Running a small shop in the Middle Ages, is that a hidden dream for you? Very clearly, it has never been one for me, and yet, for about ten hours, I had the pleasure of running a medieval shop, and I finally took more pleasure in it than I thought so! A brief overview of Shop: The Little Shop, which was released from early access on April 22 on PC.
We start by creating our character at the start of the game.
Dance Shop, you play as a merchant who you can personalize: choice of sex, haircut or clothes. Initially very brief, the choice is completed little by little modulo our progress in the title. In order not to be dropped from the start, the game takes us by the hand with a half-hour tutorial that allows you to learn how to move your character, place orders for various supplies, set up our stalls, then open the shop ! We will see after 5 minutes our first customers hurtling down to make their purchases... And don't think that we will simply stay behind the "cash desk", no no... we will have to watch the grain to put equipment back in stock just bought by customers, place orders if our stocks reach zero to prevent customers from getting angry, do not miss the salesman who comes by every day to see you for a few minutes to sell items at a discount (or vice versa, more expensive.. . taking advantage of the urgency of the moment)... while efficiently managing the space you have. Because yes, as in any shop worthy of the name, not everything is on the shelves and, due to the times, products are stored at the back of the shop on shelves and with an optimization of the space to be managed as well as possible. To manage the space precisely, you have to take advantage of the phases when the store closes. Once the day is over, we have a small balance sheet of gains/losses and we can enter construction mode to modify the layout of the store, decorate it or even enlarge it. We also have, at the start of the game, several lands, which will allow you to extend your shop over more squares.
To progress, it is necessary to complete several sets of objectives
For a few hours, we will act a little mechanically with a few objectives in mind: to have more items to sell, a prettier shop to attract more customers, and always make more profits. Seemingly simple challenges, but which, depending on the difficulty mode chosen, will be damn complex. Indeed, the game will not manage a customer disappointment in "simple" mode in the same way as in a higher difficulty mode, which will have devastating effects on your reputation, and could even lead to ruin very quickly. We will quickly surround ourselves with a few employees so that the shelving is more efficient, always paying attention to being able to pay them. After experiencing this, the employee didn't come to work (logical) and then had her morale down, which made her less efficient. I also really liked the idea of being able to specialize: you can play the honest craftsman and become a cook or a blacksmith, or be more vicious and set yourself the objective of making the most profit by buying the raw material cheaper as possible. In any case, it's fun and it renews the interest a bit, even if you won't take away the idea that the game is very repetitive after a few hours.
You can be supported by several employees to run the shop
Because yes, despite a large number of furniture and recipes to unlock, the Sassybot studio has not managed to diversify its game loop so as to avoid a certain weariness. Half a dozen hours of play will have been enough to give rise to a feeling of weariness in me. I was far from having explored all the possibilities, but that no longer motivated me as much. Graphically, the title is intended to be warm, if not technically sharp. We are faced with a game that will run on modest configurations, and which wants to be fluid in all circumstances. Regarding the soundtrack, I admit having deactivated it after only an hour, the latter not having marked me excessively and being - too! - quite repetitive.
You can have several wings when you progress well: pastry, forge, etc...
Shop is a nice title to browse and which will keep you in suspense for a while, as long as you are not too sensitive to a repetitive game loop (a little in essence unfortunately), and which is very affordable, with a price displayed at €12,49 on Steam.
