Supermarket Simulator (PC) - Preview

I’m a fan of the early 2010s brand of crap German simulators you’d find in the bargain bins of odd shops. I say this because from there you find the gems of Euro Truck Simulator, Gas Station Simulator, and all the other “no, let’s take this seriously” evolutions of the simulator genre. This year I even wrote about Autopsy Sim, which isn’t so much a job simulator but wants to be all the same. One game that does absolutely want to be a job simulator and makes a four-course meal out of it is Nokta Games’ early access business sim, Supermarket Simulator.

Released into early access earlier this year, Supermarket Simulator is arguably both in its infancy of development but also mature enough to play with the early access big boys. By that, I mean unlike so many early access titles we see released before they are truly ready, Supermarket Simulator offers a gameplay loop that is busy enough to be the whole thing but uncluttered enough to add on to at a later date. Realistically the loop right now is stacking shelves, setting prices, and working the register, three simple prongs to keep you busy.

Alongside this, you have upgrades to your mini-mart allowing you to create a whole BiM. From Arkwright’s to the Walton family. Some of those upgrades include expansion, more and varied shelves, different products, adding more cashier slots and even hiring to replace you in some of those loops so you can focus on certain aspects. Though for all the upgrades you can purchase, and once you’ve woken up from your three-month-long gameplay loop-based coma, you still have to change the prices manually every day.

See, I wrote those three paragraphs several months ago when I first played Supermarket Simulator, something I’d devoured like some bears with honey, some bears with picnic baskets, and some bears with twinks. It puts a smile on my face somewhat that I’ve had to rewrite the following 800+ words I’d previously written, and if I’m honest, I might need to do that again here or there. Things I’d written about, complained about, noted as “maybe you won’t have to wait for this to come,” several of those features have been added. Be it in areas like stock intake or otherwise.

There are still elements that I think stumble, the end of the day/start of the next is a 40-minute podcast session sometimes, for example. However, I’ve got a feeling I’m going to basically heap praise, defending the somewhat “blah” visuals, and tell you that you should have been playing Supermarket Simulator yesterday. I’ll probably do so through thinly veiled references to things like Turkish supermarkets and TV shows I’ve watched. I think I’ve just explained my entire modus operandi.

Even before playing something like TCG Card Shop Simulator, I did have a problem with the staff, though, somewhat through a bug and another through being very basic. After growing your burgeoning hole in the wall toilet paper dispenser, you’ll probably want to hire someone to work a second till (“cash register” for Americans), someone to stock shelves, and generally do some of the more tedious parts of the gameplay loop as you get busier and busier. It would help if the shelf stockers in a previous build didn’t get stuck, and more notably, fill shelves you don’t want to be filled.

This is more a complaint with something that is looking to be addressed, as you can only reorganize the shop (at the time of writing) if you have the boxes which stock fits in. So if you’re running out of shelf space and have many boxes of toilet paper being restocked in a spot you don’t want it, it gets annoying. Turns out that your hands are useless unless you are touching cardboard or behind the till. As I say, as of updates in October-November 2024 at least, there is only plans to allow you to reorganize stock by hand. Thus when shelf stockers automatically fill shelves, it can get a bit frustrating.

Especially as they put all the boxes you have piled up in the stock room into the bin. It is cardboard and it was already being recycled as the only thing I could use to reorganize, and that’s why you don’t hire 40-year-old men dating a JustStopOil teenager. Jokes aside, as I say there are updates that have somewhat changed my original complaints and some are yet to come. Thankfully one of those updates on the roadmap came sooner than later, as I was ready to shout about the stock room and inventory management.

Not inventory in the modern games sense, but rather the typical shop owner sort of way. Eventually, you’ll start buying more and more shelves, fridges, and even freezers, a bit like Gas Station Simulator does, buying more licenses to sell an even more varied catalog of off-brand and own-brand tripe. With more products to sell and even more customers per day, you will need some stock in the back room to quickly stock shelves. In a prior build you could end up placing boxes on inventory shelves and get lost on exactly how many boxes of toilet paper you have.

Since the addition of a scanner, this tool lets you add stock to the shopping list and see how much of something you have overall, which is a lot easier to get into a rhythm with. However, there are still the issues of stocking shelves when it comes to having AI workers: Workers that aren’t paid enough to care about you knowing where stuff is. As you might expect, the AI are just placing stuff left, right, and center. If you have a system, I hope you don’t mind me saying that it is a waste of time and energy.

Of course, with a roadmap that is quite long, there is a lot to be added and as I’ve seen others say, these updates are a little slow compared to the copy-cat titles that have followed Supermarket Simulator. Some of those features coming via the roadmap are things like online orders, shoplifting, cleaning, CCTV, and of course expiration dates. I don’t want it to sound like I’m negating the issue of slow updates, but I can see why those aren’t a case of weekly updates, especially if you want them done right. For the life of me, I couldn’t tell you how to reasonably do expiration without it becoming clumsy.

As I’ve said, the basic gameplay loop of you running the budget Kwik-E-Mart (without the accent) is solid and I’ve put in far too many hours to count. As well as listening to far too many podcasts and second screening too many shows. Expanding on that is going to help refresh the gameplay, but I personally hope it doesn’t become too cluttered that it makes the simple fun of Supermarket Simulator get lost in a mix of trying to appease a small group who think they only own one game.

Far from perfection, Supermarket Simulator started a flood of similar titles all rushing to fill that gap with different styles, settings, and stock to really manage. Some, as I might talk about rather quickly here soon, have filled in gaps with more frequent updates and a wider variety of Pokémon-based mods, while others possibly fall short but still have a fun enough gameplay loop. Supermarket Simulator is a balance, a balance not only of adding in stuff but of trying to slowly do something properly. It at least seems that way.

Ultimately, Supermarket Simulator is great as long as you like a simple, mind-numbing, and absorbing gameplay loop that isn’t predatory to you or your wallet. A little bit buggy, a little bit shonky in terms of visual style, and generally quite enjoyable, there is a reason it kickstarted a whole genre into the explosion of copy-cats weeks and months later.