Oh work sims, how you consistently vex and frustrate me! While I do understand there are folks out there who really dig the routine and satisfaction they can offer, completing tasks that have a certain rhythm of repetition to them, only a small portion of the games in this style that I’ve played feel like they could satisfy that itch. So many others are often lackluster, buggy, and simply lack the degree of variety or polish to justify people spending hours with them though, and I’m afraid that Recycling Center Simulator seriously risks falling into that category.

As you may have guessed, in this game you’ll run a recycling center. As you may have also guessed, this makes your activities fairly repetitive. You’ll go out to different sites to pick up a bunch of trash strewn about, take it back to your place, sort it, and then process it to sell off. There can be a bit more to it, but that’s the gist of what needs to be done. Mechanically this will unsurprisingly require you to get your walking simulator on, trying not to miss anything as you try to clumsily collect it all, bagging smaller items but needing to walk bigger ones back to the truck before you’ll be able to pick up more. If this is already sounding like it could be a bit tedious, you’re getting the idea.

The thing is, for some tasks like the sorting, you’ll have the option of hiring someone to do them. That could leave you to instead focus more on the management aspects of the business, though even those are pretty limited. For the most part you’ll be looking to score new places to collect materials, usually trying to focus on specific ones that have a more premium price or are tied to larger contracts you’re looking to fulfill. You’ll also have the opportunity to do a little haggling over price, giving you a window to making a little more cash if you’re savvy, but since this is just a matter of picking a lower or higher price (depending on the context) and not actually doing any other form of negotiating it’s also not terribly satisfying.

Once you then settle into the grind, the problem is that it doesn’t take long to see how lazily some of this has been put together. Even on different jobs you’ll find yourself returning to very similar sites picking up very similar crap. This just feels like they got to maybe a third of what better competitors offer up in the genre, and then calling it a day. I have no doubt some people may enjoy it, but there are more diverse and engaging ways to spend a few hours on repetitive tasks than what this offers.