Welp. Here we are with a game about going to the bathroom. It’s called Men’s Room Mayhem, and it’s a line-drawing game where you must manage the traffic rolling through a men’s bathroom, ensuring each patron is able to get a chance to relieve themselves, wash up, and be on their way. Isn’t this the job you’ve always dreamt of? Well now you can live out that fantasy on your telephone or tablet, most likely while sitting on the toilet yourself. The future is amazing.
Men’s Room Mayhem is a pretty straightforward line-drawing game. You’re given a top-down view of a bathroom, with 3 urinals on one wall, a toilet stall down in the corner, and a couple of sinks near the exit. As people walk in they’ll give you and indication of whether it’s “number one" or “number two" and you simply draw a path from them to the appropriate facility.
When a person is all through, you can then score some bonus points by directing them down to the sink area so they can wash up before leading them to the exit. That’s nice, bonus points for washing your hands. Pro tip: you should always wash your hands after using the bathroom in real life, too. You can also earn some bonus points for proper “etiquette" like not taking the urinal directly next to one that’s in use if there’s another one available. That’s totally based on real life unspoken rules, too. After each wave is complete, you can score even more bonus points by cleaning up the facilities by frantically rubbing them clean.
Of course, just as you need to avoid planes crashing into each other in the granddaddy line-drawer Flight Control, if two bathroom patrons’ paths cross during the course of their potty break, a knock-down drag-out fight will ensue. Also just like in real life. (Ladies, you have no idea how crazy men’s bathrooms are.) You have to tap the fighting duo to get them to exit, and you’ll get one strike against you for that current wave of customers for allowing a fight. Get five strikes and it’s game over.
Men’s Room Mayhem, despite its juvenile theme, is a pretty solid line-drawing game. My biggest issue with it so far is that it just moves much too slowly. An option to speed up time would be nice, but after 5 or 6 waves the pace actually does pick up rather well. It gets hectic juggling people going to the urinals, the stalls, and people washing their hands and exiting – all without causing a collision. It’s just a shame it takes so long to get to that hectic point.
There’s a bunch of meta-goals to complete as you play, and doing so will allow you to unlock new levels. You can also purchase an “extras" pack as IAP which comes with a timed Blitz mode and a couple of bonus levels. For whatever reason the in-app purchasing mechanism isn’t working for me, so I haven’t checked this out yet. However I did quite easily unlock the second level, a hotel, which has a much more complex bathroom layout and new types of patrons to deal with.
It starts off slow, and at first blush it might seem like the kind of game targeted at the “fart app" audience, but Men’s Room Mayhem is actually a fun little game. The variety of patrons adds a wrinkle to how you play, and I’m hooked on completing goals and progressing further into the game. It’ll be launching tonight, so add it to your TouchArcade (Free) app Watch List to get an alert when it releases and leave your own thoughts and potty-related strategies in the forum discussion.
International App Store Link: Men’s Room Mayhem, $0.99 (Universal)
