HELLMART Review (PC)

I mean no disrespect to those who prefer to do their weekly grocery shopping during the witching hour, but I have to admit, people who tend to gravitate toward the convenience store around these twilight periods are, in all seriousness, more suspicious than the common day walker. Take it from me, a night owl who knows to avoid the supermarket after hours. I’ve been there—to HELLMART, if you will—and I’ve seen the horrors that take shape between the frozen food aisles and the DIY department. To say I’d happily go back to merrily scratching off a to-do list in the future just wouldn’t be true. No, because what concerns me is that, despite it being of an entirely different nature, HELLMART is an awful lot like most British markets — even during the daytime, weirdly.

I’ve encountered a lot of these oddball simulators in the past, most of which have either mirrored the lulls of a graveyard shift or have taken the initiative to make otherwise ordinary situations feel oppressive and uncomfortable. Take Happy’s Humble Burger Farm, for example. In that world, you didn’t just have an old burger joint and a grinning cow for a mascot; you had a mumbling chef and a monotone ambiance, an eerie old-school visual aesthetic and an alluring sense that something was out of the ordinary. Well, as it turns out, HELLMART isn’t all that different. In the same vein as the likes of Happy’s Humble Burger Farm or The Boba Teashop, HELLMART taps into the grotesque nature of the night time ritual—the dark and mysterious shifts during which customers shroud themselves in ambiguous characteristics, and jobs abruptly transition from regular routine tasks into absurd and oftentimes bizarre objectives that serve no real purpose other than to make you question your life choices. Like an authentic graveyard shift, then.

HELLMART is a lot like your typical job simulator, in that it requires you to complete tasks, organize your stock, work the cash register, and tend to customers. The thing that sets this supermarket apart from your traditional shopkeeping endeavor, however, is that you don’t just spend your time tending to generic duties around the store; you also prepare your aisles for the nightly bombarding of a seemingly endless flow of peculiar customers and unnatural occurrences. See, HELLMART is split into three time periods: morning, evening, and night. In the morning, you cater to the needs of the public whilst working to fill your quota. In the evening, you invest your cash into defensive assets and store upgrades. And at night, you prepare to tackle the crowd as the world transitions from a somewhat ordinary place into a cesspit for the satanic suspect. That, in short, is what HELLMART is: a juggling act that involves a well-oiled combination of management, analysis, and frequent monitoring.

If you’re familiar with supermarket sims, then you’ve more than likely seen this episode before. Gameplay-wise, what you essentially have here is a corridor romper that primarily involves volleying back and forth between aisles, stocking items, and venturing above and beyond to fulfill the needs of customers who, frankly, couldn’t care less if you live or die. That is the first part of the experience—a portion that, sadly, doesn’t do a lot to elevate the basic elements of a bog-standard chore core sim. The second part of the job, however, is a little more interesting, in that it involves keeping tabs on peculiar guests, monitoring camera feeds, and essentially surviving against all odds as the clock whittles down the hours. There are upgrades to explore, defensive measures to install, and various endings to unlock, too, meaning, it isn’t just a one-trick pony.

The bad news here is that, despite there being a dozen or more upgrades to shovel through over the course of your supermarket stint, HELLMART doesn’t actually allow you to unlock certain branches on the tree. It’s a bit like window shopping, in that it openly displays a collection of features in the background, but doesn’t give you permission to enquire about them, let alone throw your cash at them to take advantage of their perks. And if you’re wondering why the game doesn’t allow you to unlock certain upgrades, well, join the club, because I’m as equally lost as you.

Of course, if you can bypass the technical issues and the simple fact that, multiple endings cast aside, the gameplay loop is a tad repetitive and dull, then you can, in all honesty, grasp a surprisingly entertaining indie horror experience here. Again, it doesn’t do much to reinvent the wheel, nor does it throw the proverbial spanner in the works to make otherwise meaningless tasks feel more rewarding. But then, given that it is, respectfully, a supermarket horror, it also doesn’t come as much of a surprise, either.

Thankfully, there are tons of excellent features here that compliment the overall experience, including a solid progression hook that keeps you on the edge of your seat, a unique roster of strangers and visitors, and a quality selection of jump scares throughout the twilight shifts. It doesn’t always look great, but it’s a heck of a lot cleaner than most of your C-list horrors. It’s also retail work, and so, the devil is in the details, naturally. Is it a perfect game? Not at all, no. But then, for as little as a few bucks, it definitely warrants the attention of those with an iron heart for graveyard shenanigans.

Verdict

HELLMART has the potential to be a brilliant indie horror, yet it sadly fails to meet the quota due to its technical flaws and anti-progression upgrades that prevent you from experiencing the full range of items on display. This isn’t to say that it’s all bad; it’s merely acknowledging the fact that, if not for a handful of poor choices and seemingly misaligned gameplay tropes, it would make for a much, much better game. It’s still worth the asking price, mind you, as the positives far outweigh the negatives in most cases. Still, if you’re looking for a perfect shopkeeping sim with flawless progression and slick animations, then you might want to consider throwing your paycheck at another poor cashier. Did someone say Happy’s Humble Burger Farm?