Supermarket Together

The co-op is the main reason players give for recommending the game: 46% of the longer reviews mention friends, co-op, multiplayer or playing with a partner, sibling, parent or child. They describe dividing the work ("Everyone naturally ends up taking different jobs") and then watching the plan fall apart: a friend who spends the loan on salt or milk, a cashier who hands a customer thousands in change, a store renamed as a joke. Some of these reviews come from couples who play together every night and from parents playing with their children. One review summed up the two modes as "When you play alone, it's a supermarket simulator, and when you play with friends, it's a broom fighting simulator", and another wrote "Playing alone is a job. Playing with friends is a chaotic social experiment."

Players who host public lobbies or play with strangers describe a different experience, covered under the frustrations below, and players without friends to play with get a smaller game, covered under solo play.

The price comes up in 29% of the longer reviews, often in disbelief ("how is this free") or with a price they would have paid, as in "I would have easily paid 15$ for this and called it worth it." Several compare it favourably with paid store sims they had bought. Reviewers stress that nothing that affects play is for sale, and 8% mention the DLC or buying something to support the developers; one described it as "Has a $5 DLC that's more like a tip jar than anything." The DLC's hats, emotes, wall and floor paint, staff room and in-game TV and browser are popular with those who bought it. A minority say the DLC adds little, that friends without it can't see what plays on the TVs, or that basic customisation such as paint should not need it.

Progression is the subject of 17% of the longer reviews: buying expansion space, unlocking product licences and perks with franchise points, hiring and levelling staff, and adding machines such as self-checkouts, a cleaning robot and an automatic pricing unit. Players describe the early days as hectic and the first hire as the turning point: "Then you get your first employee and it is a game changer." Players like that the store's responsibilities change as it grows, from working the register yourself to managing staff, security and online orders. The cost of this design shows up in the long game, covered below: once staff handle most jobs, some players run out of things to do.

Words like addictive, relaxing, chill or cosy appear in 13% of the longer reviews, along with players saying they lost track of time. Some describe sessions that were meant to last half an hour and ran until morning, and some play it as a background game alongside music, YouTube or a podcast: "Some games feel like they were built from the ground up to be something to do with your hands while you listen to your favourite podcast." Players who like organising shelves and storage say it satisfies that urge, and about 4% of the longer reviews joke about retail work, often from people who do it for a living and come home to do it again in the game ("I look forward to finishing my retail job to come home to my other retail job.").

Shoplifters run off with stock, and the player, a security employee or the whole group beats them with a broom until they drop it. The broom also works on customers, staff and friends, and the host can send other players to a jail cell that takes hundreds or thousands of clicks to escape. Unpaid loans bring collectors in black who beat the player with brooms. The broom, thieves or the fire extinguisher come up in 13% of the longer reviews, and one summed the mechanic up as "Customer annoying you? Broom." A few want harder weapons, and the game's refusal to allow the sledgehammer ("too excessive") is a running joke. A small group finds thieves too frequent on high difficulty or late in a long save.

"This game is free and updated more reliably with more content than most AAA titles." Updates or patches come up in 9% of the longer reviews, often with praise for the pace: new products, departments, seasonal events, broom skins and fixes, described as weekly or monthly. Several reviews were edited by returning players who found the game much improved, including a long one that lists no more corrupted saves or stuck customers: "the game now runs smoothly. The bugs that previously ruined everything are gone." A few longtime players say updates came less often than they once did, and a few say a particular update broke the game on Steam Deck or made manufacturing worse.

Players like building the store their own way, from realistic supermarkets to themed rooms and joke store names; decorating, layouts or customisation come up in about 5% of the longer reviews. The same reviews ask for more decorations, shelves, products and character customisation, and some object to paint being locked behind the DLC ("not a fan of having to get the dlc to be able to change the wall color or the floor designs."). Placement draws its own complaints: grid snapping that leaves gaps at walls, corner shelves that waste space, and objects that can't be placed where players want.