The game ramps up its intensity quickly, and you’re soon faced with questions of expansion. You’ll order gas, pump said gas, stock your shelves, scan the items at the checkout line, and take out the trash. You’ll start by clearing out the trash and adding a fresh coat of paint.

Image: Drago Entertainmentįrom there, it’s your job to revamp and manage this fixer-upper. Also, the floor is covered in dirt and your customers will constantly track it all over your convenience shop during their visits. But wait! There’s also no gas, no shelves, and the bathroom doesn’t have a working toilet. It comes complete with rotting boards, fly-infested trash cans, and no electricity. Gas Station Simulator opens with a “gift” from your uncle - a decrepit gas station named Dust Bowl (yay you!) on the side of the road off Route 66. The game is, in most ways, about running a gas station. But I have sunk hours into Gas Station Simulator regardless, practically glued to my computer chair in the desire to do “just one more task.” There are also just a handful of NPC types that begin recycling early in my playthrough.

Its look and animation are pretty hideous, and the individual elements of gameplay don’t necessarily make for a fun game on their own. Gas Station Simulator is a fever dream that mixes these stressful management elements with retro graphics and an arcade minigame feel. Gridlock me in an unforgiving wave of these little to-do items, and I will sit glued to the computer for hours and hours, like the time I played Frostpunk until 3 a.m. When the table stakes feel high I get to reward my lizard brain with each newly completed task. Something about being on the precipice of dying or just getting punched in the face - I find it all very motivating, in a Marie Kondo “I love mess” sort of way.

Steam gas simulator