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(+1)


Interesting game. My thoughts are very mixed. It seems like a really great concept with really questionable execution. The atmosphere and the gameplay loop (in concept) grabbed me, but the moment-to-moment gameplay is clunky for a long list of reasons.

MAJOR IMPRESSIONS

The gameplay loop works but it's filled with a lot of little things that left me wondering "why?" To begin with, why is the game designed around controllers? This seems to me a pure PC game. I don't know why anyone owning a console would ever play a game like this and I don't know enough about PC players who use controllers to be able to understand what sort of games they enjoy, but for a management game like this it's a strange choice.

The game is in desperate need of a tutorial or the bare minimum introduction which at least explains coherently the basics of how to run the shop. A lot of it was obvious to me and some of it took some trial and error to figure out but I've played a lot of similar games so I knew more or less what to look for. Even if you want your players to figure out the fine details of what everything does it's still essential to at least make sure that the player has complete awareness of the basic loop and how to do the bare minimum.

I found both haggle layouts to be functionally alright. The scale layout is a more visually clear indicator which makes it more user-friendly it seems. But I don't think the game's trade system problems come from the trade screen visuals. In my experience it's much more frustrating that there's very little clarity about what factors determine how to find the best deal. It feels like taking shots in the dark because the game doesn't ever imply there are other factors like preferences of the individual clients or other things like that, so it seems almost random, and that's not very engaging because it reinforces that it's all random and you don't need to pay attention since it's all about random guesswork after you make the basic consideration of what items are plentiful and scarce on that day. What I mean is that I don't see a way to make an informed decision on the first try in most cases (if that's intentional you can ignore this). I noticed that displays give a bonus to sale price but at least for me the haggling wasn't fun, and I would think that it's crucial that it's engaging in some way since I assume the whole game is built around it. There is also very little way to know how to decide what items are best to display for any given day. I would guess that it's best to display scarce items and to keep plentiful items in storage but I could be wrong.


I don't understand what kind of players this game is for. When I first opened it the atmosphere sucked me right in and I assumed it's a game for people who want to relax, but the game generally seems obtuse and systems-focused. So I don't know if it's supposed to appeal to cozy games players or management game players who prefer a bit more complexity. If you're aiming for the first demographic you don't have to dumb it down but you're going to have to really make the game experience as smooth as humanly possible and make a really thorough tutorial that even a child can complete. If the goal is the second group then you will have to make it more engaging and lean into the complexity, but you're still  going to have to explain the rules of price manipulation more clearly.

MINOR IMPRESSIONS & BUGS

The music becoming quieter when you tab out of the game is a weird but nice touch.

The UI navigation is counterintuitive sometimes but I assume that stems from the controller-first design. It was most noticeable in the interface for moving the furniture and changing the decorations.

Generally the UI is well designed (the storage for example), though I would personally prefer that if I press the movement keys it automatically closes the inventory-storage screen.



The table highlight often highlights a different spot than the one that opens when you interact with it - sometimes is highlights two spots at once. It's difficult to replicate but it happened at least a few times. Overall the game is bug-free.

Had a few lag spikes when I loaded into the shop. Happened when I used the broom and went through the back room doors the first time.

The music is a good choice. It sets the atmosphere and isn't grating. I left it running in the background for over an hour and it never got annoying.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The display management, the haggle system, the economy dynamics - it's all a really solid foundation for an incredible game, but it didn't engage me because it wasn't possible to understand how my actions affected my results most of the time. Your atmosphere is great. Your art direction is great. Your art quality (on the finished assets) is great.

(+1)

Thanks for the high effort feedback, I really appreciate it. First off, I apologize for the poor state of the game; things set it back a bit but I'm hoping to really give it 110% to iron out the kinks and actually make it /fun/. Summed quotes below to be expedient, not trying to riff on you or anything.

why use controllers you pleb?

Because I like them!(and another game in my niche did this) But also because half of the game is an action top-down-shooter, not featured this time around. Oh, and in 2035 when I finally release on consoles it will be useful to have good UI for them.

tutorial???

Yeah it's bad right now. I keep putting it off but it's really important to get done since no one has a clue unless they played Recettear. Maybe I'll get off my ass and do it by next time, at least spell it out in text.

lack of clarity in trade; give me informed decisions!

Yeah I'm with you. It's kind of hard to grasp as is, but there will be lots of aspects available to the player to have an idea of how far they can push the envelope. Guess I'll summarize as it is in my head more or less: 1)There will be many customer types, and these customers will have different markup % ranges that shift as you get to know them. You can keep track of these changes and get a better idea of the range by editing the trade weights. 2)There will be moods for the customer, that will change behavior and/or price range. 3)The demand of items will be predictable/hinted at somewhat, I'm not sure to what degree though. ie newspaper articles, spying on rival's recent trade volume 4)Advertisement campaigns that could do several things, maybe including markup changes.|| Looking at all these, it's alright but maybe needs something more/different to really be good.

who is this game for?

It's a very specific niche, Recettear and Moonlighter players(they are still alive right?..), and the general 'shop sim' crowd. That said, the current pace is NOT what I want. It will be way more chilled out, especially in the beginning to ease people in. You do mention a good point, I kind of forgot about the 'comfy' demographic as I have made this game. I suppose a small portion of those people may be interested, especially when the graphics get there. I have thought about how it's probably gonna bite me(money wise) for doing the combat section of this game, I might be better off just doing a pure comfy econ sim game... but I'm gonna try it damnit.

audio quieting on alt tab

lol finally someone noticed, honestly I'm not sure if it was worth it, but it's there now.

ui navigation and design

Fair enough, and interesting idea with closing the menu as moving away. Might make that an option to enable, or even do that by default when in KB&M mode. One thing to consider is to switch to an entirely different UI that is more suited to mouse, but that's quite a bit of work. Or maybe there's a good compromise I am missing.

double devil table highlights and the wrong slot

Yeah, that thing really peeves me too. I've been putting it off, but it probably isn't that hard to fix.

lag spikes

Shader compilation, I decided against setting up the manual pre caching on load that is necessary for first launch. Will remedy that eventually.

music is listenable

Thanks, I made it myself, and this is the highest praise I have heard of it lmao.

summary

For visuals, it's almost all thanks to Rutbon, he's a great guy. Will try to live up to that quality and make this an awesome game, or at least one where I don't cringe. Hope to deliver a taste of that by the next DD I join. Once again, thanks for the honest feedback.