Originally part of Indie Games Uprising III as an XBLIG title, Smooth Operators: Call Center Chaos is (almost) finally ready for its PC debut. Now, as I’m sure some of you are aware, running a real call center can be very stressful and hardly what most would consider actual entertainment, but in this SimTower inspired video game, the only ones likely to freak out from stress are your employees. In fact, they might even quit unless you give them what they want (hint: paid vacations work wonders)!
I’ve played Andreas Heydeck’s Smooth Operators: Call Center Chaos quite a bit already -- both the original XBLIG release and beta testing of the PC port -- and let me tell ya right now, this game is a LOT of fun! Even more so with the keyboard/mouse setup that the PC port brings, compared to the gamepad controlled console version (note: the XBLIG version works just fine too, but I’d say a keyboard/mouse setup for this game is definitive).
A quick glance at the in-game menus might make your head spin with all that’s available to purchase/unlock, so it’s a good thing that each new game kicks off with a brief tutorial (which can be revisited at any time). You’ll quite literally be in charge of everything from hiring/firing staff, managing their schedule (once you’ve got HR on-board), ensuring a healthy work environment, and of course making sure they actually have a proper place to work -- operators won’t say no to working in a service building or an office instead of an operations block, but they won’t actually be happy about it, so I’d recommend making sure you sort everyone accordingly; an unhappy worker tends to be less productive after all and you’re gonna need a steady income to stay in business.
If you fancy putting your skills as a call center manager to the test, which I’d highly recommend, the demo can be downloaded from here. There’s a 25-minute time limit, but you can speed up/slow down time in-game to make every minute count, and I’m sure that the full version will be out soon-ish anyway; maybe even on Steam, Greenlight willing? Alternatively, the XBLIG version is available right now, should you prefer console gaming over PC.
