I’ve always been a city girl. I love the hustle and bustle of metropolitan life, the sense that there’s always something going on around me, no matter the time. I love the rush; I love being distracted at all times. Put me in the countryside, and I languish. At least, that’s what I spent most of my life believing.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found myself increasingly drawn to the slow-paced lifestyle of the countryside. There’s no Starbucks, but I do get long, peaceful drives along paddy fields, colonial era houses, and unobstructed views of the land, the sky, the sea. Developed by Nagai Industries, inKONBINI is a callback to the halcyon days of early-90s Japan. A time when technology was still in its infancy and AI didn’t exist. A simpler time where all that mattered was keeping the shelves of a convenience store well stocked for the small town folks just looking to get by.
“Konbini” is the Japanese word for “convenience store”. inKONBINI, I believe, simply means to be in the convenience store, and that’s really the crux of the game. You play as Makoto Hayakawa, a college student who’s spending a week working part-time at her aunt Hina’s konbini before she goes off to school. You’ll spend your time moving goods from the sales area to the shelves, making sure everything’s in order for the customers who wander in.
I went into inKONBINI expecting a Discounty-like experience, but I soon discovered that this game was less concerned about the hectic and stressful shopkeeping process, and more about spending time getting to know each individual customer who passes through. You see, Makoto only works the night shift at the Honki Ponki store, which means that you can expect way fewer customers over the course of the shift. Your tasks primarily revolve around tidying up the shelves from the chaos of the day shift, making sure it’s in order for when the morning staff come around, and taking care of other miscellaneous tasks like handling orders and deliveries.
You’ll still need to tend to the customers as they wander in. You’ll be in charge of helping them get what they need, and processing their purchases at the register. But, again, don’t come in expecting a Discounty stress fest. inKONBINI is all about slowing down, taking your time, and enjoying the low hum of the overworked air conditioners and refrigerators during the hot summer nights.
I’ll say right off the bat that grabbing and placing items on the shelves feels shockingly satisfying. If you’ve seen the trailers, you already know how smooth those animations can be, but actually doing it in-game gives you a nice, tactile feedback that makes the restocking process feel comfortably weighty. When examining the shelves, you can press and hold the trigger buttons to grab or place products. You’ll press the button to interact with each item individually, or hold it down to quickly hoover everything up into your carrying basket.
I loved that I could examine every single product and read bespoke descriptions for each one too. It’s clear that a lot of care has gone into each konbini item, properly reflecting the small town setting and the early-90s time period to help fully immerse you.
Even the store itself oozes charm and personality. At the start of each shift, you can take a look at the noticeboard in the staff room, where your fellow day shift workers will pin post-it notes to let you know what happened in the day, what tasks you need to wrap up in the evening, or just leave you encouraging messages to say you’re doing a good job. The kokeshi dolls displayed near the staff room entrance are a symbol of Hina’s attachment to culture and traditions, while the cassette player and tools scattered around the table give you an idea of what day shift worker Toshinori gets up to in his spare time.
Despite the fact that you won’t ever cross paths with your fellow shift workers, there’s so much life and personality to the Honki Ponki store that truly makes you feel like you’re in a living, breathing space that’s inhabited by real people. By the end of the game, I felt like I’d truly gotten to know my day shift workers just through snippets of text from their notepads or messages left on the walls.
The customers are no slouch either, and they’re the ones who really carry inKONBINI. Over the course of Makoto’s one week stint at Honki Ponki, I encountered an older gentleman with a love for instant noodles (same, my man) who had a history with Hina, a tall asshole who refused to speak with me and made me feel like I was bad at my job, and a news journalist (hello, darkness my old friend!) in search of an interesting small town story to write about in her newspaper, just to name a few.
I was surprised at just how in-depth the customer relationships were, and some of them came back multiple times with interesting character arcs that would unfold in sometimes unexpected ways over the course of that week. While they all come from different walks of life, though, the throughline of these little characters remain the same: in some way or another, they all yearn for the simple charms of yesteryear.
Even in this early-90s setting, the world is already feeling the effects of modernization as the young people flock to big cities and even the older folks are gravitating towards more trendy conveniences. While inKONBINI is big on preserving the slow-paced lifestyle, it also acknowledges the struggles of having to keep up with the times and explores what we lose in the process.
I do have some niggles with inKONBINI, especially in the gameplay department. Nothing too serious, don’t worry, but because this is a review, I am obligated to talk about its shortcomings as it would be deeply unprofessional and unbecoming of me to simply sing its praises and slap a score on it.
Anyway, here goes. inKONBINI doesn’t offer much in the way of onboarding, which is perfectly fine. It teaches you the basics of stocking and shelving, and off you go. This can be extremely overwhelming though, as you immediately start off with a whole variety of goods and products in the store, and it will take you quite a bit of time to familiarize yourself with all the offerings. Within the pet food section alone, there are at least five different types and brands to check out. It’s pretty much impossible to know what all your offerings are within the first couple of shifts you’re thrown into.
This wouldn’t be such an issue if not for the fact that you can kinda mess up in frustrating ways with inKONBINI‘s earlier customers. During my second shift, I encountered a customer who was looking for ready made meals with seafood that were a bit more on the expensive side. I scanned the bento refrigerator and picked the priciest item there, a tempura bento. Perfect! Tempura is shrimp! Shrimp is seafood! It’s not exactly expensive because it’s a konbini bento, but it is our priciest thing!
The man simply sighed at me in disdain before putting the bento in his basket. He was disgusted.
Later on, I found out that I could actually interact with the industrial freezer in the staff room that housed even more products that I could put on the shelves. And wouldn’t you know it, there was a premium sushi bento set in there. That’s probably what the man was looking for, but I couldn’t have known to check the freezer because I didn’t even know I could interact with it or that there were things in there to look at. Well, now I know.
There was also one other instance when I stocked whatever milk was left on the shelves because, y’know, it’s my damn job. That evening, a repeat customer walked in looking for milk for his cat. The thing is, Hina had warned me a couple days ago that his cat would probably have an adverse reaction to milk and I shouldn’t recommend it to him, but there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop him because the game simply didn’t give me the option to tell him. The only way to prevent him from grabbing the milk off the shelf was to not put it on there in the first place, which feels counterintuitive to what I’m supposed to be doing, especially since I didn’t even know this customer would be here that evening.
These are things I’d only be able to work around with prior knowledge, and I’m certainly tempted to replay the game just so I can do things perfectly. They didn’t ruin my enjoyment in inKONBINI — not even close — but they did make me feel a little cheated, which is never a good feeling to have while playing a video game.
Despite some small missteps along the way, inKONBINI never wears out its welcome and remains a delightful experience from start to finish. It’s a game that perfectly captures the wistful longing of the 90s. A reminder of a time when being analog was a way of life, not just an aesthetic or a vibe. Slow down, and you just might start being able to appreciate the beauty of imperfection, too.
A review code for the game was provided by the publisher. You can check out our review policy here. Reviewed on PC.
