As the manager of a dance club in Disco Empire, you have to do three things: keep the drinks flowing, make sure there are enough seats for people to chill with said drinks, and keep the dance floor clean.
As the manager of a dance club in Disco Empire, you have to do three things: keep the drinks flowing, make sure there are enough seats for people to chill with said drinks, and keep the dance floor clean.
Disco Empire, which launched in beta earlier this month on Facebook, puts a nightclub spin on the restaurant and cafe management genre made popular by games like Restaurant City and Cafe World. You’ll prepare a variety of alcoholic bevvies (like chocolate shots, breezers, sangrias, martinis, mojitos) and put them out on the counter for incoming customers to grab.
Once they have their drinks in hand, the customers might go over to one of the seats you’ve set up to lounge on, or hit the dance floor. If you don’t have enough of either – not enough seats, or the dance floor is too small and there’s not enough room for everyone to dance – club patrons will show their displeasure by way of a red scowly-faced icon that appears over their heads. If you don’t see to the customers’ needs quickly they’ll leave.
Besides expanding the club with more seats and tables, and making the dance floor bigger by purchasing more squares of flooring, you can outfit the club with more shelves and counter space for holding drinks, and buy aesthetic upgrades like speakers, plants, and wall decorations. Some of the items you can buy are functional too. So far the only item in this category is a smoke machine, but if you buy it it actually does pump smoke out onto the dance floor, which is pretty cool.
Social connectivity involves the gifting system, and the ability to visit “neighboring” clubs.
What’s nice about Disco Empire so far is that you don’t have to wait forever for things to happen. The lower-tier drinks can be made in two or three minutes, and when combined with the other tasks you need to do (cleaning the dance floor and counters, getting snacks for customers) you don’t seem to get those long periods of down-time that can make Facebook games less compelling.
I must say, though, that for a game called Disco Empire I was expecting something more flamboyant in the graphics and sound departments. “Saturday Night Fever” this ain’t – so far at least. When customers hit the dance floor they don’t exactly bust a move… it’s more like wiggling their arms in the air. And the soundtrack sounds like something you’d hear in a supermarket.
Still, for a game that launched less than two weeks ago, Disco Empire is off to a solid start with a ton of potential. This is one we’ll be keeping an eye on.
