10th September 2010, 11:27 AM
Recettear is a doujin soft game that was, for several years, only available in Japanese. But a newly-formed company has given it a professional translation and an American release on Steam, Impluse, and Gamer's Gate. There's also a demo that gives a pretty good idea of what the game is all about.
And what the game is all about is operating an item shop in a fantasy world, for the purpose of paying off an enormous debt that the main character's absent father incurred. You can pair up with a warrior and go dungeon trawling or you can buy goods from the local merchants, or just plain locals, for resell. Selling involves finding the right price that a customer is willing to pay, which can require some negotiation. You basically have two tries to get the right price before they get upset and leave, so start with an optimistic price and then go down from there.
The dungeon aspect puts you in control of the warrior character as you fight through randomly generated dungeons, the warrior keeps all the gold and the main character collects all the items. That is, of course, if the warrior doesn't get knocked unconscious before finding the exit. If that happens, you get to pick one item to take back.
Everything in the game is based around time. Going to the dungeon takes time, opening the shop for a while takes time, and so on. Since the main character is in debt, that means regular payments to the debt collector. So you have to keep up with buying and selling or else the main character winds up homeless and broke on the street.
I played the demo a while back and it was pretty fun. Not overly complex or filled with an amazing story, but it's a fun little game. To go along with this, the price is only $20.
And what the game is all about is operating an item shop in a fantasy world, for the purpose of paying off an enormous debt that the main character's absent father incurred. You can pair up with a warrior and go dungeon trawling or you can buy goods from the local merchants, or just plain locals, for resell. Selling involves finding the right price that a customer is willing to pay, which can require some negotiation. You basically have two tries to get the right price before they get upset and leave, so start with an optimistic price and then go down from there.
The dungeon aspect puts you in control of the warrior character as you fight through randomly generated dungeons, the warrior keeps all the gold and the main character collects all the items. That is, of course, if the warrior doesn't get knocked unconscious before finding the exit. If that happens, you get to pick one item to take back.
Everything in the game is based around time. Going to the dungeon takes time, opening the shop for a while takes time, and so on. Since the main character is in debt, that means regular payments to the debt collector. So you have to keep up with buying and selling or else the main character winds up homeless and broke on the street.
I played the demo a while back and it was pretty fun. Not overly complex or filled with an amazing story, but it's a fun little game. To go along with this, the price is only $20.