Today I'm going to be looking at the demo for an upcoming narrative-driven simulation game that looks like a lot of fun! It's called inKonbini: One Store. Many Stories. This demo is free on Steam, so feel free to check it out for yourself.
"Konbini" (コンビニ) is the Japanese word for convenience store. It's a borrowed word from English, but the Japanese don't have a "v" sound in their language, so "b" is the standard replacement consonant for "v" in words. And of course, the Japanese have abbreviated the English word to make it easier to say.
inKonbini takes place on a rainy night in Japan, in late August of 1993. I actually spent 3 years living in Japan in the early 2000s, so this game felt very familiar and nostalgic for me.
You play as Makoto, a college student who is just starting work at her aunt's konbini, called Honki Ponki, while between school semesters.
Aunt Hina recommends all her employees keep notebooks on them for taking notes. She specifically asked Makoto to journal her experiences each night. She calls to check up on Makoto, since it's her first night shift.
Aunt Hina has already taken notes for Makoto in the journal, so you have a general idea of what to do if you get lost. However, you can call her anytime to receive more advice.
Looking around the office, there are several things you can click on and Makoto will comment on them. One is a postcard about to fall off a shelf. It's an unsent card from Aunt Hina, to a mysterious stranger.
Note: Most of the Japanese characters on this card seems to be flipped backwards, and some of the characters are even flipped upside-down! I also noticed this throughout the store. I have no idea why.
Calling the phone number from the postcard gets you the answering machine for Chief Matsuda's Treasures. Hmm...
Whelp, time to go straighten out the store so you can open for the night!
There are several things to do besides just stocking shelves. Look around for anything that needs reorganizing or adjusting. You have to be detail-oriented; I'm neurotic about details and took several laps around the store to check everything, and even I missed a few things!
I found a notebook from one of the other employees. In it, he mentions that Aunt Hina threatened to change his nametag to read "Charlie" if he didn't stop making mistakes, so customers would think he's a foreigner and be more forgiving. Considering he's only known as Charlie, looks like Aunt Hina followed through on the threat.
Once the place was straightened up, I started restocking shelves. There are some limited supplies in the back office, both on the shelves and in the large fridge and freezer. I packed as much as I could on the shelves, even reorganizing some products to make them all fit.
All done! Time to flip the sign on the door and start taking customers.
The first (and only) customer of the night was an old man, braving the ongoing rainstorm to pick up some supplies.
He almost immediately noticed a mistake I missed. Someone stocked bread in the wrong place!
You can go and chat with him, where he'll reveal he knows your aunt very well. Although they're not on speaking terms at the moment. You'll quickly deduce that he's Chief Matsuda! The plot thickens...
There are several multiple-choice options during conversations, so there are several ways to play out each scene. I only played through once, so I'll be showing the general direction my game took. I'm not sure if it would be dramatically different if you chose other options, though. You can definitely experiment and see what happens.
I also forgot to stock a brand of ramen that Chief Matsuda always eats. He takes this as a sign that it's time to make some changes in his life and he asked me for a recommendation on a new brand of ramen.
Chief Matsuda heads over to the pet food section and asks for further assistance. His cat has been avoiding him and acting strange. Someone recommended he try a hypoallergenic cat food, but he can't read the labels very well.
If you inspect the cans, you'll get more details to read. Eventually, I found the right brand for him.
When he's done shopping, he'll meet you at the register and you'll have to scan the barcode on everything in his basket.
Then of course, you'll accept his money and make change. Fortunately, the register keeps track of what you owe the customer and deducts each time you pull bills or coins from the till.
Random trivia: In Japan, it's considered rude for an employee to take money directly from a customer's hands, so they have a small (usually blue) rectangle dish that the customer puts their money in, then the employee makes change and puts it back in the dish for the customer to take. That way, no one is directly handing money to the other.
More trivia: Japan's smallest bill today is 1,000 yen (roughly 7 US dollars). They used to have a ¥50, ¥100, and ¥500 bill back in the '50s, but they were mostly phased out by the '60s and turned into coins. Considering this game takes place in 1993, these bills are not accurate to real life. They also have never had a ¥25 coin; the next denomination after ¥10 is ¥50.
Chief Matsuda is still feeling depressed and may vent a bit about some of his bad luck to you at this point. I got a choice in how to respond:
I chose to cheer him up, and it seemed to do the trick.
He stands outside to admire the rising sun as the rain lets up. If you join him, you get a little more dialog with him before the demo ends.
Overall, it was a fun little game to play and I'm excited for the full release! I enjoy simulator games, and this one was very relaxed and story-heavy. Unlike other store simulators I've played, where you spend a whole shift desperately running around, managing a bunch of customers and store inventory as fast as you can. Working a night shift means a slower pace to the game, so you can have one-on-one conversations with the customers and really enjoy the atmosphere.
There's also no clock in the game, so you can take all the time you want to do everything. I probably spent over an hour just wandering around the store, clicking on everything and getting to know where everything was. I was expecting an influx of customers, so I wanted to be prepared for the busy rush, but I ended up with a single customer who was chill and fun to chat with.
Note: I haven't been paid to advertise this upcoming game. As I've mentioned in the past, I'm very anti-advertisement, so I will never accept money or favors to advertise anyone's game. This is just a personal creative writing hobby of mine; if I'm writing about a game, it's one that I personally enjoyed and wanted to discuss.