Ship, Inc.
Organize the chaos. Tape it up. Ship it out.
Ship, Inc. is a delightfully cozy, task-oriented sim where you run your own shipping business from the ground up. Print, pack, tape, repeat. With the right upgrades and minimal experience, your humble folding table operation quickly evolves into a polished shipping warehouse. It's a game of order, rhythm, and the occasional oddball request.
UX (Control Feel & User Experience)
This is a point-and-click experience at its core. Almost the entire game can be played with just a mouse, making it incredibly accessible and easy to jump into. It’s fully compatible with the Steam Deck and plays great as a single-player title for zoning out and sinking into your own little routine.
Don’t be fooled by the simplicity though, efficiency and organization play a key role in progressing through the game. The learning curve isn’t steep, but mastering your tools and workspace layout will make all the difference as orders ramp up.
Gameplay Progression
Each in-game day follows a satisfying formula:
Unpack goods, print a packing slip, pick the right box.
Sort fragile, heavy, and other items with the proper packaging.
Engage with small mini-games like cleaning stained clothes or reassembling broken goods.
Tape it up, slap a sticker on, and send it off.
The conveyor belt won’t hesitate to reject your work if you’ve made a major mistake, but small missteps just cost you a bit of cash. Your performance report prints out, you get a chance to learn from your mistakes, and you’re on to the next.
Once the workday is done, you can explore the surrounding map. Visit shops to upgrade your workspace or tools, pay bills at your apartment, store cash at the bank, or snag passive perks from a quirky law office. A shady alleyway character even offers you… alternative solutions for your unshipped items.
With each passing day, things ramp up, not only with more complex orders, but unexpected moral choices. Report illegal shipments? Or profit from them? The game leaves it to you. Additionally you might encounter time-sensitive shipments that pay big if you get them out quickly and correctly (this is where speed and efficiency become your lifeline to success).
Immersion
From the moment you start clicking, Ship, Inc. draws you into its quirky satisfying loop. The interface is intuitive, the mechanics are easy to internalize, and before you know it, real-world hours have vanished.
It’s immersive not through narrative, but through its core gameplay. You slip into the routine like it’s your real job, but without the back pain and office drama. That natural rhythm is the magic here, and if you’re into simulation games, this one makes it easy to lose track of time.
Stability & Performance
Over 10–15 hours of play, I experienced only minor hiccups; some items overlapped when I was trying to Tetris them into a too-small box, or I’d occasionally fumble with the layout, but nothing game-breaking or off-putting.
While my experience was smooth, some early Steam reviews mention persistent bugs. A few players reported needing to restart the game every few in-game days, and some had severe launch issues closer to release. That said, the game fully released in late June 2025 and has since seen at least 7 substantial updates. Most of the bugs mentioned seem to have been addressed, or at the very least I never encountered anything listed there. It's always hard to really gauge a niche game such as this and tell if the downvotes are due to technical issues on the player's side, or a more serious issue under the hood. In my opinion, this is a prime example of why I think your system specs should be publicly visible on your reviews, so people can determine if these issues could be comparable on their devices, or if it is possibly a more localized issue.
As always, early negative reviews can stick like a roll of old tape. People often don’t return to update them even after issues are resolved. But I make it a point to test current builds and look at the full picture.
Value for Price
At $9.99 USD / $13.75 CAD / € 8.62 Euro, Ship, Inc. sits at the lower end of the simulation game price spectrum, and I think it fits well there. It offers a cute, easy-return loop that can be played in small doses or binged in long sessions.
There’s no deep story or major narrative arc, and after even just a few hours you’ve seen most of what the game has to offer. I managed to unlock nearly all upgrades in that time, and now I’m just chasing achievements (32/49 so far). For some, this might be the perfect “occasional” game. For others, especially those who love meticulous, low-stakes games, there’s potential for dozens of relaxing hours.
Overall, it’s a fair value, as long as the core gameplay is something you enjoy. If you're unsure, maybe wishlist it for a Steam sale and revisit when you're in the mood to ship weird stuff for a living.
Final Verdict
If you love simulation games or have a soft spot for quirky, methodical job sims, Ship, Inc. will probably charm you right out of the gate. If you’re hesitant or leaning toward “meh,” trust that instinct; there’s no game-changing mechanic or compelling narrative here that you absolutely can’t miss.
But if you’re looking for a chill, slightly offbeat game to fill some downtime or scratch that organizing-and-sorting itch, this one’s worth your time, and doesn't hit your wallet too hard at that.
Joystick Score: 4/5
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some bubble wrap therapy to get back to.