jeitaro
It was pretty apparent that my establishment needed walls to hide the employees so that the bogs didn’t overlook the dancefloor, but I was in a hurry to build. So much of a hurry that I didn’t even have a DJ. Where’s the music coming from? What are they dancing to? And why the hell are these partygoers standing in the corners facing the walls as if this were a re-enactment of The Blair Witch Project?
Before the council asked for my licence, I decided to shut up shop. Perhaps a career in gardening would suit me better? Maybe I could even start a gym? As for Disco Simulator, I think it needs a bit more work for me to go out and buy a new pair of dancing shoes.
