The Last (Hotdog) Stand

Nice game, I like that you can even see the customers' faces get less happy as you take longer. Save and quit functionality is also impressive.

Alrighty, I like writing long reviews so strap in! 😅

So, firstly, I'd like to repeat the sentiment of other commenters by saying the art style, despite it's simplicity, is actually quite charming. Much like the rest of the game, it's not trying to be something it's not and it presents itself very plainly, in a good way! As others have said, this would fit perfectly back in the day as a flash game.

I'm also quite impressed with the amount of "game" that is actually here, or rather the amount of unlocks you can get throughout the game. Not only do you unlock additional toppings for your hotdogs, but you unlock different kinds of hotdogs and hotdog buns, AND you can eventually unlock side dishes to go alongside your hotdogs! AAANNNNDDD you can unlock new "permits" to have different backgrounds!

Now for the bitter meat between the two sweet buns of a criticism sandwich. Thankfully, there are only a couple of things that should be noted here.

Firstly, I noticed that you can't pick up a tray until the mouse button has been held for about half a second. This is normally a fine way to do this, as you want to distinguish it from a normal "click". However, there's an unintended side effect. If I'm too quick to drag the tray to the customer (which I'll often do when I'm trying to get their order done quickly), then I'll have let go of the mouse button before the tray actually appears in my hand. Because of this, the tray will be stuck on my mouse until I'm able to double click fast enough to retrigger the bug and reverse the effect. My suggestion (if you have the time as this isn't game breaking) would be to instead detect if the mouse has moved a certain distance after holding the mouse button down.

To add to this, while I believe I understand the reasoning behind it, I find that having to drag the tray instead of simply clicking on it like everything else is an odd choice. It can often cause me to try dragging ingredients (when I can't do that) or try clicking the tray to move it (which I also can't do). 

This has been mentioned before multiple times, but it's worth noting here. The timer needs to be paused while the tutorial happens. Having it continue (along with the customers patience running thin and leaving) can be confusing and overwhelming if you don't already know what you're doing.

Next is the pacing. I know it's mentioned that the pacing starts out slow, but it can be somewhat grueling when you work hard an entire day and not unlock anything, or unlock something that isn't asked for by any customers.

Now, I'm going to go armchair game designer here for a sec (if I haven't already lol). I think it would serve best if the progression for unlocking toppings and such was more linear, about 1-2 items a day consistently. The exponential growth will then come naturally from the complexity of the orders rising overtime. When you have the majority of unlocks saved for the back half of the game, then it can be overwhelming very quickly. This is mitigated by the fact that you choose when to unlock certain items, but since you don't know the price of something unless you click on it (the same action to purchase it), you can end up buying something you aren't mentally prepared to use.

The last thing is that there is no pause button during the day, which isn't great if you have to get up in the middle of playing. That being said, the fact that you can save between days does make up for this fact.

Oh, speaking of! It was mentioned that you could only save progress in the downloadable version, but I was actually able to save progress on the web version too!

Anyways, just remember, these are all small things. Don't let the length of this part fool you, these are nitpicks in comparison. The only reason this section is this long is because I want this game to go from being quite good to being a great treasure!

In summary, while there are a few minor things that I wish could be improved, you've managed to create something quite wonderful here that I think you should be proud of! I want to come back to this game to see how the progression truly feels and see how much I enjoy it. For now, I really like it! The flow of the game during each day feels good and the stress and challenge of completing an order as quickly as possible is really fun! Again, the best compliment for this game is that it's near indistinguishable from flash games of the past, both in gameplay and feel.

Anyways, that's it for me. If you've read this far, thank you! And sorry for writing such a long review. 😅

I don't often do these because I know I can't just leave a simple comment like "it's great! Very charming!'. When I leave a review, I want to help the creators because I know what it's like having to make a game and send it out to the world, only to be met by "cool game, nice job! 👍".

I do hope this helps and I hope you all have an awesome week!

I agree with stickohno! This reminds me of a flash game I used to play long ago. Thanks for the nostalgia and the fun gameplay! Hotdog stands unite!

A very charming style, reminds me of the old days playing endless Flash tycoon games. Very well done!