Last year, I found myself in a bit of a reading frenzy with books about shops, stores, cafes, and similar neighborhood establishments. I devoured the likes of Robert Seethaler’s The Cafe with no Name, Kim Ho-Yeon’s The Second Chance Convenience Store, and—to a lesser extent—Mai Mochizuki’s The Full Moon Coffee Shop as I sought the comfort of their feel-good dramas filled with charming characters and endings that wrapped most everything up in a neat little bow.

inKONBINI: One Store. Many Stories provides a similar experience to what I found in those and other books. Only instead of reading about some quaint little local haunt in a far off country, I get to work there, stocking the shelves and striking up conversations with the regulars. It’s joyful, inoffensive, and ultimately something that works better in print than it does on my Switch.

YOU’VE GOT A NINE-TO-FIVE SO I’LL TAKE THE NIGHT SHIFT

Taking place over a single stormy week at the end of summer in 1993, inKONBINI puts you in control of Makoto as she covers the night shift at the Honki Ponki konbini, or convenience store, while her aunt takes a much-needed respite. Over the course of seven days, she’ll tend to the store while interacting with a small number of customers who need help finding their groceries and their next steps in life. Much like the characters in the novels mentioned in the lede, customers here are ready to tell all, treating Makoto as a free source of therapy. With limited conversation options, she’ll attempt to help reconnect old friends, push a customer toward a new career, and give ideas on how to grow a business. It’s all very quaint and agreeable, even if it doesn’t live up to the “Many Stories” in the game’s title. I guess “One Store, A Couple of Stories” doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Each shift, you’ll generally only interact with one or two of the customers, and rarely ever at the same time. They’ll ask for you help finding the groceries they’re looking for while also picking your brain for hints on what they should do next. Sometimes, a customer will request a specific item, like bug repellant. The people on the day shift either placed it in the wrong spot on the shelves or left it in the stockroom. If you can’t find the item, there doesn’t appear to be a penalty for the player other than a potential missed achievement and the guilt you’ll feel knowing mosquitos are about to eat one of your customers alive.

HEY! HEY! THIS IS NOT A LENDING LIBRARY

Outside of your interactions with your customers, there are daily tasks you’re asked to complete by the daytime staffers of the Honki Ponki. These mostly involve stocking certain items on the shelves, but if you don’t want to do any of them, you can spend your shift straightening your products or pass time in the bathroom like a real convenience store night shifter, except without the excess vaping. There’s also a gacha machine outside the shop you can play as long as you remember to grab change from your coat pocket.

Your customers’ stories are the central draw of the game, so if you’re looking for a game that’ll provide a shop sim experience, know that inKONBINI does the bare minimum. You can stock and reorganize shelves, scan your customers’ purchases, and count their change. That’s all very cathartic. As someone who worked for several years at his parents’ grocery store, my endorphins popped off every time I finished neatly organizing a shelving unit, bringing everything to the front so it all looked uniform and, honestly, a cool shiver is running up my spine just thinking about it now.

YOUR ONE-STOP SHOP FOR ALL YOUR KNOCK-OFF FAVORITES

But that is basically it in terms of convenience store simulation. You can place a few phone calls to your aunt and others—and I suggest you do—and you can order predetermined stock from a vendor at certain points. But there isn’t much more beyond that. You can’t even clean up a spill no matter how much a growing puddle right in front of your manga rack bothers your OCD. Because all of that is secondary to the stories. Stories that could have been better.

The narratives of inKONBINI are fine. They’re nothing special and very much in line with what I’ve experienced in the store-that-solves-all-your-problems genre. It’s all very uplifting in the same way the books I read last year were, as well as incredibly calming. The calmness is, ideally, what the player will pull from this experience, along with the idea that the moments in our lives that may seem insignificant can all add up to something extraordinary. That is a sentiment I wholeheartedly agree with, but I’m not going to pretend a story or a protagonist are interesting just because I’m playing a cool, calm, reflective cozy game. Sometimes the thing we’re told is methodical and deliberate in its execution is actually just boring. Like Dune.

ENJOY THE STILLNESS WHILE IT LASTS

Perhaps going into this game coming off a year of digesting similar stories was not the best idea. Because as the credits rolled after a few hours, my one thought was, “It’s nice that they tried.” And there are some things I like about this game. I enjoy the mundane tasks of shop life. I enjoy counting change and organizing a beverage cooler. I enjoy seeing all the details that went into making the products, of which there are many. I’m just not sold on the “many stories” the developers went with here.

As a means of crafting a narrative I could connect with, many books accomplish with ease what inKONBINI: One Store. Many Stories attempts. As a konbini simulator, you’re better off grabbing Convenience Stories from Kairosoft. From my experience, self-described cozy games strike out far more often than they hit, sounding nice in theory but fumbling the execution. inKONBINI avoids most of the pitfalls of its contemporaries, but that is a low bar to hurdle. All in all, it’s a perfectly nice game. An average one, but certainly nice.

5/10

This review was conducted using a digital Nintendo Switch 2 copy of the game. It was paid for by the author.