It probably won’t shock you to learn that the best-selling game of 2026 thus far is not about the mundane activity of running a video store. Yet for me, it might as well be: Retro Rewind, an indie exercise in retail management, has captured my attention as much as the real global chart-topper, Resident Evil Requiem. That latest entry in the smash-hit horror franchise is exceptionally sleek, with gory action and a discomfiting atmosphere. In Retro Rewind, meanwhile, zero zombies are slain, no conspiracies uncovered; the biggest crisis the player faces is the phone ringing while they’re trying to make change for a customer. It’s a simple experience that has nonetheless completely gripped me.Retro Rewind is the latest in a category called “store simulators”—games that basically create bottled versions of hourly-wage drudgery. Set in the ’90s, the game tasks players with such activities as stocking shelves, manning the checkout counter, and balancing the daily books; sometimes a videotape needs to be rewound, or a patron disputes a late fee. The graphics are cutesy, if basic, and the movies available to rent are fictional. I’m not the only one who, despite the game’s seemingly bare-bones offerings, can’t stop playing it—on Steam, the popular gaming marketplace, Retro Rewind was a surprising entrant in the top-10 best-sellers chart, debuting at No. 1. Making this accomplishment even more impressive is the fact that, while today’s biggest games can have a development staff of thousands, Retro Rewind was created by just two people.The game’s success lies in pushing a gentle-but-distinct nostalgia button for a generation missing the experience of visiting the local rental hut. At least, that’s what appealed to me about it: Video-rental stores were quintessential third places of my youth, where I could browse for hours without much trouble. I would take an armful of VHS boxes off the shelves, puzzling over whatever promotional blurbs and fuzzy pictures had been cramped onto the back. In an era when carousels of streaming-service options are bland and overwhelming, I’ve longed for the slower pace of brick-and-mortar shops, which are now much harder to come by.[Read: The game that shows we’re thinking about history all wrong]Retro Rewind exists to scratch that itch—sort of. The gameplay, for one, doesn’t actually revolve around browsing. When I started the game and set up my modest shop, I endeavored as mightily as I could to mimic the stores of my youth, going heavy on wood paneling and dark carpet. (If you want to feel like you’re back in a ’90s-era Blockbuster, there are plenty of brighter design options available.) But once I opened the doors, my experience was a whirlwind of retail nightmares I had largely buried in the 20 years since I had last worked an actual cash register. Much of the in-game day, which lasts at most 15 minutes, is spent pinging among attending to the growing line of customers, sorting the video returns piling up on the counter, and answering the busy office phone. The word contactless has no meaning in Retro Rewind’s world; patrons pay in cash, and they expect exact change. The events are thrilling only in their pure mundanity.Even the brief moments of calm, usually right before the evening rush, are too transient to enjoy. There are times when I have spent 10 seconds pondering if I should rearrange some shelves, only for a group of people to walk in and comb through what’s available. The level of stress the game conjures rivals that of the new Resident Evil installment, in which a young woman armed with only her wits and a pistol faces down ravenous monsters. Somehow, that adventure is nonetheless objectively filled with far more moments of peace and quiet than Retro Rewind ever really allows. The progress in Resident Evil Requiem is scripted; I’m moving through predetermined levels and defeating bosses. In Retro Rewind, the fear comes from a daily existential crisis of how ambitious I want to be: Do I simply hang out forever in my tiny store or expand it, opening myself up to new dimensions of stress?Lots of the other popular retail simulators try to re-create this classic local-shop vibe, and a rival video-store game even was released around the same time that Retro Rewind was. But that effort, which has received fewer plaudits, has a much broader premise, extending the world beyond the register and including more traditional role-playing elements. Retro Rewind hinges on its limitations; like an episode of Severance, it’s set only at your character’s workplace, their life outside of it irrelevant. The day ends when the shop door closes, and the next begins with the player character walking back into it. The only major difference from the day before is that there might be a new release to stock.[Read: The Amazonification of everything, now as a video game]As video games have expanded in scope and budget, developing small-scale titles has also become easier; creators are able to market their work directly to players. The level of attention Retro Rewind has received, however, is pretty rare on the indie front. There are much glossier options out there providing a similar kind of tranquil, repetitive experience, including farming games such as Stardew Valley and the Harvest Moon series; games where you maintain cartoony towns (think Animal Crossing); and the juggernaut that is Minecraft, the ultimate indie game that could. The newest Pokémon spin-off, Pokémon Pokopia, swaps pitting the beloved fantasy monsters against one another in battle with tending to their habitats.All of these offerings have some appeal to me, and I’ve dipped my toe into digging tunnels in Minecraft and collecting furniture in Animal Crossing. Those games tend to grow old, however, because they are designed to never end: I can always build more, accumulate extra goods, and unlock fancier upgrades. The developers of Retro Rewind are already contemplating what an expansion could include (DVDs, perhaps). Though I keep waiting to hit a wall with Retro Rewind, I haven’t yet—and instead of doing my taxes, catching up on real-life work, or sending emails, I find I’m happier spending 20 more minutes stocking virtual shelves. After all, real chores are no match for the digital ones; only the latter can actually level me up.