Superstore 3000 Review - Shopper’s Delight

In the far future, we’ll commute on trains full of aliens, fly around in zippy little spaceships, and hang out with robot buddies, but where will we get a haircut or catch a movie? That’s the question at the heart of Superstore 3000, a new tile-placing game from Space Cowboys. Distributor Asmodee sent along a copy for me to check out, so read on for my thoughts in TechRaptor’s Superstore 3000 review!

The Mall of Tomorrow… Today!

I grew up in a suburb of Philadelphia, in a little town called King of Prussia. Funny name for a town, but that’s not what made it famous - that honor goes to the King of Prussia Mall, a sprawling complex full of all the staples, from Cinnabon to Hot Topic. Living walking distance from one of the largest malls in America, my friends and I truly lived the mall rat life. So when I got the chance to check out Superstore 3000, I knew they’d have me on theme alone.

But what is the theme of Superstore 3000? In the game, designed by Rodrigo Rego, you and up to three other opponents are vying to create the most attractive mall in the galaxy. To do so, you’ll draft mall store tiles from an automatic store creator, place them onto your play space to create as a growing, sprawling, and potentially spiraling out of control mall.

The Gameplay Basics of Superstore 3000

The reason you’ll be drafting and laying down tiles is simple - you want to attract customers to your mall, and you want them to find what they’re looking for a remain satisfied customers. Each turn, you’ll draft one of four different colored tiles which all correspond to a type of store - except for the red tiles, which are entrances that’ll be placed with two little customer tokens.

Those customers know what they want, and they’re coming to get it. If placed within three spaces of the kind of store they’re looking for, you’ll move them to that store and they’ll remain there as a satisfied customer. At the end of the game, these happy shoppers will be the key to your scoring success.

One of the aspects of the game I really like is that you have to juggle money and your stores. The store on the bottom of the automatic dispenser is free, but any store tile above it costs money. You start with a little bit of money, but can also get money instead of taking a store tile. This creates a sense of urgency as you try to figure out exactly what to do that will be most beneficial. This is all complicated by the fact that as soon as you draw a tile, you have to immediately place it on your board.

At first, you’ll only be able to build in a vertical line going up, above your main entrance - but you’ll soon be scoring special agendas to let you put parking garages on your first floor (which can be built upon) and even big, audaciously shaped special features like a big, round aquarium, a long bowling alley, a zig-zagging space floating attraction, and more!

This is where the real fun of the game comes in, you’ll find it sometimes difficult to lay the tiles out in a way that makes cohesive sense in your mall… but that’s not the point! We’re in the far-flung future, and in this future the zanier the better!

My only wish from the gameplay was that there was a bit more to these special tiles. I would love tiles that let you break the rules a bit more, and right now these are simply meant to take up space, branch your mall out in fun directions, and look very cool on the board. But it would have been nice to see some effects that changed how we drafted tiles, placed our shoppers, etc.

Light but Intuitive Competition

The game isn’t the most cutthroat new game on the market, but it does involve a little bit of friendly competition. You’ll be competing against the other players at the table for the stores as they show up on the automatic store dispenser. But you’ll also be competing for the specialty tiles I mentioned above.

Not only do these tiles open up new avenues for you to build out from your base mall, but they’re also worth valuably points at the end of the game. Because they’re achieved by a specific objective, you may find yourself naturally racing against your opponents to fulfill the pre-requisites to get that special tile.

That’s why I like this game’s approach to competition - it’s what I would call light, but still intuitive. You don’t need to puzzle out how you can best your opponent, it’ll be quite clear what they’re going for. And it’s up to you to decide if it’s more valuable to try to stop them by drafting tiles they need, or whether you’d be better served worrying about your own board.

This intrinsic push and pull is a hallmark of a lot of lighter-weight games that encourage competition, and you’ll find it put to perfect use here.

Retro Futurism - Take Me Back!

Before I get into my final thoughts of the game, I have to talk about the artwork by Ryan Goldsberry, which absolutely exudes a sort of bubbly, over-the-top (and yet somehow still refined) design. This game could have featured snarling aliens and realistic robots, or it could have looked like a kid’s cartoon. But instead, much to my delight, the artist took a retro-futuristic approach.

Think Jetsons here when we talk about the artwork, and as you can see from the photos it’s all a vision of the far future as seen through the lens of a 1960s illustrative style. I love it, I think it perfectly fits a game about a mall in the future, and it helps the game stand out amongst its peers. It’s absolutely an art style I wish would truly have a resurgence, and maybe we will see more hand-drawn, personality-first artwork as the world slides into AI image generation drudgery.

Superstore 3000 - Final Thoughts

As you can maybe tell by now, I’m very high on Superstore 3000. I think the gameplay is fun, light, and evocative. I think the artwork is bold, bright, and full of personality. And even though it’s not the deepest or most complex game in the world, there’s a lot of fun to be had here against your fellow players. I do wish it could support more players, which might be my only real mark against it.

I recently wrote a pretty rough review for another tile laying game, where I felt like everything the game had you doing was a bit predictable. And that the central puzzle of laying the tiles wasn’t very engaging. With Superstore 3000, I couldn’t feel more differently. Here, you’re hoping and praying for that one specific tile, you have a lot more agency over what you’re picking, and you need to balance spending money with getting tiles that could be useful.

If you’re looking for a fun but light gaming experience with friends, and you like tile-placing games where you have to think on your feet to score points and achieve goals, Superstore 3000 is definitely for you.

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The copy of Superstore 3000 used in the creation of this review was provided by Asmodee US. Photos courtesy of the author.