Heard about Gunman Taco Truck but haven’t played it yet? Find out why we’ve put this game on our list of must-plays, plus tips and tricks for surviving longer and keeping the family taco business thriving.
About a week ago Guman Taco Truck hit the iOS app store, and to be honest I was pretty surprised we never saw this one surface on Apple’s “New Games We Love” list. The game was conceptualized by gaming icon John Romero’s 9-year-old stepson and is kind of a mashup between a point-and-click shooter and restaurant simulator. Throw in a post-apocalyptic survival element and you’d have it just about right. Still, this definition poorly captures the wit, humor and strategic depth of this seemingly simple game. In Gunman Taco Truck players find themselves driving the family taco truck from one destination to another. While on the road, the game is a shooter, where players must kill the zombies, rabid frogs, mutant humans and more that fall in their path, all the while trying to pick up as much scrap metal they possibly can to trade in for truck upgrades and repairs at certain stops. Stops either have grocery marts or repair garages and so players must plan carefully which stop they can get to without running out of gas. At each stop, players have the option to open shop and serve tacos from the truck. The tacos are made from a combination of road kill found along the way and other fresh grocery supplies. Serving tacos are players’ main source of income so monitoring fresh supplies plays a big role in planning. Not every grocery mart sells the same fresh goods and if you run out of a staple item like cheese or salsa, you’ll have to turn away customers. Without customers, you can’t pay for gas or extra supplies and it’ll soon be game over for you muchacho.
The pixelated sprites give it a retro feel, like I’m playing a title from 20 years ago. For all of us 80’s kids you’ll understand the nostalgic feel goods games like these elicit. But besides the classic feel, the game also incorporates a tremendous amount of humor. From the snarky sayings of your taco truck patrons, to the grunts and groans of the local repairmen, you’ll find plenty to make you smile in Gunman Taco Truck.
While Gunman Taco Truck is relatively simple to learn how to play, it requires significant strategic planning in order to stay alive for more than a couple of stops. For this reason, you’ll find yourself dying over and over again, and yet you’ll be drawn back time and again in hopes of making it a little further than the last time. The game offers three levels of difficulty but I’d strongly suggest new players start at the easiest level until they understand the planning needed to succeed.
We’ve spent a decent amount of time playing Gunman Taco Truck ourselves and have picked up several tips and tricks along the way to help us stay alive longer and make it to more stops. Below we’ve included our best tips and tricks for surviving the dangerous world Gunman Taco Truck. Check them out below.
Gunman Taco Truck Tips And Tricks For Surviving Longer, Not Running Out Of Food And Upgrading Your Truck
Tip #1 - Monitor Fresh Supplies But Serve As Many Customers As You Can
In this game, it’s really important you maximize every stop you make, by making as much money as you possibly can, without seriously depleting your supplies. In the rounds where I have survived the longest, I typically served guy in the first town two cheese tacos before leaving. Though you start with 6 cheese servings in your truck, leaving four will allow you to serve customers at your next stop even if there is no market at that stop or the market doesn’t sell cheese. In fact, a massive part of doing well in this game is learning to manage your resources. If you are at a stop with a market, serve a round of customers, fill up on gas (if needed) then go into the store and see what fresh items are for sale. For beginners, I'd try to have 10 cheese, onion, salsa and cilantro servings on board before going to another town. As you get further in the game you'll have to start buying other resources too, but for a while, these four are all you need. If the town you're in doesn’t sell one of these supplies, then stop serving customers once any of those four staples gets below 5 servings. This way you can make it through a couple stops without running out. In the earliest part of the game stops tend to have more of the supplies you need, so try to serve at least a couple waves of customers at each stop to keep your money supply up. The key thing is to try to keep an excess of every resource because you can’t predict what’s ahead.
Tip #2: Don’t Serve Half A Taco
If you start running out of a staple supply, you might be tempted to serve a customer a taco with an item missing. Don’t do it though. The customer may walk away happy for a second, but in no time, they’ll be back demanding a refund. You’ve then lost both your money and your supplies.
Tip #3: Don’t Buy Gas Until You Have To
When you arrive at a town, you always have the option to buy gas, but the gas isn’t sold by the gallon. You pay a flat rate whether your tank is a third empty or bone dry. For this reason, when I pull up to a town, I immediately go to the tire icon in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. This will take you out to the map. On the map you will see all the stops available to you and how much gas they will cost. If you have enough gas to make it to the next stop you want to go to, don’t buy any! After assessing the map, you can return back to the stop you were at by simply tapping the city icon in the lower right-hand corner of the screen where the tire used to be. It doesn’t cost any gas because you haven’t actually left the stop yet.
Tip #4: Gather All The Scrap You Can
When you get out on the road, your first priority should be to gun down all the mutants and animals that come in your path before they deal damage to your truck. However, in addition to shooting down moving objects, also attempt to gather as much scrap as you can too. Scrap can be gotten from road signs, trash cans, oil bins and junk you gun down in the road. The scrap flies all around so you’ll have to tap on it to gather it. Try to collect as much as you can on each trip as it is the only resource you have available for purchasing truck repairs and upgrades.
Tip #5: At Repair Shops New Trucks And Armor Are Best
Anything worth buying at a repair shop will usually cost at least 100 scrap so try not to go to stops with repair shops till you have a good amount of scrap on hand. While I purchased the cheap 35 dollar repair option once or twice when I first started playing the game, your better bet is to either upgrade your truck (the first upgrade is 150-200 scrap depending on the level of difficulty you play at) or purchase an item that adds more health to your truck. Some items add thousands of extra health to your truck, which is really helpful as the roads get more dangerous with each new stop. If you upgrade your truck, you do get a little more health but a much more powerful gun. For early upgrades, I’d avoid any kind of wheels as they aren’t really needed yet.
Tip #6: Don’t Gamble
At nearly every stop, the shopkeeper or mechanic will have a slot machine inside their store that you can pay money into in hopes of getting supplies or equipment you need. I tried it a number of different times and spent varying amounts of money and have never actually won anything, so don’t waste your time.
Tip #7: Kill All The Frogs
As you get deep into the game, one of the banes of your existence is going to be the mutant frogs on the road. As soon as you see one of them, your top priority should be to kill them. If you neglect them for even a second, they will be on your truck so quick, inflicting a sizable blow to your truck’s health. With most other mutants you have plenty of time to kill them, but the frogs don’t mess around.
