TCG Card Shop Simulator review

TCG Card Shop Simulator is exactly what it says. You order stock, fill shelves, set prices, work the till and slowly grow a tiny card shop into a local institution, while ripping booster packs of the fictional Tetramon TCG to build your own collection. After a long run in Game Preview, it launched in 1.0 on Game Pass on Sept 15.

The headline 1.0 feature is that you can finally play the card game. Screen Rant (8/10, reviewing the full release on PS5) explains that from shop level 7 you can build a 50-card Tetramon deck, read the full rulebook and sit down with customers. It also points to 273 new decorations and 55 community fan-art posters.

Screen Rant found the controller works surprisingly well, though giving change at the register is tedious until you hire staff, and customers occasionally clip through the camera. It notes the developer replaced AI-generated card art with work by human artists, credited on each card. Complete Xbox, which reviewed the Game Preview build on Series X in March, called the pack-opening loop “dangerously addictive” but found customer AI robotic and shop customisation limited.

It’s a slow-burn game: HowLongToBeat puts the main goals at around 30 hours. There’s no aggregate score yet, so treat it as a comfort game to put on alongside a podcast, not a critics’ darling.