Vidjama Gmaes Work

Skibidi Boof Pack.

I played the demo of a game called Tobacco Shop Sim and you probably don’t need me to tell you what this game is about. You own a tobacco shop and sell smokes and rollers and matches and dip and shit. You cash people out, buy stock, expand your shop, and eventually the endgame goal is to get to a point where your shop is effectively running itself. This’ll be much later in the full version when you hire staff.

The demo started to really get on my nerves because unlike many other shop games, Tobacco Shop Sim has theft as a mechanic. Someone occasionally comes by and tries to steal your stock be it on the floor or in your warehouse. The full game has ways of detecting theft and stopping it. The demo? It doesn’t have any of those measures. You have a mop to hit the thief with, but the theft system is completely broken.

I noticed that something would get stolen out of my warehouse and I wouldn’t be informed until the perp was long gone. Either that or he was teleporting through the wall because I would be at the warehouse in less than ten seconds and he’d already be gone with my merchandise.

It’s not the presence of the thief that I don’t like, but the fact that the developers put none of the upgrades into the demo that makes it so frustrating. Thankfully, after checking the forums, I did find out that it’s completely possible to turn off the thief and cleaning systems. The dev has said that these will be options in the full game, for players who don’t want to deal with the thief period or just want to turn it off temporarily.

And that’s great. I like when games have options like this so the player can play how they want. Now obviously you want the core game to stay intact, with the player juggling stock, keeping their prices up to date with the market, building their store, etc. But not having to deal with a thief every 5 minutes doesn’t detract from the core of the game.

I’d even go further and say the developer should give options in the other direction. Like having a hard mode where players need to keep an eye on the customers who might try to shoplift. Something for when you’re not solely manning the cash register. Something that would amount to little losses here and there, but something extra for those who want the additional challenge. It’s certainly worth a consideration, in my opinion.

We are seeing a surge in games offering options to players and that’s all they are. Options. Ways to make the game more enjoyable because at the end of the day, these are just video games. You want the game to offer a challenge but there’s certainly some leeway in what developers can let players disable to maximize their enjoyment of a title. And a game like Tobacco Shop Sim is a casual title at the end of the day. Many of its players will just want to relax.