Service Area Simulator

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Service Area Simulator is a new shop simulator game that puts you through the standard management loop of building, restocking, and running your shops. Developed by ikika Games and published by PlayWay S.A., it was released on Steam on May 15th to mixed reviews.

Stranded on the Side of the Road

As you know by now, we at Thumb Culture have a knack for Simulator games. The good, the bad, and the ugly. I really felt like this game could be one of the good ones. Sadly, the reality of the game doesn’t quite live up to that. Let’s get into the details.

A nightsky with a yellow sign in front. The sign reads "Service Station Thumb Culture" — Welcome to the TC Service Station!

Gameplay

Service Area Simulator‘s core gameplay loop starts off pretty much like any other store sim you may have played before. You have just bought a tiny little store, in this case, sitting right at the side of a lonely desert road, and you are tasked to run it, make a profit, and eventually expand. So far, so good. You put up your first shelf, stock it with the basic items, set your prices (which the game does not tell you to do, but people sure will complain if things are too pricey), and wait for customers to roll in. That is, if the customers actually decide that they wanna visit, but more on that later.

The game isn’t just a store sim, though. It also makes you unlock a restaurant right during the tutorial, which costs you basically all of your starting cash. From there, you stock and sell food, but without actually cooking anything. No, you just serve it straight out of the fridge, even the fries. Honestly, that is just the average roadside fast food experience, so I can’t complain too much about it.

You also start with a bathroom that customers can pay to use. It would be a free moneymaker if you didn’t need to constantly restock it yourself. You turn around, and they are all out of toilet paper again, but nobody touches the soap by the sink. Another average roadside experience. For whatever reason, you can’t hire a worker to handle the bathrooms for you. At least not at the point that I got to. You can, however, hire cashiers, people to handle the restaurant, cleaners, and so on. And you really, really need those cleaners because the trash in this game spawns like crazy.

The inside of the store seen from the cash register. A person in a red dress is buying a water bottle. — I’d maybe reconsider the decor…

Progression and Issues

The trash and restocking situations are just tiny issues in comparison. And issues…well, there are a lot of them, alright. Sure, I can give the game some credit since it is a new indie title and all, but did anyone actually playtest this without cheats? Genuinely? I would have much preferred it if the game had been released into a brief Early Access period or something, maybe with fewer unlocks for now, but with a real focus on making that core gameplay loop actually work.

Later on, you can unlock even more buildings, like a motel and a gas station. I’d love to write more about them, but I never actually got that far. You need to hit a certain level and pay a lot of cash for them, which brings me to the real problem.

When I first played Service Area Simulator, there was a constant flow of customers and not a single second of downtime. Apparently, there was a bug affecting some people that made customers never arrive in the first place, but luckily, that was patched! Kinda. See, I didn’t have that issue before, but now I do.

They also “fixed” the massive number of customers that come at a time. Yeah, now I get anywhere from zero to six customers per day. That is nowhere near enough to pay my bills, so I can’t really progress at all. Instead, I just have to AFK for the majority of the day because nobody is there. How fun.

There are plenty of other nitpicks, but honestly, they aren’t even worth listing here. The fact that progression is basically locked behind the larger issues should paint the picture well enough.

A desert background. A floating, orange house icon is being interacted with. The pop up asks if the player wants to purchase the motel. — This is where I’d put my motel! IF I HAD ONE

Graphics & Audio

The graphics are really nothing to write home about. It’s your typical low-poly style. The character models actually remind me a lot of the game The Tenants, if anyone remembers that one. There isn’t too much to say here, really. Everything looks pretty coherent and fitting for the vibe.

In terms of audio, you just get your standard nature-sounds.mp3. I don’t know if you can buy a stereo later on to play some music in the shop, but by default, there isn’t any. The customers do speak sometimes, though it is mostly just to complain about your pricing, and it sounds like a standard text-to-speech voice.

There is also no key rebinding. On top of that, the mouse movement is incredibly fast, even when you crank it down to the minimum. The camera speed seems to be bound to your FPS, so you literally have to set the graphics to medium to get a more usable mouse.

A very messy store floor, full of dirt and trash. — I turned around for four seconds, where did all this trash come from??

Final Thoughts

I don’t normally like to skip the Longevity section, but there really isn’t much I can say here. The answer is: I have no idea. I have absolutely no idea how long the game would keep you occupied if it actually worked as intended. I’m sorry.

To get to the final thoughts, in the current state that the game is in, the mixed review score on Steam is entirely justified. It has a solid foundation that blends some fun ideas together, but it desperately needed more time in the oven. Between game-breaking progression bugs that leave you sitting AFK for ages, technical issues and just some very needed tweaking of the details, it is just a frustrating experience right now. If the developers can patch the game into a working state, it might be worth a look. Until the core gameplay loop actually functions though, I can’t really recommend this one.

The game has potential, and if you look at the trailer, it actually does look fun. I believe if they had let it cook a bit longer, it could have been at the very least a Silver Award game. But sadly, this is just nearly unplayable. I’d give it the Broken Award, but since it is technically playable, even though you can’t really progress, it doesn’t really qualify for that either.

I will instead give Service Area Simulator the Thumb Culture Bronze Award.