TCG Card Shop Simulator (PC) - Preview

I know that no one likes hearing stupid background details of how I do things, but in my word processor of choice I just duplicated my “chapter” for Nokta Games’ Supermarket Simulator. Admittedly it is something you don’t care about, but I’m putting in as much effort as OPNeon Games gave. I could quite literally tell you that TCG Card Shop Simulator is Supermarket Simulator with Pokémon mods – if you like one, then you’ll like the other. The major praise I have to give can be used for both: The gameplay loop is a thin white line on the counter of a club’s bathroom sink.

Much like Arkright simulator (minus the stuttering), you start out as a humble Jeff Albertson selling card packs by the tens. Oddly enough all of your customers are old enough to be told by their parents to, “Grow up! You don’t need a 17th Bulma figure in her bikini.” Day by day, with an economy that’s a little more balanced than Supermarket Simulator was by this point, you’ll grow the shop, figuratively and literally. You’ll go from selling individual packs to booster boxes, figures, board games, playing mats, themed deodorant (that stuff half the customers don’t wear), and more.

All while running around, shouting obscenities at the smelly pricks that don’t wash before they go out, stocking shelves, setting prices, yelling at staff to do specific jobs, ordering more stock, and around 9 PM, walking around your playing area nudging chairs to remind the personality-less dweebs still playing past closing time to move on. Like clockwork, I’m playing some Red Peters on the non-existent speakers. Or you can wait another 10 minutes (real-time) opening up a box of single packs of cards so you can sell the rare ones on individually and eventually create your own starter boxes.

Though I can easily draw the line from TCG Card Shop Simulator to Supermarket Simulator, there is enough going on to be its own thing. Anyone want to create a Guitar Center Simulator and create a holy-trinity of games I’ll snort like certain powders? No? Okay – with that basic knowledge established, I think there are parts of TCG Card Shop Sim that do things better than its BiM Simulator counterpart, and of course there are things I think Supermarket Simulator does better than TCG Card Shop Sim. See, toxic Pokémon fans, both games can have value.

Then again, so can the seventeen million Pokémon mods on Nexus Mods. We’ll get to that, but the core gameplay loop is still there, as we’ve established. I think the counter layout here and the till (“cash register” for Americans) takes a bit more of getting used to, and I’m still terrible at giving people the right change all the way from my Route 66 and bus driving days. Though I think it is staff that is the big change between the two.

Supermarket Simulator – yes, I’ll keep comparing and contrasting – offers two types of staff with broad rules overall for them. You hire someone to work the till, they’ll work the till. Hire someone to stack shelves and you leave shelves empty in the warehouse or in the shop, they’ll annoyingly fill those shelves straight away. TCG Card Shop Simulator, on the other hand, has you hire someone who can cover every job and more importantly, you can direct them like a real boss. That’s a point to the niche Simpsons reference I made earlier, so that’s 1-1.

A touch earlier in its early access, releasing several months after the release of Supermarket Simulator, I think there are some rougher-looking segments. However, both do have a similarly simple and not very flashy art style. We’ll call that one a draw, but for what it is worth, I like both games’ style over an excessively laggy mess to boot. Though on performance, TCG Card Shop Sim does get a little more stuttery due to the seven million cards and such you can have on display.

That’s probably the only thing holding TCG Card Shop Simulator from completely superseding Nokta Games’ BiM Sim, I’m left slightly overwhelmed by the vast amount of things going on to make the gameplay as relaxing and enjoyable. You have hundreds of cards, different rarities, several series, a load of board games, you can sell dice of different colors, sleeves for rare cards, booster packs and battle decks, special boxes of different colors and sizes for decks, playmats, collection albums, figures, comics by volume, and I haven’t even gotten to managing events. Meanwhile, staff are as slow as Lance Stroll.

Late in November there was an addition of the smelly druggies trying to sell you their own rare cards for whatever they want to trade, including money. There is a point where these additions can be too much, setting you up to get lost in what you are actually doing. One minute I might see someone offering a rare card to trade as I’m stacking shelves; the next minute I’m running to open more packs, eating into the little stock I already have to fill the cheap starter pack/mystery boxes I’m making, and as a result I’ve forgotten what I was doing in the first place and the day’s over.

The balance that I was talking about when giving my thoughts on Supermarket Simulator is what I think is off-kilter here in TCG Card Shop Simulator. I think somewhere between your early starting point and when you’ve got the biggest TCG shop in town, you can — and often will — get lost in a mess of trying to do everything well and quickly so you don’t get bad reviews. Yes, after the management of events and a stock list that can be longer than a Leonard Cohen verse, you might even glance at the reviews of your shop on your phone. Somewhere between a live stock market of TCG cards, two upgrade menus, and paying bills.

None of which is to say that TCG Card Shop Simulator is bad. It is brilliant and, I think, in some regards better than Supermarket Simulator on how it does a couple of things. However, parts certainly feel messier and more cumbersome, forcing themselves into the more simple and enjoyable gameplay loop, making it less fun in the long term. One thing that I’ve seen and experienced a lot recently is that the people offering to trade their cards with you is not fun.

From top to bottom, it pushes itself into the gameplay like that thief from Gas Station Simulator, Dennis the Menace (the American one). The difference is Gas Station Sim lets you kill the kid. Okay, maybe not kill the kid (I’m going to get letters), but certainly say that this entire portion of gameplay should be put in the bin, where it belongs. TCG Card Shop Simulator doesn’t, and to some degree I can see the point for other bits of the gameplay, but not here and not for this.

Either a toggle or a lot fewer instances of things like this happening in a day would make the loop more balanced. A less cluttered loop that is solid to begin with is far more enjoyable to play than something with theft, with annoying customers begging for attention, a heavier reliance on going through menus, and so on. I don’t want to say that it can’t be in the game, I’m not trying to say adding bits to the loop as you progress can’t be fun, but adding too much too quickly or forcing it in with several instances a day, that’s when it becomes a problem. Especially for a genre that is about a relaxed gameplay loop.

When TCG Card Shop Simulator is at its best is when you get to play at your own pace, not rushed by some druggy dullard waiting to sell you weed or a shiny Charizard with its nips out. Part of the charm in these games following Supermarket Simulator is that you get to take a moment to breathe and look over the store you’ve built in the countless hours you’ve amassed. Especially as you listen to stories of a young entrepreneur from Wigan with his many shops and hi-jinks, to very serious podcasts about art and history, hosted by a keeper of archives. Yes, I’m very dull, thank you for noticing.

Put simply, TCG Card Shop Simulator is fantastic when it gets out of its own way. Similar in almost every way to Supermarket Simulator but utterly and refreshingly distinct to be its own thing. While one is taking things a bit slow, the other is maybe going too quickly. Yet, both are extremely enjoyable and you can quickly get absorbed by their simple early gameplay loop.