Office Management 101 Review – Only Slightly Better than an Office Job

Management games are a dime a dozen these days, with new ones coming out each month. Nevertheless, something is satisfying about building a business and seeing it run smoothly. Nothing feels better than resolving an annoying problem or expanding after you’ve experienced success.

However, not all games can rise to the ranks of some of the more famous games. Some management games are better than others. Whether or not Office Management 101 can scratch that itch for extended playthroughs will make it stand out as an excellent simulation game.

What’s positive about Office Management 101?

As soon as you load into your first office, you’ll notice the cute pixelated graphics. While they’re nothing special, it’s reminiscent of older business management sims like Game Dev Tycoon or the older RollerCoaster Tycoon games. The music is paired nicely and seems to have varied tracks for a couple of hours.

At first, Office Management 101 provides what most will be looking for in a business game. Players start with one employee and then hire more as their workload increases. You start with a reasonable budget in the one scenario currently available so that you can hire enough staff immediately.

The ability to create and customize an office is bound to strike a chord with some Sims fans. It feels similar to other games in that genre that give players a lot of design flexibility. For those who don’t enjoy that, there are also pre-made blueprints for workstations that put them down for you immediately.

The characters seem pretty varied, with some strange characters hidden within. There’s the start of a relationship system, but outside of the email messages you get that say who likes who, it doesn’t seem to amount to anything substantial in the game.

Earning business experience to unlock new furniture doesn’t feel like much of a grind. Using spare workers to create documentation, you can unlock the first few tiers in hours. As you unlock more furniture, you’ll also unlock better filing systems.

One of the details in the game that’s more fun than it should be is document organizing. As the workers complete different tasks, they’ll generate paperwork. The paperwork begins to pile up until you stack it into boxes. Then, you place the boxes into filing cabinets or shelves. This simple tidying that’s required every 25 minutes or so it is genuinely fun in its way.

Lastly, the Estonian-based developer tulevik.eu has shown its support for Ukraine by including the nation’s flag, along with its own.

What’s negative about Office Management 101?

The UI in Office Management 101 needs to be looked at again. There are so many unexpected pop-ups, and the text can feel overwhelming. If you’re focusing on a task and constantly get interrupted by a status report or a newspaper.

Similarly, the area where you view contracts needs to be re-evaluated. Again, so much information is hard to take in all at once. Your eyes have to dart each entry to learn what contracts the player can take. There aren’t many variations in the contracts available in the game.

The only way to make money is to find contract work from your competitors. According to the devs, there will be some product design features in the future. This lack of revenue opportunities leads to repetitive gameplay that the player will notice around 45 minutes in. There’s not enough to stimulate someone interested in the other aspects of the business.

You can lock characters in for the weekend, which is cool and kind of funny, but they don’t seem to mind all that much. The employees don’t seem to have much depth outside of talking to each other when you need them to work. They may have varied appearances, but that doesn’t keep them from becoming drones around the office.

Overall, there’s not a lot of content to entertain players past a few hours. There’s even less for players who play the sandbox mode and start with all the resources at their disposal. Either way, you’ll run through most of your gameplay options within the first hour.

Conclusion

Office Management 101 is exactly what the name implies. It’s the beginning place for people who aren’t familiar with business simulator games. It can scratch the itch that longtime fans expect, but that doesn’t mean anything significant. Outside of the one provided scenario, players can burn through everything in the game in an hour with the sandbox mode.

Our Office Management 101 review was written based on the PC version of the game. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles in the Game Reviews section of our website!