Vending Machine Co.

As of writing, the game does not mention anywhere that it has a timed day and night cycle. I bought it thinking it was a relaxing game that I could play while watching something on a second monitor, but the timed mechanics make it less suitable for that. I would argue that being timed makes it not relaxing.

Why is this game so addicting????

I've played for nearly 23 hours so far. Here are my notes:

•I got this game ahead of launch, it was AWESOME to see game improvements and additions happening. Almost everything I thought "Oh I wish this game had.." got added in.
•The art is adorable, and I love that you can get click reactions from the neighborhood cats/birds
•The soundtrack is pretty solid. A couple of the songs I do skip upon occasion, just because they had some repetitive sounds, but I don't think most people would notice.
•The fruit drop game should be illegal. I spent WAY too much time playing it.

Helpful hints:
•If you go into the "Hot items" tab in the store, you can hover over the hot item icon on the corner of the item and it will tell you which area it's for.
•You can't scrub down machines until they get dirty. I did spend some time trying to use my sponge from the toolbox before realizing that lol
•Renting out as many machines as possible in a new area, then slowly buying them out really helped me not to run out of money to stock my machines.
•If you're swapping out items from machines, you can box all, fill the machine(Use spread all in the machine settings if you don't have enough to fully fill the machine, each spot needs to be occupied) and then shift click the boxes to get them to go into your truck, rather than dragging each box over. However, if you have any of the boxed items in the machine, it will fill those first.

Things I hope they add:
•A way to sort hot items by area, or load items by area. There are a lot of items and it can kind of get overwhelming to keep going back and forth.
•A way to stack everything in the warehouse, and to autoload all hot items in the warehouse into the truck.
•A way to see which items events apply to. For example, there's a week where I thought everything under the traditional/spiritual tab in the store would be selling, but it seemed like the customers were only really buying charms.

All in all, a completely awesome game and another cozy winner from Rogue Duck. I've technically "won" the game(though I haven't completed all the accomplishments) and I fully intend to keep playing.

Vending Machine Co. is a fun and relaxing management sim. Buy vending machines, keep them stocked, and play a bunch of mini games. No missable achievements, 100% in around 12 hours or so.

Approximate time to 100%: My guess is around 12 hours.
Estimated achievement difficulty: 1/10
Minimum number of playthroughs needed: 1
Is there a good guide available: You don't need a guide
Multiplayer achievements: No
Missable achievements: No
Grinding Achievements: No
DLC-Only achievements: No
Speedrun achievements: No
Time-gated achievements: No
RNG-achievements: No
Does difficulty affect achievements: No difficulty setting
Unobtainable/glitched achievements: No
Gamepad or mouse and keyboard: I played with mouse and keyboard

In Vending Machine Co. you just started your own business of managing vending machines. So you rent your first machine and stock it with some items. Then you go to bed to collect your profits the next day. At first, you have to do a lot of manual work, like collecting the money, repairing the machine, and keeping it clean. Later on, those tasks can be automated, leaving you mostly to keep an eye on the stock in your machines.

There are 9 areas to unlock, each with 2 or 3 spots for a vending machine (except the last location, which has more spots). There are also a lot of product categories you can unlock in the store where you buy the items. There are so many upgrades available that there is always something to work toward or that you feel close to reaching, which keeps you going to the next step and the next step, and before you know it, you have so many vending machines!

Each location also has their own specialties. Like different customers who like different products, but also mini-games and stores you find on that location and can interact with. So opening up a new location is not just giving you new slots for vending machines, but also a new game mechanic. You can expand quickly and just rent machines, but keep an eye out when the rent of a machine ends. However, I took the more patient approach of buying machines, upgrading them, and after finishing a location, then going to a new location. Which is also totally fine and doesn't give you any penalties.

I struggled a bit to keep up with each machine's stock, so in the end I made every machine the purple one with 20 product spots, chose 2 product groups with 10 items each, and stocked the machines with just those. This felt a bit boring, but also more manageable than having a bunch of random items in each machine. However, I had 1 or 2 machines with random stuff because you will get those from sponsorships. This took away the opportunity for the "hot items" each week, but made managing the stock a lot easier, which I preferred.

Vending Machine Co. has a lot of achievements, but many of them are easy to unlock when you reach a new area or when you reach a new level on your socials. I would recommend first manually repairing and cleaning dirt/graffiti from your machines for the achievements before you buy upgrades that do it for you. None of the achievements are missable, so just enjoy running your Vending Machine business!

I give Vending Machine Co. 4 out of 5 stars.


Do you enjoy games that don't have missable achievements? Check out this list on my website:
Missi the Achievement Huntress: Games without missable achievements