I’ve been following Fruitbus for a while, which piqued my interest with its quirky animal characters, boppy sound design, and charming visual style. Since I played the demo, the developer Krillbite has refined the concept they introduced, which has you driving around a set of islands, chopping and cooking up food recipes for people around the various areas using fruits, veggies, and other foodstuffs that you acquire by gathering them through various means as you explore. It’s a simple concept with a few twists and bugs to navigate around along the way, but overall I truly enjoyed my time with Fruitbus and its cast of characters.
We Begin
Fruitbus starts out on a bittersweet note, as you learn that you’ve inherited your late Grandma’s old Fruitbus. She’s sorta the narrator of the whole game, as she leads you through memories of how she ran the Fruitbus, and the townsfolk and patrons she befriended along the way. The main goal is to encourage those old pals to all meet up and join you for her big final feast in memory of the goodness she spread through the Fruitbus and her lessons. This tone of helping bring back the joy she inspired throughout the islands reverberates through the music that is played, the dialogue that the animals you meet provide, and the color-washed environments you’ll find yourself driving and walking through.
Obviously you’ll be in charge of your Fruitbus throughout the game, which includes driving it all over the islands. The bus requires gassing up and also allows for customization, like new spiffy wheels, toppers, and more. These can be bought with the same coins you earn while selling food to customers. In fact, selling and earning money is the basis of almost all progress, because it enables you to get new tools, buy cool decor, and traverse to new islands. Making specific dishes with rarer ingredient combinations rewards you with even more coins, and patrons will often ask for specific types of ingredients to advance quest lines or appeal to their appetite.
Box it Up, Break it Out
To that end, Fruitbus encourages keeping a stock of various fruits and veggies around so that you’re always ready to make a variety of dishes. You can do this by keeping crates on your Fruitbus that you can store ingredients in for use when you need them. However, the biggest bug I found whilst playing the game was the functionality of these crates. Quite often I would start driving away from being parked, when I would suddenly hear a chorus of clunking noises. It was the sound of all of my ingredients perilously stumbling away, having broken free of the shackles of my crates and deciding to tumble through the floor of the Fruitbus and onto the ground. This required me to pick them up by hand and put them back. Sometimes though the ingredients would not lock back into place in the crate, and I found out after one fateful reload that if the game doesn’t think the ingredients are safely stored away in the crates, it zaps them out of existence when you reload your save. Alas, it is a bug that happened more than a few times, and is one I would advise the developer to resolve post-haste. It can make the game frustrating when I spend so much time saving up fruit only for them to be whisked away to the ether.
When the storage works, it’s a quirky system that I found amusing, and I enjoyed the clumsy feeling of managing my little bus and all its cooking devices and serving materials. It’s not designed to feel exact and mechanical, and that’s okay. Harvesting fruit and veggies also felt free form and casual, with many of them being in specific spots around the islands, requiring repeat visits to collect them. It made keeping a wide variety around a necessity. Each new ingredient you collect also comes with a fun voice line from Grandma, and a new set of bonuses to discover. The quest lines usually involved making a specific set of dishes, or finding a buried object from Grandma’s life experiences. These were sometimes hidden in cutscenes, which I didn’t know about until after the fact in one instance. Luckily, you can replay said cutscenes to discover the clues, but for a good bit I was a tad lost as to how to proceed on a main quest line. A little less cryptic guidance would have been helpful, but I was able to get through it eventually.
Pretty Fruity
Visually, Fruitbus carves out its own unique blend of pastels and squishy animal inhabitants, which all bop along at a reduced frame rate, stop-motion style. It makes for some pretty creative expressions and poses. Some artsy cutscenes and scenes make for a few “aww”-worthy moments, and are spaced out nicely to allow for a good amount of cutting, cooking, and selling segments before moving along in the story. You can take it at your own pace and just enjoy the sights from outside your window and the music bumping through your radio.
Turning up the Volume
Speaking of music, Fruitbus’ soundtrack is a treat, though a bit short on selections. I did enjoy the radio, with its ability to blast tunes in the nearby area so that you can peddle your delicious foodstuffs to groovy beats. Every sound also has a nice “cutesy” nature to it, with a unique vibe that totally brings the whole package together nicely. It’s like the styles all intermingle into this nice recipe for a cozy food truck adventure. It’s very “squeaky” and toony, the bright nature of effects matching audibly and visibly.
In Conclusion
Fruitbus, overall, is a pleasant, unique experience that doesn’t try to make things too complicated, but could use some additional guidance along the way that would make the journey a little bit more clear in its goals. Even with its little quirks that you may have to work through, each one is matched with a positive flair. Spending time with my Fruitbus and the islanders that flocked to it was a memorable time, and one that I look forward to continuing!
