This ultra-chill food truck simulator gave me whiplash after playing nothing but Stalker 2 for a week

If there's one thing I've learned from Fruitbus, it's that I would not feel safe if a food truck chartered by myself stalked my neighborhood. I've (gently) hit cutesy anthropomorphic animals with my bumper, terrified locals by accidentally honking the car horn next to them, and may or may not have human remains in the passenger seat. But hey – I make a mean carrot smoothie.

But after a week spent in an irradiated hellscape for my Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl review, Fruitbus has been the perfect way to unwind. An adorable food truck simulator is such a brilliant concept for a game that it feels obvious in hindsight, but Fruitbus' added road trip adventure and customizable van make for a smooth cruise to flavortown.

Apples and oranges

Despite the simplicity of Fruitbus' cartoonish visuals, running the titular Fruitbus means keeping several plates – or to be more specific, bowls – spinning. Your ultimate goal is to reunite your late grandmother's friends (and ex-friends) for one last feast, using her former van to bring culinary joy to the Gustum archipelago's inhabitants. But keeping the kitchen-on-wheels chugging along means ensuring it's got enough fuel in the tank, there's plenty of dinnerware to serve food on, and you've got ample ingredients to cook with.

That last point is arguably the most important. During the game's first stage, driving from a gorgeous coastal resort to a less tourist-y town inland, you're mostly confined to making fruit salad. I spent more time walking along the seafront, yanking apples from bushes and jumping from cliffs to pluck lofty bananas, than actually serving any of it up from the truck. Trekking further afield turned up zesty lemons to mix into my salad, and I eventually saved up enough money from hawking diced fruit to buy a shovel capable of digging up carrots.

When it comes to cooking it all, you can pull the Fruitbus up to anywhere with people milling about, announcing your business with a lever that rolls up the shutters and plays a catchy jingle. As locals form a queue, each will approach the window in your van and say what they're after – some will stick to the menu listed on the van's exterior, but others have their heart set on finer dining. Customers can also ask for a vague meal like a salad, but specify that it needs to have a set amount of ingredients in it. It's not as simple as smushing four chilis into a bowl though, as your pay for each meal depends on how tasty it is – one ingredient may complement another, for example, which leads to some very satisfying moments when the 'score' of someone's snack adds up and converts to lots of lovely money.

Shelling out

It's a questionable economy, but Gustum's harsher business realities mean some of your hard-earned money needs to be reinvested in the Fruitbus. Driving between towns means stopping at gas stations for fuel, though it always pays to have a full jerry can for longer treks. Meals use up disposable dinnerware, which need to be replaced at stores where you can buy a mix of essentials and… er, not essentials. The latter includes plants and decorative mods for your van, and you best believe I bought googley-eye headlights before a single practical upgrade.

I did redeem myself by buying a blender immediately afterward (if only to make a carrot smoothie for one veggie-loving botanist), but the real pièce de résistance will be an extension to the interior's tabletop I'm currently saving up for. Making meals on the cramped one-square counter you start with is both awkward and painfully relatable – I don't know when this happened, but wanting to expand my cramped kitchen in the real world has become the biggest fantasy of my late-20s. Living that dream out in Fruitbus is probably the closest I'll come to cooking in spacious peace, but it's currently on my (non-existent) shelf as I've spent every penny of profit on houseplants, a hammer, and said googley-eye headlights.

Even if I'm not being particularly sensible with my money, or organizing grandma's final feast as diligently as I perhaps should be, I'm having a blast just driving around as a nomad caterer. There's something delightfully gratifying about coasting through Gustum and setting up shop wherever catches your eye, or pulling over to run into the jungle and hunt for new ingredients on foot. I'm savoring every morsel of Fruitbus – which is a fancy way to say I haven't finished it yet – but I'm loving every second, and look forward to getting my hands on more and more elaborate recipes as my adventures through Gustum continue. Bon appétit!

Fruitbus is out now on PC. To see what else we've been enjoying this year, head on over to our Indie Spotlight series.