Toll Both Simulator is listed on the Developer SifDev page as “Manage a toll booth on a desert highway. Check passports, take payments, and decide who passes. Grow fruit, mix mocktails, sell drinks, and dodge the cops”. There is a lot of unpack there! So let’s dive in and see how Toll Booth Simulator plays, published by Ultimate Publishing, Ultimate Games S.A., and Playway S.A.

Loading up, you enter your name and the name of your toll both, Highway to hell is mine. How did you get here? Well, you tried to escape prison and were caught. To work off your debt of $ 999,999, you are forced to work at this remote toll booth and live out of an old RV. Seems pretty straightforward, right? Well, not really! There is a lot more to the game than meets the eye, and in a good way, it’s not just a one-dimensional game, and there is a lot to unpack.

You start with a humble toll booth in the middle of the desert, and depending on the government’s security restrictions, you may have to screen citizens more in-depth before allowing them entry. These restrictions can range from allowing citizens in only after they have a full car and body scans to allowing only citizens in, not visitors, and everything in between. You need a keen eye for detail to ensure the passport you are presented with matches the entry document they provide you.

Possible mistakes include differing reasons for entry, different photos, incorrect names, or contraband items. If you make the right decision to allow them in, you will receive a payment and keep your reputation; if you miss something, the exact opposite: a loss of reputation and money. If you reject someone, a spaceship appears above them and zaps them into thin air.

Following the tutorial’s instructions, I am advised that I can grow fruit crops in the pots provided and then crush the fruit to make mocktails (non-alcoholic drinks) for the town’s citizens. I am guided to the supermarket in the city, a short drive in a car, which isn’t short enough, as the car sounded terrible and the handling was very basic.

The city is a decent size with a police station, hospital, fuel station, hardware store, apartment, houses, and a few other buildings. I buy some soil and seeds, and then I head back to grow some fruit. You then have two blenders on the bench to mix two ingredients each when grown, and a wine glass of juice appears at the bottom of the blender.

Then off to town I go again to sell it to any citizens I can find. While I am in the city, I am directed to buy a fishing rod so I can catch some fish and use them as a mix in the mocktails. What an interesting concept. Much to my surprise, the fish and pineapple drink was a hit with the locals and sold for over $100, who would have thought.

As you progress, you can unlock a farm as well, near your toll booth, for mass growing of fruit for your drinks and a tractor to water the crops; there are even some cows there. All while this is happening, the queues at my toll booth are mounting up over the hill, as no one gets through until you screen them. You can eventually unlock employees and upgrade your booth as you progress through the game.

I didn’t think I would be writing about crop growing in the Toll Booth Simulator, right? Well, hang on, another few twists and turns are coming! After clearing the long lines down the road at the booth, I head back to my RV, and an alien is standing there asking for my trash. Every time I give him trash, he spits out money; now that’s a handy little income stream. Then, off in the distance, I see a large bloom of smoke and fire. Heading over, I find a crashed alien ship and another alien.

He is asking for human bodies to zap up to his ship, and in exchange, you will receive rewards. When you deny citizens entry at your toll booth, they will sometimes try to attack you or make a run for it, so this is how you will get bodies for the aliens, punching them or knocking them out with a frypan. You put them on a tractor beam pad, hit the button, and a Moktail appears as a sign of gratitude from the aliens. Taking it into the city, I sold it for $320!

While dealing with the long queues while growing my fruit, a dark chat message appears on my phone. “Head to the abandoned house”. I head into the city, and the door I am directed to has a lockpick sign on it.

A quick sprint to the hardware store, and I spent $150 on a lockpick and let myself into the house. I took the gaming console, TV, Headphones, jewellery, and cash lying around the house. I am then directed to a dark office in a three-story building, where I sell all my stolen goods for $3000.

Well, this beats working at the toll booth, and I can pay my debt off quicker. In my rush to leave after my windfall, I hit a pedestrian with my car, and a wanted notice appeared on the screen, and I could see the police chasing after me. They eventually caught me, and I am $338 poorer after processing fees. As you can tell, there is a lot to do, and I haven’t even mentioned the houses you can buy, furniture from the shops to decorate your house, a car shop, you really are spoiled for choice.

Graphically, think Schedule I and you will be pretty close. There are some good variations among customers at the toll booth and locals in the city. There are a number of variations of cars, trucks, and vans as well. When you buy a car to drive yourself around, you can change the colours, although they aren’t very fun to drive and are very basic. The map is very large, with hills and cliffs surrounding it; it is well put together.

The sounds are there, from footsteps, grumbles from the locals when you reject them at the toll booth. The aliens and their ships all have distinct sounds; it is good to see that it hasn’t been an afterthought, and they all add to the game’s immersion. There is nice country music playing in the background, which is fitting for being in the desert.​

Overall, Toll Both Simulator gets a big tick from me. It has massive potential, and during the week I have been playing it, there has been a patch every day, so it is actively being worked on and improved based on community feedback, which is great to see. There is already so much in the game and more to come, a good light-hearted fun game, fingers crossed it becomes multiplayer in the future, as you could really cause some chaos.

Written by: Mike Bridge