• Price: $19.99 USD (digital, currently on sale for $15.99 until October 12th)
  • $34.99 (physical)
• Developer: Krillbite Studio
• Publisher: Silver Lining
• Release Date: August 7, 2025

A review code was kindly provided by Mark Allen PR on behalf of Krillbite Studio and Silver Lining. We thank them for allowing us to cover something they’ve worked so hard on.

Fruitbus is an adorable new cozy game that has parked itself on the Switch eShop. I like to watch The Great Food Truck Race on Food Network, so driving around in the titular Fruitbus sounded like a good time to me. With cute animal characters, exploration, and bus customization, the game sounded right up my alley.

The game opens with a flashback of your character’s childhood memories with their grandma, who was the original owner of the Fruitbus. Years later, she has tragically passed away, leaving the bus to you and requesting that you take her urn with you on a journey to invite her friends to a farewell feast in her honor. 😭

The grandma’s lines are voice acted, which I think helps her seem more “real,” making her death feel even sadder. (The remaining characters all sound like Animal Crossing characters.)

Before you can set off on this farewell tour, you have to pick up the Fruitbus from a junkyard for some reason. I was a little confused by this because it seemed like it was willed to you, so why did it end up there? 🤔 Anyways, you have to put the wheels back on the bus before you can drive it, which, again, felt like a strange start to this journey.

The entire game takes place from a first person perspective, which I hadn’t realized until I started playing. Personally I find it difficult to navigate in first person, so I did have a hard time with the perspective.

You drive the Fruitbus around yourself, and unfortunately I was not a fan of that mechanic either. The controls felt a bit wonky to me, and I found it very difficult to get the bus to go where I wanted it to. I found myself crashing into the ocean a lot. An auto-drive option between destinations may have been helpful for players like me. I also didn’t like having to manage the gas in the bus.

Once I finally arrived in the first area, I parked and went around talking to people. As you travel, you’ll meet some of your grandma’s friends, feed them, and try to get them to come to the farewell feast. But they’ll all need you to do something for them before they can make it. There are multiple tasks for each guest.

Some tasks involve you finding someone or something for them, while others require you to serve them some food. You have to wander around and pick fruits yourself; again, the controls were not my favorite. Before you buy a backpack you can only pick up 2 things at once, and you have to bring them back to the bus before you can get anything else.

You have to jump up onto some crates to access some of the bananas in the first area, which I didn’t enjoy doing due to the aforementioned perspective and control issues I had. I struggled with the distance between the ingredients, as well as the respawn rate. When you’ve successfully gathered some ingredients and have them on the bus, you can start preparing food.

I liked the animations for cutting up the fruit, but picking things up and placing them just felt awkward to me. Customers will come up to the window to order food, and you earn coins for the dishes you sell. These can then be used to purchase items such as a backpack, tools, decorations, gas, and more.

There are neat features such as special recipes that allow you to view treasured memories with your grandma, and the art depicting these scenes is so lovely and precious. The loading screens with the postcard art are so fun to look at, and I like the designs for the animals you meet.

I really wish I could have enjoyed this more than I did, but I often felt overwhelmed by the mechanics and controls, so it didn’t feel very cozy or relaxing for me personally. Fruitbus is rated quite high on Steam reviews though, so I do seem to be an exception in my response to the game. I would still suggest checking it out to see if you’d like it, because there are some great ideas in an adorable package.