Fruitbus First Impressions: More Than Just a Food Truck Simulator

I enjoyed playing Food Truck Pup on my smartphone, and honestly, I expected Fruitbus to be a similar experience, just in 3D. But to my surprise, it was more than just making fruit salads and soups for your customers. It’s a wholesome adventure game with a great storyline, a diverse set of NPCs to interact with, and a beautiful open world to explore.

Fruitbus is played from a first-person perspective. The game begins with Grandma teaching you the basics of preparing a fruit salad inside her food truck. Here, you’ll get hands-on with the controls: gathering fresh ingredients, slicing them with a kitchen knife, putting the pieces in a bowl, and setting the finished dish on the counter, ready to serve a sumptuous fruit salad.

At this point, I thought the next scene would be customers thronging my food truck with their orders and me serving them fruit salads to earn cash and buy upgrades. I was wrong! While preparing and serving fruit salads is an important part of the game, it’s just the beginning. The heart of the adventure lies in exploring the island in your cozy food truck, meeting new people, discovering their stories, and helping them by completing lighthearted quests.

The next cutscene shows my character revisiting the same food truck after 10 years. A helpful scrapyard worker guided me to change my truck’s tires, refuel, and repair my vehicle, setting me up perfectly for an exciting journey.

For a cozy game, the driving mechanics of Fruitbus come impressively close to the feel of driving a real truck, though with simplified controls. Get in the truck, grab a seat, turn on the ignition and handbrake, Hold W to accelerate, use the A and D keys turn left/right respectively and press S to brake/reverse.

I can even adjust the side mirrors for better visibility. And for a truly cozy experience, I have to turn on the radio to listen to soothing music while driving.

Exploring the first island, Banamas, of the Gustum archipelago was incredibly calming—I wanted to stay in my truck, soaking in the open world without ever leaving. But my journey was short-lived as I had to search for the nearest gas station to refuel my truck.

I had to buy a few jerry cans from the gas station so that I could refuel my food truck anytime I wanted, especially when I was on a long journey. While driving, I had to look at the fuel gauge at regular intervals to make sure it was in the green and when it turned red, It was a heads-up for a refuel. Everything costs money here, from tools to truck upgrades, and to earn money, the only best way was to serve fruit salads to customers.

The cooking mini-game wasn’t that difficult. From a first-person perspective, I had a jolly good time gathering ingredients, slicing them with a kitchen knife, and putting them in the serving slot to serve yummy fruit salads to my customers. However, I am sure that recipes will be challenging as I progress through the game. I love challenges. Bring it on!

At first, I couldn’t figure out how to attract more customers until I found a useful help section. Pressing the Tab key opens the menu. Click the “?” to open the help section. This is where I found a way to attract customers at Banamas, the first island. All I had to do was enter the truck and press the button next to the counter to play the jingle. I could find customers even in an extremely isolated area of the map.

Finding foodies was easy. Ingredients, on the other hand? Not so much. I had to search high and low for bananas, and even then, reaching them was no simple task—I had to climb up or find higher ground to pluck them. It will be a challenge to find ingredients and you will have to drive your food truck more than often to travel far and wide to find the rare ones.

The NPCs bring a warm, wholesome vibe to the entire gameplay experience. You get to hear their stories, and also their unique requests. Complete their quests and you will learn more about them, and maybe obtain some rewards. Quests will also make you familiar with new tools. In the carrot mission, the botanist gave me a hint to gather carrots. Turns out I had to buy a shovel from the shop to dig up the carrot crop.

I had a great time with this game and can’t wait to dive back in for more adventures. For those looking for a cozy, cooking-focused adventure that goes beyond simple game mechanics, Fruitbus delivers an unexpectedly deep experience. Whether you’re making fruit salads or soups, discovering new ingredients, or just enjoying the scenic locations while driving, Fruitbus keeps you engaged without overwhelming you. It’s a delightful escape for anyone wanting to blend the joy of a food-themed adventure with a relaxed, explorative pace.

Fruitbus was released on Steam in October 2024.