Streetfood Tycoon World Tour is more of the same … until you get to Day 16 (and from there it gets crazy-awesome)

UPDATE: It’s out! It’s out! Download Streetfood Tycoon World Tour at the iTunes store!

So I’ve been spending a little bit of my on-the-go free time with Erick Garayblas’ latest masterpiece .. the sequel to his smash hit, Streetfood Tycoon. Presenting: Streetfood Tycoon World Tour. In a nutshell, World Tour reflects Erick’s brilliance by taking what was awesome about the first game and topping it (pun intended!) with a juggling act behind the counter.

For those who have never played the original proudly-Pinoy made game for iOS and Android, here’s a short backgrounder from a post I made when the game was launched.

A couple of months (and many a news guesting) later, Erick told me that SF Tycoon made it to the top charts in several countries apart from the Philippines. He then revealed that he was working on a sequel that takes into account a small detail he missed out on: that it might be a bit hard to relate to local street food if you are a foreigner playing the game for the first time. Of course, it was a great way to promote the Philippines to the world, but Erick also wanted to take the game a step further. Now, instead of just being the street food king of the city, he now wants you to dominate the global scene in street food!

SF Tycoon World Tour (or “WT”) is a free download from the iOS store and will launch on January 24 2013. The game features a progressive level of difficulty marked by different locations: Europe being the first “easy” territory and then you work your way to other regions such as South East Asia (MEDIUM), USA (MEDIUM) and finally, Asia (HARD). Entering new levels of difficulty will require you to spend credits to open shop. To speed things up, you can purchase in-game credits via in-app purchases. The standalone game is free.

Improvements — Erick added some interesting graphical touches and game mechanics that can make handling a food stall much more challenging. On the graphics end, SF Tycoon WT has some eye-candy support for the gyroscope and the background will tilt a bit when you move you phone around. This doesn’t have a direct impact on the game, but is a fun aesthetic.

Erick weans the player into the new challenges. From day 1 to day 15, players will go through the vanilla SF Tycoon experience with new customers (including Bruce Lee). Once you get to day 16 though, the challenge is taken up a notch. WT has customers lining up from either the left or the right side of the food stall and you will need to touch and drag a completed meal to either side, unlike in the original game where you could simply drag fries to the middle of the screen. On day 16, you will be challenged to serve two customers at once and at random so you will absolutely need to purchase both the speedy food replenishment and the quick order upgrades to maximize the downtime between orders. In addition, on Day 26, it gets even harder. Drink dispensers are made available and you’ll need to tap and hold to fill up a glass of juice to the brim and serve.

I’m not far off into the game. I’m still stuck in Europe unlocking better ketchup and cheese as well as upgrading the cart. There are also upgrades to unlock guest celebrities (like Britney S. Pears for 5000 coins). Speaking of guests, I actually make a guest appearance in South East Asia wearing my diver suit and mask dangling from the neck. Check out the screenshot below. I’m on the left side of the screen. Erick also added the “A Bugged Life” achievement for feeding me! 😀

In a nutshell, Streetfood Tycoon World Tour is a worthy upgrade that provides a lot of depth and even bigger challenges to managing a food truck. There’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t download this game. It’s fun, challenging and free to play. Stay tuned for the global launch this January 24 2013! Track the hashtag #StreetfoodTycoon on Twitter for more details!