Shoppe Keep, a fantasy shop keeper simulator developed by Arvydas Žemaitis who is a singular developer, employing 2 other people to help with Music and Art. While the genre is a rather Niche and small one, it is one of my more favourite game types to play. From the very successful and classic Recettear to browser based games like Swords and Potions, Shoppe Keep takes on a first person approach to the shop keeping gameplay, walking up to each shelf to stock them or to the customers who walk about to offer them deals.
Story
There isn’t much of a story to this one, you load up the game within the Shop Keep’s home and are given a little push towards the shop itself. As you play you can select quests to undertake in the form of “orders” from having to sell 5 potions to customers to selling complete sets of armour. As you complete these quests you will gain K Points to improve both your shop and your shop keeper. The game progresses in 10 day segmented seasons, with items becoming less popular during specific seasons, Coconut drink being more popular during hotter seasons.
Play Length can differ depending on how you manage your shop, with each day lasting around 15 minutes. You have infinite time to set up shop before the day starts, placing furniture and items for sale or exploring the town square for trash cans to rummage through. Going through 1 whole year can take around 10-15 hours of in-game play, but again that will differ from play to play. There isn’t much reason for restarting the game, rather continuing on from where you are to make a bigger and better shop.
Gameplay
Shoppe Keep takes the standard approach to its control scheme, WASD for movement, Shift for sprinting, Space to tell you to stop trying to jump, J to flip the bird… well not so classic. You will walk around in a first person view for all of the game, placing furniture by directing your view with the mouse and placing them down with Left Click or deleting what is currently there with right click. Stacking the shelves is done the opposite way around with right click for placing and left click for picking up.
As you progress you will unlock new skills, items for sale, customers to entice and finally machines to do the work for you. You will advance gradually, stacking shelves yourself with little to no variation in items, slowly unlocking greatswords, engineering scrolls and furniture to place them on. You will unlock steam powered Eyebot type machines, with the ability to set them to defence machines for zapping thieves, stockers to fill the shelves with goods or pickup drones to clean up the shop from dropped items.
You will obviously be trading in Gold, which is used to order in new stock and pay for the furniture in which you display the items on. You can change the mark-up on items in %, sticking to around 120 at lower levels and eventually reaching above 150% for maximum profit. There is a hidden system for if someone will buy an item or steal it, which isn’t really explained to the player all too well but can be learned through trial and error.
Overall Thoughts and Feelings
The music in Shoppe Keep is top notch, fitting the fantasy theme expertly with tracks for all seasons, time segments and situations. With the ability to adjust what song plays under what condition is a welcome mechanic, with 21 tracks to select from for the 5 different phases. If you really like 1 track in particular you can set that to all phases of the game, or if you want the barbarian theme to be very distinctive. The tracks can get a bit repetitive after sometime, but with the ability to change them at will lessen that impact.
The game itself is very solid, I only found a few bugs here or there that were easily fixed. I found it hard to fault much in this game, however the most glaring problem is the farm at the back of the shop, taking too much time to give care too and with no automation option. If we could set up a robot system for the farm it would feel a whole lot better and immerse it into the shop itself rather than being an outside mechanic.
Overall Shoppe Keep gets an 8/10, it is a great game to play if you have a half hour to burn or a couple hours to really get invested into something. It isn’t for everyone as it really is just a simulator game about being a shop clerk, with some added barbarian defence thrown in to amp up the excitement and thief killing to keep you on your toes. The progression can be a bit too slow at points, with the farm feeling very underplayed, early days pretty much forcing you to walk up to people to sell items and end-game content feeling a bit empty when compared to the earlier stages. With more content, items to sell, people to interact with, deeper quests and some more intriguing things to unlock I can see this game increasing in playability.
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