In the early 2010s job simulation games generally involved a vehicle in which the player controlled a camera glued to the driver’s seat. Chum for the hoards of Twitch variety streamers who need a steady stream of “hidden gem” to play until the honeymoon phase wears off. Thanks to a handful of companies (most of which are located in Poland, for some reason) games-with-the-word-simulator have evolved from tiny games for hyperfocused nerds to genericized shovelware. An unfortunate side effect of this is getting to watch a rapid mutation of the simulation genre into something damn near unrecognizable outside of a few legacy series. Unsurprisingly, this has led me to sample quite a few games with “Simulator” in the title over the last twenty years. Games that involve building up and improving on an existing framework are my kryptonite. Hi, I’m a writer with ADHD and various undiagnosed neurodivergencies that would make you wholly unsurprised to learn I never grew out of childhood hyperfixations (trains, dinosaurs, Egyptology, etc.), I collected them. The oil “changing” minigame from Gas Station Simulator. To properly dissect Gas Station Sim, though, we have to establish some baseline understanding of the current state of the “ Simulator” genre. Welcome to a 4,300 word review of a $20 game you’ve barely hard of. In those opening hours it’s better than the rank-and-file barely-functioning “ Simulator” games, but what points it earns with moxie it loses to unpolished jankiness and an insidious dark secret. The first few hours are a wild ride that seems to buck the trend of the asset-flip homogenous “simulator” game genre, only to fall to pieces as its flashy mechanics degrade into annoyances to be automated or outright ignored. Twelve hours into DRAGO Entertainment’s newest release Gas Station Simulator I find myself at a crossroads.
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