While keeping a look out for random indie horror games on Steam I recently stumbled across the game Hellmart, which seemed to be an interesting mix of a couple of different games with a horror spin! While it is a short and ‘simple’ game, I still wanted to write a review of it as I did enjoy my time and felt like it had a unique blend of horror despite feeling like multiple games stitched together!

Right off the bat, the main inspiration for the game clearly seems to be the indie game trend of ‘simulator’ games. For those who don’t know, there is a genre of game that is basically about taking mundane jobs and making a game out of them. For example, a game about running a super market! These games generally don’t go for anything super realistic and prefer to go for a more relaxed and cozy sort of experience. This is the main draw of the genre in my opinion which is why I was so drawn to Hellmart when I saw it! Taking a genre known for being cozy and adding some horror to it seemed like a fun idea, and while I don’t see this sort of trend taking off exactly, Hellmart managed to show that it very much can work!

So here’s how Hellmart works. You play a nameless guy taking a job at Hellmart, a super market far in the snowy north seemingly out in the middle of nowhere. You have a boss but they only talk to you via phone calls at the local pay phone and your pager for quick updates. Beyond that, you are Hellmart’s solo employee meaning everything from restocking to cleaning to checking out customers falls to you! Thankfully this is more than manageable given that, like I said, Hellmart is basically in the middle of nowhere so you aren’t going to be swarmed with customers. Before we get into the real meat of the game let’s talk a bit more about the game’s story because it does have one!

After arriving at Hellmart, which involved taking a rather creepy bus ride up north, you are given a brief tutorial on how the game works and all you’ll be doing for the week you are working there. You are also introduced to the rules of Hellmart, rules you must follow according to your boss! All of the rules are pretty standard like lock up every night and be nice to customers, however the final rule, ‘Don’t let him in’, gives you another hint about just how weird and spooky this job will be. As you can probably guess, things only get weirder and creepier as things go on. More freaky things happen at night, the locals give you warnings not just about Hellmart but the area around it too. And this is where I have a gripe with this game.

This is a smaller indie game so I’m not going to take the story apart bit by bit and try to explain what is wrong with it. My main issue is honestly that there is a main story at all. If you were to cut out the boss and the ‘one you’re not suppose to let in’ who both tell you how big and important your role in Hellmart is then I honestly would have enjoyed the creepy slow burn that the customers give you! The framing device that you are someone from out of town and you literally spend all your time at the store, you even sleep there, is perfect for having things slowly revealed to you, letting you piece together what is going on all on your own while also letting you make it that much more scary for yourself! Like, I don’t need the main character commenting how odd it is that the items order themselves and fill up the storage room without you noticing. That is something you, the player, should pick up on yourself. Granted, I am a bit biased as I tend to prefer my horror mysteries to be ones I piece together mostly on my own but I feel like Hellmart had the perfect set up for this but instead has so much of the story simply told to you.

That’s enough about the story though. Even if I’m not the biggest fan of it I still won’t spoil it. Let’s instead talk about the main draw of the game, the game play!

Like I said before, Hellmart feels like a lot of different games stitched together, for better and worse. The game play is basically split into two halves, the day shit and the night shift. We’ll start with the day shift.

The day shift is the super market simulator portion of the game but it still manages to sprinkle in some horror as well. During the day you are managing the mart which basically means cleaning the store, checking out customers, and keeping things stocked. On paper this can sound pretty boring, like most simulator games, but you do get into a cozy flow of things while the game slowly ramps up as the week progresses. While you’ll start with only a few products on the shelves, that will quickly change as more is added and customers come in expecting more too. Checking out customers isn’t always smooth sailing either! While it can be as easy as putting all their items in a bag, taking their money, and having them walk out, sometimes customers won’t give you exact change, they may also want to have a conversation and all this can back up the line! This is important to keep in mind since you can technically lose the game during the day shifts by not reaching your daily quota of sales. I never had too much difficulty reaching the quotas but the looming threat does add pressure especially when some customers want to chat! And these aren’t conversations you can just mash through, or rather you shouldn’t mash through, as the locals can sometimes give you good advice, ask for some help, or have dialog options that will affect the game and which ending you receive. A chatty customer was always a fun but nerve wracking experience, very fitting for this game!

Beyond working the check out, you’ll also need to keep the store clean. It’s the middle of winter and any time that front door opens there a chance of the mart getting dirty. Messes come in two forms, windows that need scrubbing and floors that need brushing. I’m not entirely sure if something bad happens if you let your store get too messy, the worst that happened to me was a customer complaining about it, but cleaning does give you a bit of bonus money! Plus you want your mart looking good don’t you?

Those things combined with keeping the shelves stocked so you don’t miss out on a sale from a customer that would have bought something, will generally make sure you are always doing something. And if you aren’t doing something, it’s honestly a good feeling as you can take a moment to enjoy that your mart is running as it should! Overall, it’s a fun experience and showed me why there are so many games based around running a super market now. But one thing those games don’t have is horror elements.

Like I said before, Hellmart has two sides of its game play, the day shift and the night shift. While most of the horror elements are left to the night shift, some still seeps into the day shift. These spooks can come in many forms. Sometimes you’ll have a customer making trouble by stumbling around making noise and messes. And as you approach them, they hit you with a jump scare! Sometimes you’ll be cleaning a window and something freaky will happen like a bird flying into said window! And other times the customers themselves will be weird, like coming to the register with no face, vanishing when you turn around to get them a pack of cigarettes and so on! I was honestly surprised by the variety of scares put into this section of the game. But I was more surprised by the restraint of the developer to not over do it with them! A lot of games like this will often times just go way too overboard with the amount of jump scares. Jump scares can be annoying enough already so it’s good to know how to use them wisely. And while I wasn’t always scared by them in Hellmart, I was never horribly annoyed by them either!

That about covers the day shift though, so let’s move on to where the game really shifts to a more horror focus with the night shift!

At night is when that visitor you aren’t suppose to let in tries their hardest to do just that and in many different forms! Said forms are introduced to you over the course of a few nights and I’ll go ahead and go over them here.

During the night, customers may still come to the door begging to be let in to be saved from what’s going on outside. This is basically a watered down version of the game No, I’m not a Human, a game I do plan on reviewing at some point in the future! Basically, you need to figure out if the customers are actually people or if they are this spooky entity trying to trick you into letting them in. In No, I’m not a Human there are a lot of ways to try and determine if a visitor in that game is safe or not, in Hellmart it’s not nearly as complex. Most of the time all you need to do is check the security camera that is aimed at the front door, if there is anything weird like flickering lights or what not, that means it’s the entity. And if the feed looks fine, they are usually a normal human. Besides that, they might also say some weird things when you talk to them at the door. This seemed to be far more rare than the visual glitches on the camera but it would still happen meaning you can’t let your guard down entirely even if the camera feed is fine. While this doesn’t have the depth of No, I’m not a Human it’s not really suppose to either. Like I said, this is just one of the things you need to worry about on the night shift and as the nights progress you’ll have to deal with these customers while dealing with other crazy things around the mart. Meaning that even if it’s not hard to tell if a customer is really a human, the time it takes alone does play a big factor and adds to the stress of the night shift.

The next challenge you’ll be dealing with are anomalies around the mart. There are many horror games focused around finding freaky anomalies around normal places, like Exit 8, so I can’t really point to one explain Hellmart might be drawing inspiration from like it was with No, I’m not a Human. Regardless, how this works is random oddities will appear around the mart you need to get rid of. You can usually find them from lights flickering around where they appear. These can range from removing severed heads from shelves, cleaning blood off the ground and walls, scrubbing away creepy writing on the walls, shining away shadow people with your light, and many more! Each anomalies on it’s own isn’t terribly hard to deal with, but much like before, they become a problem when they pile up and you have to deal with them as you take care of the other challenges of the night shift! Especially since if you let enough build up, it’s game over.

Lastly, the final problem you need to deal with during the night shifts are these long arms coming from inside the mart to try and open the locked doors. If this is pulled from another horror game I’m not sure which one but it wouldn’t surprise me if that was the case. These are the easiest to deal with though. After grabbing a fire axe, you simply cut at the arms and make them retreat away. You can also board up the doors to help make it so they’ll need to get past those first before unlocking the doors and letting the entity in. Again, like the other problems, these arms aren’t so bad on their own but when you are also taking care of anomalies and figuring out if you should let the customer at the door in, it gets pretty stressful! However, it doesn’t exactly get scary.

My main gripe with the night shift is that while I was worried about failing of course, actually dealing with these things weren’t scary themselves. Like none of the anomalies really freaked me out. Removing heads and wiping away blood were just chores by the end of things. While I don’t exactly feel this is a major thing or a deal breaker on the game itself, it is something I felt I should mention given this is a horror game and being scared is kind of the point. Also I’m sure it’s becoming clear why I said that Hellmart feels like a lot of different games stitched together at this point. But I do want to say that isn’t necessarily a bad thing either. After all, I wasn’t coming into this game expecting much originality.

And that covers the night shift and basically the game as a whole! You make it through your seven days and get one of three endings depending on some of the choices you made. And if I’m being honest, this is a pretty underwhelming package. While the game isn’t a ton of money to begin with, only being $15, it still felt like there should be more to it. That is until a recent update.

The day I started playing the game, funny enough, Hellmart received a pretty big update. This update added the “Extended Shift” mode. Basically, this mode removes the seven day limit of the story mode and challenges you to see how many days you can last! Or not, given there are two versions of this mode. One that is basically the base game just without that day limit and another that is a more chill experience with less scares and no penalty on dying. The Extended Shift is honestly something I feel should have been in the base game since it’s the only way to fully experience the game! In the base game, by the time all the mechanics were introduced to you it felt like the game was just about over. There barely felt like much of a reason to even upgrade your mart either as there’s no new game plus to carry over those upgrades. Extended Shift provides a great way to experience the game at its fullest and even introduces some new things like new products and having to manage your money more as you have to be the one to order said products and keep them stocked. And if you wanted to play the game closer to a regular super market simulator, now you have that option too with the easier difficulty of the mode!

With Extended Shift added to the game I feel much more comfortable recommending the game over all! Hellmart might not be a very original experience but that doesn’t change the fact that it is still a pretty fun one. And I am all for injecting horror into genres that you might not expect like this. So if you’re looking for a bizarrely cozy horror experience, even if it’s not a very original one, I would recommend giving Hellmart a go on Steam! With the Extended Shift update, it is very much worth that $15 price tag.

But those are just my thoughts! What are some of yours? Does Hellmart sound interesting? Are there any other indie horror experience I should check out? I’d love to hear your thoughts so don’t be shy!

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