Novamdomum

Audentes Fortuna Iuvat

Last Notes

2025-08-18 21:39:31 UTC

These are the games I've been obsessing over (includes medieval themed ones):
Super Mini Mart - https://store.steampowered.com/app/1914060/Super_Mini_Mart/
Winkeltje: The Little Shop - https://store.steampowered.com/app/949290/Winkeltje_The_Little_Shop/
inKONBINI: One Store. Many Stories - https://store.steampowered.com/app/2723430/inKONBINI_One_Store_Many_Stories/
Cozy Keep: Farm, Craft, Manage - https://store.steampowered.com/app/2261350/Cozy_Keep_Farm_Craft_Manage/
Super Mini Mart is my favourite at the moment. It's not perfect, but it's a really chill experience. Staff are pretty useless, as they cost a lot and get in everyone's way. It's more fun to do everything myself anyway. It's just a really satisfying game loop and I hope, as it develops, we get qol improvements like auto stock buying for essentials and auto stacking of goods by sell by date. That last one is important because I always end up waiting till all the stuff in the shop is gone before ordering more. That's so that customers aren't given so much choice that they never get around to buying stuff before it goes out of date. It gets 5 stars from me though, cos it's really fun 🙂
Winkeltje was the game that got me into the whole shop running experience. The top down view is kind of restrictive though and it's not nearly as fun as Super Mini Mart. I'd still give it a solid 3 stars. I love the screenshots of peoples fully developed shops but it feels like it would be such a huge amount of work to get there 😥.
inKonbini is just a demo at the moment, but it's so atmospheric and lovely. I can't wait to play the full game. It really leans into the fascinating culture of the Konbini store and the people who run them, as well as their relationships with their customers. It's a deliberately slow paced, thoughtful game, and it's really interesting that in the discussion groups, when someone recently asked for the devs to speed the main characters movement up, a ton of other players shouted all together to please NOT do that. It's just a demo but I'd still give it 5 stars 😁.
Cozy Keep is basically Winkeltje in first person, as far as I'm concerned. I'm classing it as a supermarket sim because most of the same mechanics apply. You buy stock, including all the standard groceries, put it on display and sell it. Then you develop the shop, increase it's appeal through decorations and reputation and sell more and more until you're successful and the shop is thriving. It's really fun, but maybe a little less accessible than Super Mini Mart. There's kind of an overwhelming amount of different things to do as well, which I'm finding a little off-putting. Still giving it a good 3 stars though 😎.
I've seen that there are several other shop/supermarket type games out there, but I haven't tried any so far. Do you know of any good ones? and are there any that have really cracked the hiring staff thing yet?

2025-08-04 09:06:57 UTC

You fell in love with a game and it's characters, sunk hundreds, maybe even thousands of hours into it. It became a comforting, immensely satisfying part of your daily life. Then you heard a sequel was coming and got really hyped but when it came out it was utter rubbish...
Which game(s) was that for you?