Roadside Research Makes Me Nostalgic For Retail Work

A long time ago, before I had an illustrious career as a writer, I was just another person working at a cash register for a variety of retail outlets. It wasn’t always the best of times, but it had its moments. I wouldn’t say I look back on those days with rose-tinted glasses or anything, but there are still aspects I miss.

Lately though, a game that goes by the name of Roadside Research has been giving me a bit of a nostalgia trip for the better. It’s a game that mixes traditional store sim game mechanics with the quirky concept that everyone working at the store is an extraterrestrial conducting research on humans.

Cleanup On Aisle Four

Roadside Research finds you doing familiar tasks like pumping gas, stocking shelves, and ringing up customers. However, you and up to three other friends also film and photograph customers doing certain things, like smoking or wearing specific clothing items, to further your machinations and gain access to more alien tech. The game doesn't really have an end goal beyond expanding your store and adding more purchasable items or subversive alien tech, it's mostly just about fooling around with your friends. And, of course, there’s a probing mini-game.

If you happen to get caught in the act or someone spots a pile of alien goop that you’ve inadvertently splorched out onto the floor before you clean it, your suspicion level will go up. If your sus level goes up too high, the FBI will show up and make you prove your humanity through a mini-game. The concept of having to blink, breathe, or fart to prove you’re a human may sound simple, but it isn't. I have yet to complete one of these mini-games successfully myself, and once the jig is up, you’re bound to get blown into goop by the FBI.

Now, I have never had a federal agent come into my work and demand I prove my humanity, but many a customer seemed to be doing their darndest to bother me and my co-workers back in the day. Still, we found ways to get through the day together and keep each other entertained. That kind of brings me to my point of why I love the way Roadside Research reminds me of my retail antics.

You see, I kind of consider those times my halcyon days. I was young and had very little responsibility. The weight of the world had yet to fall upon my shoulders, so to speak. While being a cashier in a sim game is just as uneventful as it can be in real life, I find myself recollecting a time when I could do things like clock out on payday and have cash in hand to do whatever I want. I also find it therapeutic to take out some leftover pent-up frustration on these NPCs. There were definitely some customers back in the day I would’ve loved to have seen get the prober gun treatment.

Friends are another big piece to this puzzle. I can’t really think of a retail job I’ve had where I didn’t have a friend or two working alongside me. A lot of times, that would be how one of us got an interview in the first place. Playing around and joking with my friends in-game is a very similar experience to break times at work. I can’t help but think of some of the folks I’ve worked with over the years that have become lifelong friends and others that I’ve lost touch with. I hope they’re doing okay nowadays.

Now, I realize I may not have painted myself as a model employee, what with all the goofing off, and perhaps I wasn’t. But I was a hard worker who took pride in what I did. And I think my friends would agree that comes through in my rigid organization of our stockroom in Roadside Research. I’ve taken it upon myself to organize the stock shelves by category, and I’ve become very meticulous about where everything goes in the store in general. I don’t know what it is about my brain that loves all the organizing, but I find doing this chore oh so soothing. I love to have a place for everything and everything in its place.

The other great thing about working retail in Roadside Research is I can’t get fired! Sure, I might get exploded here and there by a government agent, or run over by a car, but that’s manageable. I don’t have to worry about what I’ll do about bills, rent, or food as I do my in-game routine. I can just have fun with the grind. And that may be the biggest difference between this game and real life. Ya know, besides all the alien stuff…

Thank You, Come Again!

While I don’t think I’d ever truly want to go back to my retail days, as I happen to love what I do now, I can appreciate the way Roadside Research nails the more subtle and mundane aspects of pumping gas and giving customers change. It’s a nice way to go back without actually having to go back. I’m not sure if it would work as well for me without the zany and humorous twist of being blatantly obvious alien creatures with crudely drawn paper masks on their gigantic, green heads. Fortunately, though, we don’t have to worry about that.

Part of me also wonders if I could handle being a cashier at work all day, only to come home and do that all night in a video game. On one hand, I’ve already stated that it’s allowed me to work some things out from my past and given me a nostalgia trip. Still, retail can sometimes be a job where people can cause all kinds of friction. Ultimately, I like to think that coming home to a game where I can say what I want, jack up the product prices, and give those customers a good old-fashioned probing would’ve brightened my day then like it does now.