Hot Dog King

The core mechanics of Hot Dog King should be familiar to any gamer that has played a tycoon game. It's just an advanced version of the old lemonade stand where you try to make as much money as possible from customers that wander in.

When you staff your hotdog stand you begin to see that Hot Dog King is not your ordinary tycoon game. The counter workers are individual females, while the delivery boys and cooks are generic characters all based on the same three or four models.

Each of the female counter workers has a variety of attributes like "charisma", boldness, and stamina. The bolder the woman, the more revealing the outfit you can get her to wear. The more revealing the outfit you put your workers in, the more loyal and happy most of your customers.

The clothing available in the game ranges from sweaters and skirts to barely-there thongs and weird spider woman costumes. Each outfit provides varying bonuses to all of the attributes and as you get better hot dog stands you gain access to increasingly elaborate costumes like futuristic body gloves and imitation Lara Croft gear.

All of the cheesecake would be fine, albeit extremely misguided considering the genre, if it weren't for how it impacts the game play. In their attempt to share the focus between the tycoon aspect of the game and the harem of animated dress-up dolls portion of the game, Fuzzy Eyes made the mistake of placing too much emphasis on the employees. You have to constantly micromanage them to such an extent that the accelerated speed feature is nearly off-limits.

The women constantly become unhappy and fatigued, forcing you to place them on breaks nearly every fifteen seconds. When they are on break they stare at a wall, either alone or in a group, and complacently ignore customers that queue up in front of the register. Customers that come in and don't receive service damage your reputation.

Your only real countermeasure to the constant turmoil of your employees is to purchase gifts for them. The cheaper gifts like coupons for movie tickets barely put a dent in their low morale, so you'll be lavishing them with your unseemly largesse. The more expensive gifts include jewelry, a stereo, and a vacation package that costs 65 units of money. Lord only knows what kind of exotic paradise you can visit for 65 dollars. In my game I was purchasing roughly 10 gifts a day for each employee to keep them happy.

Yeah, nothing strange about buying five vacation packages in an afternoon for the girl working the counter of your hot dog stand. You know, the one you made wear the high heels and the hot pants. She's the star employee who spends two thirds of her day on break staring at a wall and becomes furious if you ask her to sweep. What a gal!

On top of the surly ladies, you're constantly losing chunks of reputation because the moronic customers enter and try to order things that would obviously not be on the menu. They walk into a hot dog stand the size of a phone booth and order things like value meals and pizzas. Let me try to translate the speech bubbles in the game:

Customer: "Hello, woman in a silver bikini and go-go boots, I wish to purchase something."

Hot Dog Girl: "That is good what is it you wish to purchase?"

Customer: "I wish to purchase a cake."

Hot Dog Girl: "We do not have a cake after all this is a hot dog stand."

Customer: "You motherfuckers! I come in here on my time on my day off and all I want is a motherfucking cake and you tell me you don't have it. What is this place? You call it a hot dog stand but I'll tell you fucking sons of bitches what it is: it is a fucking lie. Now you hear me well woman in a silver bikini and go-go boots, my heart is broken in two right now. I am weeping. I am fucking DESTROYED by this. I have been thinking about that cake ALL DAY and you have RUINED my life. I will now exit your hot dog stand and I will tell everyone in the city that it is a terrible hot dog stand because there is NO FUCKING CAKE."

Hot Dog Girl: "I am so unhappy. I need a vacation package."

The real kicker is that roughly one in ten customers also falls when they enter your store. If they fall you have to manually instruct the girl to walk over and help them. If you do not the customer will leave angry and you will take a big hit to your reputation. That doesn't sound that bad until you realize that it means you're playing Russian Roulette every time you attempt to accelerate time.