Delivery INC

[h1]A disappointing showing for a game that should've been an easy win. Needs work. Requires an excessive amount of patience and grind. [/h1] If you're a fan of 911/112 Operator as I am and you may see this game and think "hey, a version that doesn't involve the ever-present risk of horrible outcomes!" I know I did, and for good reason: the graphical presentation, mechanics, and everything on the surface appears to be 112 Operator with less on the line, a more - if not relaxing - lower-stakes game to scratch that itch. Unfortunately, appearances are deceiving. Delivery Inc may be superficially similar, but its differences are stark examples of frustrating game design. [h2]Move people, cargo, and... food?[/h2] At its heart, Delivery Inc is a logistics and time-management game. Requests come in, you dispatch vehicles to fulfill those requests, make money. Rinse and repeat. It's a satisfying setup and much lower impact than the very (very) similar 112 Operator. Pick up people and packages, and also heavy cargo and food. Maybe it seems a little odd that you're dispatching a taxi to pick up someone's milkshake and truck it across town, but hey - it has cupholders, doesn't it? Doing work with less-than-ideal resources is part and parcel (sorry) for this game, so you need to be flexible and able to think on your feet. Is a moped the ideal vehicle to move a case of toilet paper? Probably not. But it'll work. [h3]Upgrades, people, upgrades! [/h3] Level up your drivers to add special abilities, add upgrades to your vehicles to modify what they can do and how well. There are a lot of [i]potential[/i] ways to enhance your fleet and your game - key word being "potential." More on that later. [h3]Creative driver events [/h3] Every so often something will happen with your drivers - fender-bender, flat tire, payment system crash - and you'll have to guide your driver through dealing with it the way you want. Each one of these events gives you options and opportunities, and they're a nice, immersive touch. It adds some depth and variety to a gameplay loop that can get a little rote. [h3]Choose where you work [/h3] Like 112 Operator, Delivery Inc uses a geochunk system that allows you to pull down street maps for many places in the world, letting you decide where your drivers will be working. It's a nice touch. [h2]Driving with three flat tires[/h2] There are problems and disappointments all over the place here, unfortunately. [h3]Everything is locked [/h3] Remember how we just said there are a lot of potential ways to enhance things? Yeah, there are - except they're all locked. You have to creep and crawl your way through every campaign map and a lot of freeplay to unlock [i]anything[/i] and it's infuriating. So while there are a lot of toys and such you could have fun with in here, you need to jump through absolutely ridiculous hoops to get them. Oh, you want a cell phone holder to make your drivers safer? Something readily available from every store and gas station? Yeah, either complete the Tokyo map in the campaign (which is locked and requires you to [i]perfectly complete[/i] three maps plus a partial of another or [b]17 challenges[/b] in Free Play. Either way is going to be hours and hours of effort to unlock something that can be delivered to your doorstep within a day almost anywhere in the world. Think you can just get the unlocks using console commands so you can have fun your way? Good plan, doesn't work. [h3]What's unlocked is random [/h3] Hey, nice! You spent a lot of time and unlocked that cargo van. Oh, wait, you wanted to [i]use[/i] it? Just because you've unlocked a vehicle doesn't mean you're going to get the opportunity to buy it. What's available is randomized. So you can (and will) find yourself in the situation where the vehicle you want is available but you can't afford it, only to end up in the opposite situation later when you have money but the vehicle you need isn't on offer. Used cars, that makes sense. But new cars? How often does every car dealer in a city run out of a given vehicle? (The answer is "just about never.") [h3]And some utter nonsense [/h3] Matching vehicles to needs is part of the job, but some of it makes no sense. For example, if you're delivering cold food, having a vehicle with heated seats is a liability. And sure, putting a milkshake on a hot seat would be dumb... [i]which is why a normal human would turn it OFF.[/i] I have never seen an always-on heated seat system, probably because they don't [i]exist.[/i] There are a lot of low-level headscratcher choices like that in this game, and it adds some very unnecessary frustration. [h1]The Bottom Line[/h1] This game should've been an easy win. Instead, it acts like a mobile game with a "pay us more money to actually have fun" business model, where everything you'd want to do is locked behind a [i]totally optional[/i] in-app purchase. You can unlock everything with enough patience and grinding, but it's going to be a lot. A whole lot.

911 Operator format, but worse click on the thing and send the closest vehicle, repeat 120+ times to beat one level 3.5/10 all the same problems and more when 2 cars cross paths you dont know whos going where when they leave paths all the same color paths - cant click on a thing cause a car is in the way - cant tell whos driving what car unless you click on it. this person wont pick up food and this person wont pick up people..... - scatter brained makes your driver just give up what they are doing mid job over and over.....

Maybe I'll come back to this sometime. I like the premise, but actually playing it is more frustrating than fun. The biggest issue I'm noticing in the first couple levels is that the UI isn't streamlined. Pickup icons and driver icons don't change enough. At best you get some Zzz stuff on drivers who are sitting still. But when you pause the game to assess who you're going to send where, you can't easily tell if you've already assigned someone to an order. Do I send this driver to also pick up this order? Or are they already going to be full from other orders I've sent them to pick up, that I can't remember which orders I've sent them to pick up? Are they going to pick up this order, or do I need to send someone else to them? As someone who has been doing Doordash for about 4 years as a driver, this is the worst part of the job x100 as a simulation. At the very least, when you hover over a car it should show you every route they're active on, and hide/minimize orders you've already dispatched someone to pick up. There's a reason these kinds of things are automated in real life. This game is just playing the part that the automation usually does.

They advertise that it is chaos, and it is, but not my type of chaos. It is not intuitive when you are too easily able to grab the wrong vehicle for jobs, or when an "intuitive driver" charges from the other side of the city to do a pickup when there is a car sitting close to the pickup. It's not fun when the chaos involves cleaning up obvious errors in judgement.

The idea is great, but it's performed poorly. + Good campaigns and interesting situations, dialogues. - Discord is dead. - Most of the maps in Free play are unplayable for some unknown reason. No fix will be expected in future, game is ditched by it's developers. Worth buying only with discount and if campaigns will be enough for you (it's around 10-15h if you try to get 5 stars in each)

Way too grindy to the point it's not that fun. It's ok if you get the game for half the price or in a bundle.

gets grindy really fast, and the gameplay loop is too simple, so it gets boring

craaazy boring, coming from 911 operator to this is just a sad experience

I really, REALLY wanted to like this game and leave a positive review, but I just can't. The gameplay eventually devolves into endless clicking and artificial stress, with almost zero automation even late into the game—aside from a few drivers with "initiative." The most frustrating part? The "items locked behind campaign progress" ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Seriously? In 2023, you thought gating basic content in such a simple game was a way to be "creative"? The worst part is that the game actually has character. It’s full of charm and great details, but the core gameplay loop is too flawed to recommend. So, if you're okay with most of the gameplay being you directing your cars to people like a dispatcher instead of managing people, finances, and vehicles like an actual manager, and don't mind grinding a campaign just to unlock the full game—not to mention the DLCs required for 100% completion—you might have some fun. Otherwise, stay away.

3/5. buy it on sale, its worth the price.