Game Reviews

Supermarket Mania

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Supermarket Mania
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Up to this point, we had never fully appreciated the plight of the Tesco shelf stacker.

Now, thanks to the knowledge granted to us by DSiWare title Supermarket Mania, we will make sure to always give our local shop assistants a pat on the back and a warm smile every time we're grabbing our dinner.

Supermarket Mania follows in the footsteps of such casual titles as Diner Dash and Cake Mania, asking you to keep a busy shop fully stocked while customers spend their hard-earned cash.

Are you being served?

While it's all rather dull to begin with, the action eventually gathers speed and the additional customisation options helped to win us over.

The story follows Nikki as she takes on a sales assistant role in her local TORG shop, and is told in the most bizarre way we've ever seen.

Supermarket Mania's cut-scenes are made up of comic strips that are shown in tiny form on the bottom screen. To see the entire strip properly, you need to move the stylus around to display a blown-up version on the top screen.

Not only that, but the speech bubbles are blacked out until you touch them with your stylus. Quite why the developer has chosen to present the story in this way is beyond us.

Supermarket Sleep

Nikki's job consists of grabbing produce from the stockroom in the corner of the shop, then running around filling any shelves that are bare. As customers roam around the shop they will pick items up, and you'll need to follow around behind them replenishing any cabbages or carrots they clear out.

Initially the action is rather boring, with only a couple of types of customers who move very slowly indeed, and you won't have any problem keeping up with the demand.

After a short while, Nikki is kicked out of the TORG store in favour of robots, and instead starts working in a small run-down shop. The action continues to be dull for a while longer, as the game clearly believes that you need more practice.

Store Credit

Eventually, a wider variety of customers will begin to enter the shop, including impatient snarky guys and children who run around screaming and shouting.

Finally things get a little more interesting, as you need to consider which customers to satisfy first. Keep a customer waiting too long, and they'll storm out without spending any money.

Shop customisation options also eventually spring forth, allowing you to purchase bigger trolleys to scoot your stock around in, and larger shelves so that the fruit and veg doesn't run out so quickly.

Checking out

What was originally highly tedious finally gets 'in the zone', and we found ourselves becoming slightly obsessed with keeping the shop spick-and-span.

Still, Supermarket Mania is obviously aimed at the more casual audience, so if you consider yourself a more hardcore gamer, it'd probably be best to leave the stacking to your Tesco buddies.

Supermarket Mania

Supermarket Mania is a little tedious at first, but casual players will enjoy the fast-paced action on offer
Score
Mike Rose
Mike Rose
An expert in the indie games scene, Mike comes to Pocket Gamer as our handheld gaming correspondent. He is the author of 250 Indie Games You Must Play.