I love these kinds of simulation games anyway, but they are usually pretty far from the actual experience.
My first job in high school was at a local video store and I was able to recreate parts of it using this game. I feel like I've gone back in time. Then I realized that the employee I hired had the same name as my coworker I had a crush on back then.
Some particulars that I especially love (in no particular order)
-You have to rewind some videos and some returned videos come back broken
- Weather, days of the week, holidays, and days certain new movies come out all contribute to how many customers you get
-Literally the whole aesthetic is nostalgic in and of itself
-the whole system of checking movies in and putting them away: literally I remember pretending it was a computer game and in my mind this is what I was imagining
-The punny names of the new release movies
- Saving the game by using the old fashioned punch card machine! I used one just like this!
-Having customers ask for recommendations. This was my favorite thing to do IRL too. It didn't happen as often as it does in this game, but it's so fun.
There's a few things I'd love to see in the future (as someone who did this IRL, these are the things that take me out a little)
- When you need to rewind a video, I would love it if it took like a random amount of time. You never know how long it's going to take but its always an annoying amount of time. You should start rewinding a video and walk away to do something else while it finishes.
- The day always ended with vacuuming the store. I know it sounds silly, but it was a job no one wanted to do. Vicious fights happened about whose turn it was to use the vacuum. I couldn't tell you why, but ending the day without vacuuming feels wrong to me.
- Why do my employees keep falling asleep? And why can't I wake them up if I'm carrying any movies?
- Yes, some people are grumpy about paying late fees, but it was pretty much expected. I love that you can choose whether to do this or not! In my day we had a guy who worked at Pizza Hut bring us pizza every day after work and we made a point to never charge him late fees and if the boss wasn't there, we would also waive the rental fee for his movies.
- The customers that were somehow worse than the ones who got grumpy about late fees were the ones who wanted to talk and talk and talk and talk while you had a line of people behind them.
- We had to look up movies and customers via MS DOS. I would love a system where I have to use something like that in this game.
Just some ideas for any future DLCs or updates. But all together I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ love this game.
