Blood Bar Tycoon Review (PC)

If Ravenous Devils has taught me anything about the human race, it is that people are prone to consume just about anything if it comes attached with a label and a price tag, be it a fleshy pie or a cocktail of blood and bone marrow. There’s a market for such things, too, weirdly enough; the inflation of suspicious pastries and gooey baked goods alone is enough to tempt fledgling business owners to cease trading their mundane goods in favor of, shall we say, questionable produce. Take Blood Bar Tycoon, for example; the game doesn’t beat around the bush with its business model, but instead wears its heart on its sleeve…and its fangs in its patrons. The point is, blood sells — and Clever Trickster Studio knows all too well how to hack the system and flip a profit. Thanks, vampires.

As I mentioned just a moment ago, Blood Bar Tycoon is, to some extent, a love letter to Ravenous Devils—a business simulation game based on Sweeney Todd and his gruesome obsession with severed limbs and meat pies. In this case, however, there are no barbers to replace the corpses, nor are there any mischievous cooks to pluck the eyelashes from their heads to make knitted scarves with tartan patterns. No, Blood Bar Tycoon takes a different approach; it sidelines demon barbers and the Fleet Street shenanigans and instead focuses on two things: vampires, and—if you can believe it—their thirst to consume, trade, and distribute blood. If that sounds like the ideal cocktail for you, then be sure to read on as we continue to digest its lumpy contents. For the next five minutes, it’s happy hour, blood suckers.

Make Mine a Bloody Mary, Will You?

Conceptually, Blood Bar Tycoon isn’t distinctively different from other business simulation-type games; it harbors the same upgradable rooms, catalogs, environments, along with the usual tropes of a bog-standard monopolization sim. The only major difference between this and its adversaries’ storefronts, of course, is the product that it chooses to sell to its consumers. In a similar vein (pun intended) as Ravenous Devils, the game sees you operating from two halves of an underground organization: the bar, which you use to produce, evolve, and maintain your bloody empire; and the underbelly of said empire, which you can use to inadvertently exploit the lives and bloodstreams of your loyal patrons to feed the masses. To that end, you have the power to balance the scales; who will you squeeze dry, and who will you feed?

The journey begins with a paint-by-numbers process, which involves the creation of several different rooms—a lounge bar, kitchen, and a blood factory (or detention center, if you will), the latter being your primary source for harvesting your produce to then serve at your bar to other vampire folk. The goal, which essentially revolves around the mass production of flesh and blood in a self-sustaining manner, primarily involves building new quarters, expanding your blood operations, and accruing enough of the game’s currency to boost the business’s economic growth. Again, like Ravenous Devils, in the case that it invites you to alternate between two different fronts — the front of house, and behind the scenes, with the latter of the two fronts being a little grizzlier than the other.

Spare the Details

Managing the day-to-day operations on the business side of things isn’t the issue; it’s the responsibility of both luring and sponging human beings for the sake of flipping a profit. To make matters worse, the game has several nocturnal curveballs to overcome—the fact that vampire hunters prowl around the premise and use their intuitive abilities to quash your empire, for instance. And not just that, but also that you have to deal with minions, finances, and even the demands of your Elders, who essentially serve as your spiritual guardians during each shift. With all of this covering a surprisingly meaty melting pot of obstacles, there’s a good amount to shovel through, and not to mention an entire city to conquer and transform into a bustling chain of successful taverns.

In a similar format as a traditional business simulation game, Blood Bar Tycoon tasks you with monopolizing the metropolis—a process that takes you from the grass roots of a failing bistro to the booming underbelly of a blood-soaked haven. In each chapter, you have the opportunity to complete a series of objectives, unlock new inventions, and utilize your creative talents to formulate sickly strategies to both improve and master the art of blood distribution. And there’s a lot to work through here, with several of the chapters requiring a significant amount of time and effort to complete and max out. As far as all of that goes, I have little to complain about, for the campaign has enough replay value to justify the price tag.

Blood Slushy

The visuals might be a little janky, and the movements might be a tad wooden and oftentimes a bit awkward — but that doesn’t necessarily make them shockingly bad. The game itself isn’t so much a serious game as it is a caricature of a cliché vampire tale, and it makes it abundantly apparent that, while there are several gory themes and sinister depictions, Blood Bar Tycoon is more or less a comedy at heart. It’s also a genuinely entertaining comedy at that, and one that contains a good selection of eccentric characters, illogical ideas, and some truly bizarre creations. Take the blood factory, for example; the creative work that goes into the fulfillment of the product is teeming with quirky contraptions and design elements — and it’s not exactly tight on customizable components, either.

There was quite clearly a lot of love that went into the creation of this particular world, that’s a given. Sure, it bears a few familiar crosses, and it doesn’t exactly shy away from pulling on a lot of the same tropes as its spiritual predecessors, but with its unique twist on the vampire-based approach and the double-sided nature of the business development process, it isn’t just a run-of-the-mill clone of a shameless cash grab. No, Blood Bar Tycoon is a lot more than that, and I can safely say that, if you enjoy wacky concepts and creative suites that produce interesting material for you to toy around with, then there’s every chance that you’ll get a good kick out of slitting the throat of this peculiar chestnut. And if that doesn’t scratch your itch, then at least we can collectively agree that vampire culture is finally getting some recognition.

Verdict

Blood Bar Tycoon conjures a delightful concoction of blood-infused antics with a quality and eerily pleasing business simulation experience. Similar to Ravenous Devils, the game doesn’t stray from the traditional narrative of a building-block sandbox, but it does make the effort to get a little experimental with its unique gameplay style and overarching vampire-centric theme. It’s a weird one, I’ll say that much — but that’s precisely why I’m so drawn to it. With a genuine sense of humor and a treasure trove of possible routes to victory, it more or less provides a bottomless barrel of tailorable scenarios, most of which feature a diverse range of unique objectives, set pieces, and outcomes. I’m all for that.

While I personally wouldn’t return to Blood Bar Tycoon for a second feeding, that isn’t to say that I would change any of the things that I experienced during the initial run. On that basis, I’d say that the only thing keeping me from squeezing the vein for an additional shift is perhaps a few minor technical issues. Aside from that, I’m honestly unable to find all that much to complain about, let alone criticize or poke holes in. It’s a fun, albeit comical simulation that oozes ironclad ideas and enough originality to give it a competitive edge over its competitors’ otherwise dull and predictable counterparts. That, to me, is enough of a good reason to warrant a happy hour or two.

If you’ve a knack for boiling unusual business ideas and capitalizing on them with sinister marketing tactics, then you’re bound to feel right at home with Blood Bar Tycoon. It’s kooky, charismatic, and oh-so captivating.