Vidjama Gmaes Work

The most patient customers.

Video games let us live out our wildest fantasies. In my case, opening up my very own franchise of Femboy Burger Barn. Now the game isn’t advanced enough to let me stock my staff with appropriate servers to make Femboy Burger Barn a true reality, but the name will have to serve for now. Let me take you through a day at Femboy Burger Barn.

It is 6p.m. and I have about seven people waiting in the lobby for their food. There are four cars piled deep in the drive-thru, most of whom have been waiting for a good five hours for their food. I bring out the order for table #11, which is literally just a small order of fries. The woman has been waiting for these fries since about 11a.m. and has essentially pissed away her entire day.

And then I put the food on her table and she cheers, gives me +87 popularity, and a big tip. I’m playing the game on easy mode.

Playing Fast Food Simulator on easy mode is pretty much required if you are solo and for reasons I can’t comprehend I don’t have any friends willing to team up at Femboy Burger Barn at 1 a.m. to give hungry customers their desired meat and buns, and also serve them food. Easy mode doesn’t give you less customers, all it does is get rid of their patience timer. And in the 10 minutes of real time that the restaurant was open for orders, I had 25 customers come through.

Jesus Christ.

Thankfully Fast Food Sim affords me some conveniences. Patties don’t lose temp once cooked, fries don’t lose temp as long as they are in the heater, and ingredients don’t have temperatures at all, which means I can cook the entire day’s supply at 8a.m. just like the very real Burger King does down the road from me. Unlike the Burger King, I can’t just throw the leftover patties in the fridge and pull them out the next day.

Easy mode has kept Fast Food Sim from becoming a nightmare for me, because I can’t stand getting overwhelmed and then watching the number of disappointed people slowly rise with each day as my menu expands, the restaurant becomes more popular, and more people show up. I tried hiring some help in the form of the server/busser NPCs the game affords you, but they saved minimal time and put a huge dent in my revenue.

And Femboy Burger Barn being a franchisee means I don’t have control over the menu. When I unlock chicken patties, they are on the menu and people will order them regardless of if I buy the supplies. I have to obey, even if it means complying with a particularly disgusting customer who ordered a chicken sandwich with ketchup, mustard, mayo, pickles, and onions. Some people don’t deserve food.

Femboy Burger Barn serves coffee now, too, and I finally proved myself to stock medium sized fries. No, none of it makes sense. In about five more levels I’ll be certified in putting cheese on the burgers. I don’t know if I’ll ever fully understand what drives me to buy these games and play them to death, but for the time being I’ll just enjoy the ride.