There is something special about the Japanese convenience store, or konbini. Alongside the sushi, noodles, sights, and sounds of a trip to Japan, the konbini is an amazing part of any visit to the country. They are venues for trying new snacks and drinks, testing your “Arigatou gozaimasu” that you practiced over and over again on the plane, and witnessing a quality of convenience that’s rare back home; they’re special little pitstops you will make countless times there. Inkonbini: One Store Many Stories attempts to tap into this, putting you in the shoes of a konbini worker to play a role in the lives of the store’s customers. While it features many of the products I expect to be stocked in a game like this, it feels inauthentic, forcing heartfelt moments and delivering an employee simulation experience that, while barely serviceable, is ultimately forgettable.
Makoto is a college student filling her 1990s summer days in between semesters working at her Aunt Hina’s konbini, Honki Ponki, a bastion of food, drinks, and more in rural Japan. She’s doing it to help her aunt and kill time, and across six shifts, she slowly begins to see how someone like her aunt has remained working there for decades, questioning her own life’s future in the process. Makoto falls in love with the routine of stocking shelves, fixing the day shift’s mistakes during the midnight hours, and learning more about customers. Unfortunately, I did not.
She and I begin each shift by reading notes from the day crew, calling in additional deliveries, and restocking chips, sodas, beers, sweets, hygiene products, and more. It’s simple to do so: take items from the backroom shelves and bring them out front. There is technically a right place for each thing – the sweets go on the shelf marked for sweets, for example – but there are no real consequences for putting them elsewhere. The only repercussion for not fixing items facing the wrong way is the occasional bark from a customer who mentions it; there are no ways to fail, no ways to burn your customer base, and thus no tension on the management side of Inkonbini. That lack of tension or challenge or anything, really, leaves the main mechanical draw of Inkonbini’s gameplay stale and boring, requiring you to make your own fun if you want to find it any bit engaging.
To developer Nagai Industries’ credit, each product feels like something I’ve seen in a konbini, with some drinks, for example, being designed just different enough to be legally distinct (but I know a Pocari Sweat when I see one). And I found the most enjoyment in seeing what products I needed to stock each night, or which ones would arrive by delivery, but actually stocking them and managing the store’s inventory feels like little more than something to do while waiting for another customer to arrive.
When they do finally arrive, though, I am met with contrived speakers made even more annoying by an incredibly slow walking pace – I often questioned whether how slowly each customer moved through the store was a bug. There are only about four customers you encounter each day, and they’re the same ones, meant to provide daily updates to their bite-sized stories alongside the occasional task, like finding a specific sushi set or sweet snack. After their needs are addressed, the customers begin to spill life stories, as if they are performing in a play. None of the conversations feels natural or authentic as a result. While I appreciate the messages each customer’s story conveys, none felt earned. I wasn’t doing anything special as a konbini employee to build these relationships.
Inkonbini spent its five-hour runtime talking to me – not with me – and I never felt a part of this town’s culture or its inhabitants’ lives in the way the writing says I was. Customers would enter my store, hit their marks, share their golden lesson of the day, and the shift would end. I’d do the same thing the following day, and the following day, until Makoto’s final shift arrived and the game ended with a cheery but unearned celebration of my week at Honki Ponki. It’s a disappointing konbini experience for someone who genuinely cherishes them in Japan. It is neither narratively nor mechanically engaging, and though Makoto seemed to enjoy each shift, I rarely did.
