Supermarket Chaos is one of those cozy, sit-back-and-relax type organizing game – or so it seems in the beginning. Published by BunnyHopHome Studios, this game can be quickly overwhelming since you need to organize over 4000 items in the store. However there is also a unique mechanic that you don’t usually see in the relaxing games’ genre, a permanent upgrade system.
Completing certain tasks (more on this below), nets the players with an in-game currency called Stars. These stars can be “cashed-in” to buy permanent upgrades for your character, basically making them more efficient and reliable. In this guide, we will take you through the best ways of collecting and using Stars.
How to Get Stars in Supermarket Chaos
The concept of receiving Stars is fairly simple: you complete the entire set of a product, which in turn gives you +1 Star. However, there a few variables that dictate HOW you get the said Stars. For some items like frozen pizza, you need to make multiple laps around the store to find the pizza of a specific brand and stock it in the respective freezer.
Example: The Raclette Cream Pizza doesn’t just go into the Frozen Food section, it goes into Frozen Food > Pizza > Raclette Cream Pizza section. To complete a ‘set’ of this, you must scour the entire store for pizza of this particular brand and stock 10 units to get a Star. The conditions to meet for getting a set differ for each product.
For other items like Toilet Paper, you get a Star for each unit shelved even if it belongs to the same brand.
Example: Stocking a single unit of Petus Toilet Roll will give you a Star. If you have one more of the same brand and stock it again, you get another star. This remains true for each unit and every brand of toilet paper you stock.
How to Use Stars in Supermarket
Now that you’ve racked up some Stars, its time to use them. But first, it is important to understand the concept of money and skills. Each unit of a product you stack nets 0.1 dollar. Sounds cheap right? But these one cents rack up rather quickly, since the only condition to receive them is correctly stocking shelves.
After you get your first 2 dollars, you can unlock permanent upgrades from the skill tree. To access it, simply press escape and navigate to the icon that looks like a light bulb. Here, you will find three primary skills: Extra Carry, Quick Step, and Long Reach. Getting these early is one of the most useful tips to manage limited storage in Supermarket Chaos. Each primary skill has its own extension of skill trees that further add to the gameplay. It is important to note that these skills are non-refundable, meaning once you unlock them it becomes your permanent choice for the rest of the playthrough.
The subsequent skills are also more expensive, can be levelled up, and branch out into another set of sub-skills. For an efficient experience, we recommend investing first in:
- Extra Carry – Allows you carry more items at a time.
- Quick Step – Mainly to unlock the subsequent skills.
- Request More – Sub-skill of Extra Carry; Brings all the products of the same brands to you (can be leveled up four more times)
- Match Finder – Highlights the product of the same brand as in your hand
You can always mix and match these according to your playstyle, or try some totally different ones. Remember that some skills are active with a dedicated cooldown period, while some are passive and always enabled.
With that out of the way, let us turn out attention to Stars. You must use the Stars on one of the three ATM machines in the store to get various rewards. You can find these machines in produce section, just right of the entrance. It is basically a slot machine, where if you hit the jackpot, you get “stickers” – items with various special effects. There are a total of three kinds of ATM machines, each with different mechanics:
| ATM Name | Star Requirement | Odds of Success |
| Tough Guy ATM (Green) | Four | 10% |
| Regular ATM (Red) | Twenty | 51% |
| Faaancy ATM (Blue) | Forty | 95% |
Once you acquire a sticker, you immediately get its rewards. For example, the <Burnt Bread> sticker reduces the cooldown of all active abilities by 20% for the rest of the playthrough or the <Plumber Mushroom> grants you an instant 10 dollars. You can also check which stickers you’ve collected until now in the Stickers section in the pause menu.
If you want to try your luck at the Faaancy ATM machine, here’s a quick way to get your first 40 Stars:
Start stacking toilet paper rolls – you will usually find them in the Tea/Coffee/Sugar, Bathroom/Toiletries, or the Fresh bread aisle. Next, invest in the Match Finder ability and focus on Wine. This section has a lot of compartments, with the ‘set’ condition of three units. Pick up a wine bottle of any brand and activate Match Finder to find all bottles of the same brand around you.
When done correctly, this alone will net you anywhere around 42-45 Stars.
