iPhone App: Supermarket Mania

April 29th, 2009

Supermarket Mania

= 4 stars

Keep a grocery store stocked with various products as relentless, impatient shoppers do their thing.

The Good

Pretty simple rules. Just guide a clerk with a shopping cart around to various empty shelves and display cases by tapping on them. Variety comes about through having to refill your shopping cart, clean up messes, and different types of customers. Customers indicate the next item they want to shop for via small thought bubbles. If they reach a shelf that is empty, a face icon shows them getting angrier and angrier.
The graphics are charming and appealing, resembling The Sims. They’re much better than the hand drawn ones of Diner Dash. Also excellent is the background music.
At the end of each level you get take the money earned and spend it improving products and upkeep of the store.

The Bad

This game is on the easy side, then suddenly switches to insane. I got halfway through the entire game without much effort on my first day. But things get super crazy in the store once thieves start infiltrating. You have to switch from your usual tasks to tapping on a security guard whenever a thief starts stealing stuff, which can happen once every few seconds. And even with that switch to difficult, I polished off the whole game on the third day.
Very similar to Diner Dash except the diner is replaced with a grocery store. Running a store is less fun than being the shopper, and perhaps a clothes store or some other retail outlet would be more fun than groceries.
A superfluous subplot of some evil corporation told via comic book panel cut scenes.

Conclusion

A decent time management game with way-cute graphics being the best part.

iTunes App Store Link: