Roadhouse Simulator guide: managing Hype without losing control, and cleaning up before it shows

Roadhouse Simulator hands you a rundown bar and a long list of profitable bad ideas. The problem is that bad ideas get expensive when taken in the wrong order.

Here is the order I would recommend. Our full review is here.

Understanding Hype

It is the game's engine and the source of most disasters.

The higher your Hype climbs, the faster you progress. But more people means more money and more chaos.

The practical consequence is simple and counter-intuitive: do not raise Hype faster than your ability to hold the room.

A packed night with one bouncer and nobody cleaning does not earn more than a half-full, well-run night. It earns less, because a brawl costs furniture, customers and time.

My rule: before every new attraction, ask who will handle the extra customers it brings. If the answer is you, it is too early.

The beers, which are not interchangeable

This is the detail the game explains badly and which causes the most accidents.

Different brews affect customers differently. Serving the wrong person at the wrong moment can make a quiet night go bad.

Two habits.

Watch before you pour. An already agitated customer and a strong drink is a scheduled brawl. A calm customer deserves whatever is most profitable.

And keep a balanced range in stock. A cellar with only one category forces you to serve anything to anybody.

The brawl, and how to handle it

It will happen. Rival gang members and drunks turn a quiet night into a brawl in seconds.

Three principles.

Step in early. An altercation between two people can be settled, a mass brawl can only be endured.

Keep spare furniture. The studio advises it itself, and it is not a joke: replacing a broken table mid-evening beats serving in a field of rubble.

And hire a bouncer before you need one. See below.

When to hire, and whom

You cannot do everything forever. The question is the order.

The bouncer first. It is the post that protects every other one. Without him, a single brawl wipes out an evening's takings.

The cleaner next. Cleanliness is not decorative in this game, see the following section.

The bartender and server after. They raise your throughput, and therefore your revenue, but they are useless if the room is unmanageable.

And do not forget staff cost money. An overstaffed bar on a quiet day loses money as surely as a bar in a brawl.

The questionable half, and its accounting

Distilling, slot machines, pig races, Fight Club: the game offers you varied and disreputable ways to make money.

The system to understand fits in one line from the studio: crime leaves evidence, and every mess becomes your problem.

So cleaning is not drudgery, it is cover. Three tips.

Clean after each operation, not at the end of the week. Evidence accumulates, and a visit triggers at the wrong moment by definition.

Do not open two risky activities at once. One source of evidence can be handled, two accumulate.

And keep the place presentable permanently. When the police arrive, the game asks you to act natural. That is far easier when there is genuinely nothing.

The progression order I would recommend

Phase one: hold the room. Beer, cleaning, door. No side activities. Objective, one evening without incident.

Phase two: bouncer and cleaner. You are buying stability, not revenue. That is normal.

Phase three: one attraction. One. Slots or pig races, and you watch what it does to Hype and to disorder.

Phase four: distilling. You produce what you were buying, so you gain on margin. That is where the business takes off.

Phase five: the rest. And only then, the thing we do not talk about.

The recurring mistakes

Raising Hype too fast. Mistake number one.

Serving without looking at whom. Number two.

Postponing the cleaning. Number three, and the only one visible from outside.

And doing everything yourself. You are not the bottleneck, you are the owner.

Which attraction gave you your most profitable night? We compare takings on the InsertCoins Discord.