Running a Wild West Supermarket (Simulator) ► Ludology Now!

Supermarket Simulator didn’t do much for me, although I appreciate the genre. Wild West Supermarket Simulator is much more my speed — yes, it’s still janky streamer bait at its core, but the main gameplay loop has hooked me deep. I love my western corner store.

For the uninitiated, Wild West Supermarket Simulator gives you an empty building and a catalog and tasks you with making a profit by buying and selling not just goods, but shelf space, furniture, paint, everything. You place the orders, pick them up outside, and dispose of your trash out back. Eventually, you’ll need to hire employees to cover basic roles like stocking and checking customers out at the register, because you’ll be too busy keeping up with inventory.

There are some gimmicks. Certain items cannot be purchased without a license, and licenses can only be earned by completing minigames given to you by residents of the small western town your store is located in. You can walk around and talk to the other store owners to buy their goods directly or engage in these minigames, but the majority of time will be spent inside your store.

For my money, Wild West Supermarket Simulator offers the same cathartic gameplay experience as games like 1986’s Drug Wars, a game which I loved so much I made my own clone of (ItemWars 2044, available to play for free via that link on itch.io). There’s something very fun, to me, about buying low and selling high. There’s something lovely and satisfying about stocking empty shelves.

Wild West Supermarket Simulator does have some issues which are already beginning to irk. The framerate is all over the place, the town is clearly filled with assets dropped into locations with little care to whether or not it makes sense or looks correctly (something which is especially visible when viewing buildings from behind, as half of them are sticking out of the ground in strange, unnatural ways). Doors rarely function at all, and characters often walk right through them.

One of the biggest issues I have with Wild West Supermarket Simulator is that I have not, to date, found a way to readjust items on a shelf once they have been placed. For someone who values rearranging and making sure everything matches appropriately, this is maddening, especially when only items of a single type can be placed each shelf. Still, what it does well it does very well, and that’s good enough for me.

There isn’t any combat, the only pressure comes from missed sales due to a lack of items, and the ability to move and rearrange literally everything inside your store really scratches that Fallout 4 base-building itch. The only way Wild West Supermarket Simulator could be more “for me” is if it took place on a 18th century sailing ship.

Speaking of, and since that’s all the videogame-related thoughts I have this week, here’s something to ponder over until next time:

On this New Year’s Eve of the year of our lord 1800,

Formerly of the honorable U.S.S. Chesapeake,

Deployed on the 22nd of May in the year of our lord the same,

Which thus executed orders along the coast with utmost urgency and success,

Who then, on the 8th of August, as ordered, in conjunction with Captain Thomas Tingey, U.S. Navy, and Captain Thomas Truxton, U.S. Navy, left the squadron patrol and executed Congressional orders to which you are no doubt aware,

Who then took refuge north-northwest of Dutch Guiana in the midst of Hurricane season,

A season which necessitated further navigation east by southeast by south, a perfectly unnatural storm,

Which then, it must be confessed, caused separation between man and ship, along with two sea-chests worth of ship’s equipment, one from the surgeon and one from the bo’sun,

And, to mine own eyes, a crate of chickens and one ox, which were lost at sea, and a ream of sailcloth,

All of which, belay the animals, became mine own savior-ship, which,

Under the eye of our Lord God,

Brought me safely to this island,

Unnamed to my knowledge,

But which I shall call Midshipman’s Berth,

For, as my nodding head belies,

I have found, perhaps for the moment, a place to safely rest, and to record my thoughts

And will remain, as always,

Yours truly in haste and solitude,

Midshipman Josiah Constantine Wise of Savannah, Georgia, of those United States our fathers fought so bravely for,

And to whom our lives we pledge.