Retro Rewind: Video Store Simulator

Steam Reviews

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• Recommended Posted April 9, 2026 on Steam Speaking as someone who actually did this i.e. worked in Blockbuster in the ‘90s (and also a movie theatre) the vibe of this game is so accurate it kinda freaked me out. The tasks you have to do, the annoying customers, the balance between restocking and serving people…. Spot on. If you have any significant memories of this era, this is the game for you. Although at the time, this actual job felt frustrating and annoying… this game makes me want to trade in this current soulless “AI world” and return to better times. To the devs… excellent work. You nailed it 😊
• Recommended Posted March 21, 2026 on Steam Should set the standard for job simulators/cozy tycoons. It just feels good; the tiny world has detail and life, you've got customization options out of the box, and the game doesn't feel like it was built using random Unity assets clobbered together. Not to mention despite the low-poly style, its got the most diverse/animated NPC's out of any similar game. Now I miss renting VHS tapes.
• Recommended Posted March 21, 2026 on Steam Please please PLEASE add early video games and consoles as an expansion to make it that authentic 90s video store game (Thank you for all the awards 😭)
• Recommended Posted March 27, 2026 on Steam Okay so I picked this up on a whim because the store page looked cool and honestly? I wasn't expecting much. Simulator games on Steam are usually asset flip garbage with zero soul. But Retro Rewind is different. Like, actually different. The second you walk into your store for the first time, it hits you. The ugly carpet, the neon signs, the whole vibe just screams "it's 1995 and you're about to rent Terminator 2 for the fourth time." If you ever set foot in a Blockbuster or any rental place as a kid, this game is gonna make you feel things. I'm not even exaggerating. The fake VHS covers alone are worth the price of admission. They're all hand drawn parodies of real movies and some of them are so good it's almost criminal. I spent way too long just reading the back covers instead of actually running my store. The gameplay loop is simple but super satisfying. You order tapes, stock the shelves by genre, work the register, rewind returns, charge late fees to people who definitely deserve it, and slowly expand your store. There's a shady tape dealer who shows up behind your shop twice a week selling bootlegs and "special" tapes, and yes there's an adult section tucked away in the back corner just like real stores used to have. Little details like that show the devs actually cared. What really got me hooked though is the physical feel of everything. Every tape is an actual object you pick up and place. You can stack like 10 of them in your arms and waddle over to the shelves. When someone drops a tape in the return slot it makes that perfect plastic clunk sound. It sounds dumb on paper but trust me, it makes the whole thing weirdly zen. Rain on a Friday night means your store gets packed, holidays bring themed tapes with special art, and new releases drop weekly at higher prices. It keeps things moving. Now let me be real for a sec. The game does run out of steam (no pun intended) once you hit around level 10-15. By that point you've seen most of what it has to offer and there's not a ton driving you forward. I expanded my store twice and kinda went "okay cool, now what?" There's no real challenge or deep strategy here. If you're looking for some intense tycoon experience with complex economics and automation chains, this ain't it. The employees are also... not great. You hire them expecting help but they shelve tapes in the wrong sections and turn your carefully sorted Horror shelf into a "Mixed" mess. You can't even tell them whether to charge or waive late fees. And yeah there are some bugs. I've seen customers get stuck on each other and there's a known crash issue that can mess with saves. Nothing game breaking for me personally but worth mentioning. The dev has been patching stuff fast though, gotta give credit where it's due. But here's the thing. For $20 I got a solid 15+ hours of genuine fun out of this. The atmosphere alone carried me through most of it. It's one of those games you put on after a long day, turn your brain off, and just vibe with. The dev is a two person team who clearly poured their heart into this, and all future updates are gonna be free. The roadmap has video game rentals, a VHS repair station, more decorations and music coming. So it's only gonna get better from here. If you grew up in the 90s or early 2000s and have any memory of walking into a video store on a Friday night trying to find something good that wasn't already rented out, buy this game. It's a nostalgia trip done right with enough actual gameplay to back it up. Just don't go in expecting 100 hours of content and you'll love it.
• Recommended Posted May 8, 2026 on Steam A few decades have passed since I worked at a major chain video store. I gotta say, this pretty much captures the essence of working there. At least the fun parts anyway. Here's a few things I recall from that time that the devs/modders could add to enrich the simulation further: - Leaving customer notes in the computer - Customer bans - Video game rentals - Repairing of damaged videos - Upselling bundle deals on concessions, especially to strike late fees - Customers returning videos from the competitor and then getting mad at employees for it - Customers returning empty cases - Customers returning their owned videos - Customers returning home videos and *ahem* other things - Sending customers to collections for late fees, and subsequent phone calls from mortgage loan officers inquiring about them - Shoplifting and employee theft - The creepy part-timer in their late 40s that works Friday nights just so they can hit on young female employees and patrons. - Forced send backs and dumpstering of a majority of tapes, because distributors would much rather sell them at full price when the New Release rental period ends.
• Recommended Posted March 18, 2026 on Steam Worked in the video store in the early 2000s. This game is more or less the experience. Absolutely love the retro vibe and the calendar/holiday events are really cool. I think this game has a lot of fun little things and touches the devs added that really set it aside from your normal simulator games. Ah, the smell of cheap plastic and popcorn...