Bakery Simulator Review

Have you ever dreamed of owning your own bakery but don’t have the funds or skills to realise it? Bakery Simulator allows you to make various types of bread, buns, and pastries for customers at different locations throughout the city. You are in charge of everything from taking the order, ordering supplies you need, measuring the correct amount of each ingredient, and following the rest of the recipes to prepare the item. When you have the finished product, you will have to jump into your car and deliver it to the customer.

Bakery Simulator is more detailed than you would ever expect; using the keyboard and mouse, you move around your kitchen to various stations to prepare your recipes. There is even the option of customising your space to make it feel like your own, such as changing the finishes on the wall, and selecting the type of shelving that holds your ingredients. When I started playing, I found it took some time to get used to the controls, especially for using the mouse. Some of the steps in the recipe preparation require you to be very precise when you move the mouse around to trigger the next step. For example, when you put a ball of dough down on the work area, you have to click the exact spot that shows the icon to put it on the surface; you then have to set the bowl down on the counter before you can start the mini-game that has you divide the dough into sections. 

This mini-game requires you to rotate a ring to make the image match up with the pictures below them; if you try to rush, your recipe will suffer for it, worsening the quality of the item you are making. You can easily mess up the recipe, one of the most apparent being adding the wrong ingredients or the wrong quantity to your mixing bowl. Luckily you can toggle a display that will show you the steps you need to follow and the correct amounts of everything to add. If you mess up, you can click on the bin to remove the last ingredient you used, or if the whole bowl of ingredients is wrong, you can throw it out. If you decide to try completing the recipe anyway and delivering it to your customer, you risk ruining your reputation for good-quality items. 

Besides messing up the ingredients, you can also ruin your recipe if you don’t follow the instructions listed for the amount of time to mix the ingredients or, more obviously, over- or underbake your dough. You need to pay attention to many things while you bake; to make matters worse, you have a time limit to get the baked goods to your customer. The more time you take preparing and delivering the items, the less income you will make. Money is required to purchase more ingredients that you need to make each item and to upgrade equipment in your kitchen. There is the option to upgrade your appliances like your mixer and oven, but you will need funds and be at the correct level. To level up, you need a lot of happy customers, which requires doing a lot of baking.

The visuals in the game are alright. They aren’t anything spectacular, but the kitchen looks nice, and all the tools that you use look how they should. The game never shows you the baker themselves, as that should be you, but tools and other bowls and pans that you handle will display a hand icon. The finished baked goods look nice and the way they do in real life but the one thing that was really underwhelming was the car that you drive around the city for deliveries; it looked like it was from a game you would have played a few console generations ago. The music reminded me of the kind you would hear in an elevator or department store, nothing super noteworthy but was calming and blended in with the background when you didn’t have a noisy appliance like a mixer running. 

I never thought I would be driving a car around the city to deliver my baked goods, I assumed that people would come to you and pick it up since it’s a bakery simulator, I assumed everything occurs right in the kitchen. When you hop into your car, you have a map of the city showing you the location you need to get to; some of the roads are blocked off, making it a bit trickier to navigate, and once again, you are racing against the clock. So you don’t have time for a leisurely drive exploring the city; the faster you get there and make your delivery, the happier the customer. It’s good that real-life driving rules are not enforced because my shortcuts driving through the park, running red lights, and pushing other cars out of my way would not go over so well. All that mattered was getting this baking to its destination; I wanted to get paid and get back to the kitchen. Once your delivery is complete, you will also learn new recipes that you can create, earn new kitchen supplies like bowls, and level up your baker.  

Bakery Simulator is an intense experience; there are so many different things that you must take care of to just do something as simple as making breakfast buns or bread. Not to mention recipes like croissants that require more work, since you are cutting the dough and rolling it up into its crescent shape. It sure is labour-intensive to fill a small order of three buns! Imagine how much you would have to spend on the fuel to deliver such a small quantity; there is no way you would be profitable. If you like baking or don’t have the required supplies, this is an entertaining way to try out some different recipes and not have to worry about doing the dishes! If you are stuck during some of the required steps, check out the help guide or even move your mouse around until you find the exact spot you need to click on. It can get frustrating at times, but once you figure out how to complete each step, it should get easier the next time you have to do it if you are willing to put in the time to figure it out. Unfortunately, you miss out on the great smell of freshly baked bread!