Editor’s Note: Modern Gamer Marie Brownhill reviewed the Disco Simulator Prologue back when the title was still in beta, and now we are circling back to check out the full game on Steam.
It has been a while since we last tried a casual, turn-your-brain-off tycoon title, so it seemed to be the right time to indulge. Disco Simulator is a game where you manage a disco, and it has clubs set in all different time periods that let people dance the night away and forget their troubles. Clients in Disco Simulator have easy to read Sims-like needs and wants, and it’s up to you to clean up after them when they’ve clogged your toilets for the fifth time in a single night.
Plot Ahoy!
Disco Simulator is a tycoon-style sim game where players are the proprietor of a nightclub. You’re the one who builds the amenities, seating, and even the walls to keep those animals, your clients, from raiding your liquor stash. While it is unclear whether or not walling off the toilets or product storage actually has any mechanical benefits, you certainly wouldn’t want the people on the dance floor to see others dropping a deuce! When you first open Disco Simulator, you’ll have access to a single manager, but the more you play, the more you’ll unlock.
Review Notes
The largest difference between Disco Simulator’s full release and its demo is that you have more managers to play as, more nightclubs, and more things to buy and set up in your club. The core gameplay loop is unchanged, however, in that you primarily play this title in two distinct phases. During the day, you’ll spend your time setting up the nightclub, buying product like alcohol, equipment, building walls, DJ platforms, amenities like toilets, etc. Once you click to start the night, you can’t build anymore, and you’ll occasionally be called upon to solve a quick minigame like checking an ID or mixing a drink.
As you expand your nightclub in Disco Simulator, more and more minigame options become available during the night. Events can also pop up that require you make a quick decision, like whether to call the cops when a fight breaks out or try and break up the fight yourself. Initially, you’ll have to clean up messes, wake up drunk patrons to get them out of the club, etc., all of which is done by simply clicking and holding on them for a lengthy period of time. Fortunately, you can hire cleaning staff, security workers, and others who can take care of these kinds of things for you. Hiring the staff eats into your profits a little and also makes it to where you’ll often have extended periods of time where you don’t have anything to do while the club is open at night. If you prefer very hands-off sim games, Disco Simulator might just be for you.
After setting up your club in a way to entice your clientele, you’ll eventually be rolling in cash that you can use to buy upgrades. Some of the upgrade trees unlock better looking seating arrangements, DJ stages, more efficient workers, and other things to either make the club look more attractive to bring in more clients or will let you access more efficient workers who can keep the nightclub cleaner and more orderly to make a better experience for those patrons. As you attract more patrons, you’ll eventually start earning reputation points that you can use to unlock prestige levels for your nightclubs, which are useful in that they cause you to more quickly reach progression breakpoints when starting a new game.
You get a decent number of interior design options to really figure out your own atmosphere for each nightclub you renovate. You only start with a single manager, but you’ll eventually unlock six more, and each manager has their own static effects like helping bartenders work faster or making all of the advanced-level employees cheaper to hire. There are nine total nightclubs, and each club has a specific objective for you to complete, though you can continue to play in a sandbox-style manner even after you’ve cleared the objective.
You can choose between standard and creative modes, with creative mode being more for people who either want to just play around with tons of money or for those who want to experiment with different setups. Overall, though, Disco Simulator isn’t so challenging that you’ll need to do a lot of experimenting to figure out what works best, as the drunk patrons will just kind of throw money at you, regardless of your efficiency. That being said, clearing the objective is usually a simple enough task, which is great since doing so unlocks your next nightclub and manager with which you can experiment more with creating the ideal disco club.
The graphics for Disco Simulator are this interesting combination of low-poly character models and bright colors that work well to give it a high-definition retro aesthetic, which is honestly perfect for a title about managing a disco. The soundtrack is comprised of three major genres: chill, dance, and techno. The backing tracks are all quite suitable, and there’s a pretty decent number of different tracks. If you get tired of the song you’re listening to, you can jump to another one at any time.
TLDR
Disco Simulator is a tycoon-style top-down simulator game where players manage a place where people can dance, drink, and leave garbage all over the place like filthy animals. It’s a fine little simulator, though I found myself bored, more often than not, during the phases of it where the club is open because there honestly isn’t much to do. This does mean, however, that Disco Simulator is ideal for players who like hands-off sims where they can watch their numbers go up as more and more people enjoy their creation.