Supermarket Simulator: Casual routine and development potential

At the end of February, Steam was released by SuperMarket Simulator . As the name, this is a supermarket simulator. The game is in early access, and its development continues with the participation of the interested community. During the year, the developers of Nokta Games (from Turkey) promised to add everything they planned for content and release the full version.

The game received very positive reviews in Steam and has already attracted the attention of many players and streamers. She liked it both to me, and I also decided to play her.

The images used in the article belong to Nokta Games.

How does the game begin?

At the start, a small shop is issued. Inside there is one cash desk, two racks for goods, a computer for management, 6 available goods for ordering and $ 50 in the account.

First you need to buy the first goods, put them out of the boxes on the shelves, set prices and open the store. During the day, you will have to count buyers for the cashier, as well as buy a new product and lay it out by shelves.

At 9 o’clock in the evening, the working day needs to be finished. The game will give day statistics with the “Start New Day” button (Start Next Day). And so on day a day.

With progress in the game, new opportunities are opening. So, you can buy new licenses for goods, hire cashiers, buy a warehouse and hire assistants, purchase additional sections for a trading floor or warehouse. Together with the possibilities, duties are added in the form of daily payments and rental accounts.

Everyday routine

At the first levels you have to cope with the store alone. And everyday routine in this is a lot.

Most of the time takes Delivery of goods from the street, where they appear after payment of the order, to the trading floor or to the warehouse. Goods come into boxes, and only one can be carried in the hands. It is also necessary to attribute empty boxes in a garbage tank to the street. It is not worth counting on a warehouse assistant in this case. It works only with boxes placed in the warehouse. But to the warehouse you will have to convey them yourself. Such a shuttle run.

A significant amount of time is spent on the daily Work with prices. Prices are set on price tags located in the trading floor, for each category of goods separately. When there are many goods, the check begins to cause voltage.

The developers tried to simplify our game and issue information about changes in prices in the world market at the beginning of the day. But the infoblock disappears quickly, and it can be skipped. Infoblock support was made in the menu of goods, adding an indicator to those prices that have changed. In this case, you have to scroll the large list, peer into small icons, remember the right product, and then correct the price for it in the trading floor.

I would very much like to have a large button “set market prices (Market Price) to all goods in the trading floor” to free the game time.

During the day, cashier. Payment is accepted by cash or bank card. In case of cash, the buyer may need to be completed, which must be drew from the cash register himself. In the case of the card, it is required to enter the amount at the payment terminal. All actions are carried out by the mouse, although the developers promised to support the entry of numbers through the keyboard.

At some point, I decided to carefully look at the streams, how others play and what they achieved in the game.

Advanced gameplay

So, experienced players in a https://www.trsports.co.uk/no-deposit-bonus-online-casino-uk.html similar way organize the work of their supermarkets. I applied a popular scheme and at home.

A few cash desks are placed in the trading floor, and the cashier works behind each. For storage of goods, a warehouse was bought where the working computer necessary for working with a supermarket is moving. Several employees who are engaged in the placement of goods on shelves in the hall are hired to the warehouse.

The player’s global task now is to fill the warehouse as much as possible. All work on their layout on the shelves is delegated to assistants. The main part of the game is already in the warehouse and includes: monitoring the condition for each product, the purchase of the necessary and delivery to the warehouse from the street.

But moving to the warehouse has its drawbacks. The player does not know what is happening in the trading floor with buyers and goods.

And the line may form in the trading floor, because the cashiers work very slowly, and it is impossible to influence their behavior in any way. Buyers can be unhappy with a too high price for a specific product. Information about this appears only above the head of a particular buyer, quickly disappears and does not persist in history. Buyers may not find the goods that ended on the shelf, information about this also appears above the buyer’s head for a few seconds.

It is quite easy to solve the problem by adding a block with information to the interface, where there will be messages from buyers in real time.

Moreover, in different simulators, this is practiced on an ongoing basis.

However, if you look at this process globally, the absence of such a block is a very small problem. The game has more serious drawbacks from which it loses its attractiveness.

There is no consolidated game in the game information on the remains of goods in warehouse and in the trading floor. Now you have to look (exactly look) at the shelves in the hall and in the warehouse to understand which goods need to be ordered. And this is a huge load for memory. Nowadays, in any store there is an opportunity through the program to find out all the remains and immediately order the necessary. Why the developers did not include this block in the game, it is not clear to me. I really look forward to this refinement in updates.

No in the game and Statistics on goods for different intervals. For example, the best -selling product over the past day, for a week, for all the time, etc. D. Daytime statistics, for example, do not even reveal the name of goods, the prices of which seemed overstated to customers, giving out only the figure, how many of them were. Based on such data, it remains only to check the prices of all goods, and for a large supermarket, this is not an easy task. Waiting for this improvement.

My wishes for the game

If you continue the list of my wishes, I would like to see in the game Wheelled system for evaluating the success of a supermarket, where it includes:

In the game I would like to be able hold shares for specific goods and set discounts.

I would like to see The difference in demand for goods Depending on seasonality, weather conditions, calendar events or some other conditions. For example, on a hot day, the increase in demand for soft drinks is expected, and this affects the purchase of goods and its prices. These specific conditions could be reported in the infoblock at the beginning of the day and duplicate in the status of the day.

To create an atmosphere in the trading floor I would like Add music, as well as ads on radio for buyers and warehouse workers. In the simulator Two Point Hospital, about which I already wrote, there were several musical topics that replaced each other, and a radio host who talked about the news of the city. There were announcements if the office urgently needed staff.

I would like to add to the game Personnel pumping, so that the cashiers at least work faster. Their manner of service, for example, could affect customer satisfaction and supermarket rating.

In the game I would like differentiate buyers. Now people come to the supermarket, in the appearance of which it is impossible to predict what product they will buy. A man in a black classic costume at the checkout gives salt and arachic paste. A woman in a mini dress and heels come for cheese and honey. The appearance of a person and the choice of goods are surprising. Perhaps buyers should be divided into groups and each assign the main goods.

This is a small list of my wishes for the game. Perhaps they will be heard. But while the developers follow their plan and add the promised functionality.

What has already been added to the game?

In the latest updates, Storage Management Management was added and improved the work on the calculation of goods (Restockers Update.

In one of the updates, players, including me, noticed a bug with an employee in a warehouse. He hung in one place and could not continue to work. The bug has not yet been corrected, but the temporary solution has been found. You need to go to the game menu, and then start the game again.

In the near future, they promised to add a rearrangement of goods on shelves without using boxes.

Long-term plans include the custom of the store to give it personality, processing online orders and delivery in the area, cleaning of premises and much more.

Similar games

Another similar simulator where you can be in the role of a store employee, announced just the other day. Game called Inkonbini: One Store. Many Stories offers to work in a Japanese round-the-clock grocery store (combi) of the early 90s. Unlike Supermarket Simulator, the game is expected with the plot and interactive narrative.

Combines in the title of the game are the Japanese word 「コンビニ」, abbreviated from 「コンビニエンスストア」, descending from the English “convenence Store”, which means a round -the -clock store. In our realities, this is comparable to a round -the -clock minimumark.

About work in such combi in Japan in 2016, the book of writer Sayaki Murata was published 「コンビニ人間」. Literally, the name can be translated as “a man-community”. Murata’s work received a prestigious Akutagawa Prize and became a bestseller. The book was translated into many languages, including Russian.

The minimarket is full of sounds. The bell rings at the front door, and the voices of celebrities with advertising new products come from the speakers. The inviting cries of sellers and picking up the barcode scanners are heard. Here someone threw the goods into the basket, and someone took a bag of bread. Heels knock on the floor. All these sounds merge into a single sound of a minimumark, which without stopping knocks on me on the eardrum.

Translation Kedge

Conclusion

Simulators are a popular video game genre that allows players to try on an unusual role and get an interesting experience that is not so easy to acquire in real life.

Supermarket Simulator invites players to try themselves in different roles when working in a supermarket. You can purchase goods, fill the regiments, set prices, serve customers at the checkout and much more.

While the simulator is more focused on mechanical and routine actions, and sometimes you feel like a loader rather than the supermarket controlling. However, the game definitely has the potential. Moreover, the developers are open to the dialogue and are ready to improve it according to the reviews of the players.