Old Market Simulator Review

Old Market Simulator is an… old market simulator, developed by Alcedo Games and published with the help of Gamersky Games. Here, you’ll start a new life on this small island community running a market, earning each and every sale the old-fashioned way. To be honest, I only got interested in playing this because I got addicted to games like Retail Company Simulator and TCG Card Shop Simulator. This game has been in Early Access since the 22nd of May 2024 and reached 1.0 early in October, so let’s check it out and see if the simple life is just as rewarding as… well, buying too many card packs.

Let’s start off by getting into a new game, which is awfully quick to get right into the meat of the game. You instantly start at the beginning of winter, with just an empty shop and a couple of thousand gold to buy some shelves and order some produce from the nearby delivery ship. I have to note that there isn’t much of a tutorial; You’re only given a couple of tasks to get you started before leaving to your own devices, which is a little troubling. Yeah, I’m not a completely fresh player, but it would’ve been nice to be shown the controls and teach me certain aspects of the game that aren't quite clear without looking for outside help like a guide.

Anyways, my first order of business was ordering enough stock to sell at my burgeoning market. It’s a little more complicated than what I expected from these types of simulators. For one thing, you can’t just order anything at any time and expect it to arrive at a convenient location. Not only do you have to run to the docks to purchase stuff, but it’ll take a day to arrive, and be put further down the dock near the ship. It requires help from a cable car and a horse to move it all to your shop. Also, you can’t just keep items stocked for indefinite amounts of time as many of them will expire. You’ll definitely need to manage supply and demand while running your market each day.

I should mention something a little peculiar, though. When you think of an island town where there’s little access to electricity and most produce is delivered by boat, I don’t think people would automatically assume you can sell candy canes, cans of soda, and pretzels in your market. Just saying.

You don’t have to fully rely on the goods and services of others to make money, though. You can also farm crops, go sailing and fish, raise livestock, and even make your own alcohol, bakery goods, and uh… butcher animals to make your own cuts of meat. Don’t worry, they’ll disappear in puffs of smoke and it’s totally optional so if you don’t like that idea, it’s perfectly fine. This is actually fairly rewarding to do, and not just in bigger profit margins. It definitely feels good to see your hard work pay off, so you can reinvest it to make it pay off even bigger later down the line.

As days pass and you upgrade your market, purchase licences, and obtain better equipment (like bags to carry more stuff and a fishing boat), you’ll be improving your reputation throughout, which means more customers and bigger orders. Of course, the demand will eventually overwhelm you, so you have the option to hire NPC employees to help you serve customers and stock the market. You can also have up to three of your friends help you out in co-op, which can definitely help ease some of the growing pains and make running your market a little easier. Be sure you don’t stay in the red for too long, however, as spending three days in debt will cause you to be unable to open your market. If that’s the case, you’ll need to sell some of your things to the junkyard, which might be enough to ruin your save completely if you’ve dug yourself into a very serious debt with no way out.

However, you really shouldn't stay in the market all the time. You have an entire small town to explore, full of shops and people. Holidays and events even change the place by adding decorations or weather conditions. It all looks spectacular and makes exploring the town a little more exciting, even if you’re focused on making your shop the best it can be. Not only that, they increase or decrease the prices of various products. Unfortunately, events like frostbite or heat waves only show what’s affected at the start of the day for a couple of seconds and I don’t know how to bring it up again. Again, no tutorial or button prompts other than interactables. Oh, and there aren’t any key bindings in the options so I can’t check there either, as well as a limited amount of graphics and performance options. It’s unnecessary given that the game ran perfectly smooth without any hiccups, and with barely any loading screens, but it would be cool.

Overall, I found the gameplay really good, making all your efforts feel rewarding rather than busy work, but it will make you miss modern conveniences like online ordering. Getting full autonomy takes a lot of work, but it’ll be worth it in the end when you can spend the day fishing while your market earns thousands of gold.

That being said, there were some aspects that would’ve made the game a little more enjoyable. I would’ve liked to have more information available to me at all times, such as my current tax or how much I need to pay my employees in total. This info, as far as I can tell, is only available at the End of Day results screen. If you’re playing by yourself, you will be running around constantly, either to restock, clean floors, manage your farm, replace equipment, etc. It gets a little tedious when you’re having to do this every day until you get far enough to lighten that load. I also found the decorations to be lacklustre, with a lack of variety in the available furnishings to make your shop your own. Finally, I think customers complain too much. They will tell you when they can’t find certain items in your shop… which is all the time, as it doesn't take into account if you have a licence to sell that product or not.

Old Market Simulator teaches you the value of hard work. It’ll take a while for you to truly relax but once you do, you’ll find yourself at ease as you casually spend your days running your shop, fishing and baking, and making the most of your money. And hey, it’s all better with friends. You'll miss some conveniences and have no idea how to do some things without help, but it’s worth the trade-off for a simpler life.