Indie simulations have become a true little refuge for players looking for something different from classic action and open-world blockbuster titles in recent years. While big studios mostly play it safe, the indie scene often releases completely unusual ideas that at first sound like a joke, but ultimately turn out to be surprisingly fun. Toll Booth Simulator is one of those games.
The premise is bizarre enough to immediately grab attention. After an escape attempt from prison, you are caught again, but instead of returning behind bars, you receive a debt of $999,999 that you must pay off to regain your freedom. Of course, the way you do this is no less unusual – you find yourself in the middle of a desert managing toll booths, checking documents, charging drivers for passage, and trying to earn enough money to finally get rid of the debt.
Right from the start, it is clear that the game does not try to be a serious simulation. Toll Booth Simulator takes a simple idea and builds a chaotic gameplay loop around it that quickly manages to draw you in. Because of this, the game is quite reminiscent of Schedule I. Just as that game turned drug mixing and running an illegal business into an addictive simulation, here the developers take the ordinary job of working at toll booths and transform it into something much more interesting than it sounds on paper.
Gameplay mostly revolves around traffic control. Cars come to the booths, you check documents, charge for passage, and make sure everything runs smoothly. However, the game quickly begins to expand its idea and does not stop there. During gameplay, you engage in various side jobs, grow plants, sell products to drivers, and try to find better ways to earn money. At one moment, you are calmly working at the booth, and a few minutes later, you are rushing around trying to solve some new problem or increase profits in a completely unexpected way.
The greatest quality of the game is precisely that feeling of constant progress. Although a large part of the gameplay boils down to grinding money, the game does a great job of maintaining the feeling that you always have something else to do. You are constantly trying to earn more, organize your work more efficiently, and find new ways to speed up the repayment of the huge debt. Because of this, it is very easy to fall into that classic “just one more day” scenario, after which you spend much more time in the game than you planned.
The atmosphere of the game also works well. The desert environment and isolated location fit perfectly with the whole concept, and the game itself has that somewhat chaotic indie style that gives it a lot of personality. It does not try to be realistic or overly serious, and that works in its favor. It often seems like the developers are simply throwing in ideas that they find fun, but interestingly, a large part of that actually works in the end.
Of course, it is evident that this is a smaller indie project, so the game is not without its problems. The animations are quite simple, vehicle physics can have strange moments, and the AI occasionally reacts completely illogically. Here and there, you might encounter a bug or a situation where the game feels unfinished. However, none of this is serious enough to ruin the gaming experience. On the contrary, some of these minor issues somehow fit the whole somewhat chaotic atmosphere of the game.
The most important thing is the fact that Toll Booth Simulator manages to remain fun even after several hours of gameplay. Although the gameplay becomes repetitive over time, the game constantly provides enough small goals and reasons to keep playing. This is precisely why it will appeal most to players who enjoy simulation games with a lot of grinding, management elements, and a sense of constant progress.
Toll Booth Simulator is definitely not a game that will appeal to everyone. Some players will be put off by the repetitive structure and chaotic approach to gameplay, but fans of quirky indie simulations might find a very pleasant surprise here. It doesn't try to revolutionize the genre or be a technically impressive game, but it knows very well what it wants to be – a weird, fun, and addictive simulation that easily keeps you engaged longer than you expected.
A copy of the PC version for the purposes of this review was provided by the publisher Ultimate Games S.A.
