Despite being endlessly overworked, I love a good job simulator. Recent games like Power Wash Simulator 2 and Schedule 1 give me the satisfaction of a day of tasks without having to make spreadsheets or learn about tax structures, being unexpectedly relaxing for games that mimic work, the least relaxing part of being alive. Lately I’ve been playing 90s video store simulator Retro Rewind, which has all the things I love about these kinds of games with the added bonus of hideous old-school carpeting.
Retro Rewind came out earlier this month on Steam. You play as the owner of a small video store in a surprisingly upscale-looking mini mall near a fancy market and an ice cream store. You start with a small space that you can customize a bit, changing the carpet and the color of the walls. The bulk of your day is spent renting people VHS tapes: stocking the shelves, checking people out, dealing with reserved videos and late fees, and sometimes rewinding tapes with a machine I totally forgot existed until I saw it in the game.
I never struggled to get customers into the shop, and in fact often found myself a little overwhelmed. Like Schedule 1, everything you do is very manual–to check people out, you have to scan each video, take their money, and physically count out the correct change. Things can get hectic, especially if a day is busy due to a local event like a harvest festival or the weekend, but it’s never too much. Sometimes I ran out of videos and had to rush to the returns shelf to scan new videos in so there’d be something for people to rent, or dash to the back room to answer the phone or help a customer find the video they were looking for, all while people impatiently lined up with money in hand. As a nerd, I really wanted to keep all my videos organized by genre–action, horror, drama–but that plan quickly fell to the wayside in favor of just keeping videos on the shelves. You get some time before an in-game day starts to set the store up, refill your snack shelf, or order new videos, but each of my days ended in a bit of an exhausted rush.
Videos have weird, largely nonsensical titles, but unlike Tiny Bookshop, you don’t need to know that much about them to recommend them to customers. Besides their genre, some have tags indicating they’re old or that critics find them notably good or bad, and this is enough to recommend them. New releases will be particularly popular (and also come with a cardboard standee to decorate your store with), so you’ll want to make sure you stock enough to meet the demand. Certain genres will be popular on certain days–sci-fi during a meteor shower, horror during Friday the 13th (as well as something else weird I don’t want to spoil because it was so charming)–so you’ll want to have them ready for those days too. Twice a week you can go out back to a bootlegger, who in addition to knockoff videos can sell you adult films.
As you level up, you unlock new movie genres or the ability to repair your slushee and popcorn machines, and can use your earnings to upgrade the size and layout of your store. I just hired my first employee, who’s already been a big help dealing with the returns so I can run around a little less. I’m still in the game’s early stages, but I don’t think I’ll want to outsource everything to employees; at the least, I’d miss all the lovely beeps and dings that accompany my daily tasks.
Retro Rewind obviously wants to lean on 90s nostalgia, though from what I’ve seen that’s mostly consigned to the decor and the fact that you’re dealing with VHS tapes. There was definitely something nice about having to go to a literal video store, only able to choose what was physically available and finding new favorites by browsing the shelves. (My hometown had a small store in a strip mall, with what I can now see was a surprisingly robust queer section that they never stopped me renting from.) The game feels contained, grounded in physical space in a way both movies and work don’t these days. You can’t automate things; each video needs to be dealt with as an object, checked in or rewound and carried to a shelf to be put away. The business layer doesn’t get too complicated, letting you focus on your routine in a way that’s soothing even when there’s a lot to do. There’s none of the stress of owning a business, or the pressure of working retail for a bad manager–just the satisfying repetition of seeing the store through each day.
Having a manageable day at work might be Retro Rewind’s biggest fantasy, but it’s a nice one: customers who don’t get too pushy, a handful of little tasks to do, and lots of buttons and levers and sound effects to accompany you. It’s a throwback to the days before rising streamer prices and AI upscaling, a little oasis within the oasis that is video games. I don’t have a lot of nostalgia for the 90s broadly, but I’ll take a chill day at work any time.
Chris Person
