Recettear

[PyTom]

I was wondering if anyone else has played / is planning to play the new life-sim/RPG hybrid Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale.

I did, on the release date (yesterday), and found it to be a heck of a lot of fun, with funny dialogue and interesting characters. One thing I liked was the interplay between the dialogue/town-wandering aspect, the item-shop simulation, and the dungeon crawling aspects of the game. I'm actually pretty sure that dungeon-crawling isn't strictly required - except maybe to get you ahead of the curve money-wise at the very start of the game.

I took a walnut-bread based approach to the latter parts of the game. Buying one of the cheapest items (walnut bread), filling the store entirely with it, and then selling it cheap to gain merchant level rapidly. It works for a day or so at a time - and then the game crashes the walnut bread market.

So it even has something for a metagamer like me.

[LordShiranai]

This game looks really interesting. I'm considering downloading it off of Steam now that I've heard about it.

(Yet another RPG with interesting concepts that will be missed out on by most gamers because it isn't doesn't have FINAL FANTASY stamped on it.)

[jack_norton]

Considering the ranking it had already in pre-orders on Steam, I don't think that it will be missed out by most gamers
It's really fun to play (only tried the demo a week ago) and I'm happy because if steam accepted that game there might be hope "one day" for some indie games with manga art

[Counter Arts]

I got it. It's pretty interesting.

You need to balance improving your Merchant level (to get more abilities and higher margin goods) getting the debt paid and doing some adventuring to get the key ingredients for really high margin items. As you sell items to customers, you start figuring out the kinds of customers they are.

It gets really fun with fluctuating prices, advance orders, decorating the shop (affects what kinds of customers come in and therefore how many as not everyone is rich), vending machines, shop expansions, fusing items, trying to get some of your hobo adventurers to buy your best gear to save item slots (oh the tears I cried when I tried 70% from base and they were still just too broke, normally you sell at 100%-130%)...

What stories do I have? Hmm...

• A little girl buying stuff like really expensive vases, a book on liquors of the world (I hope that's for her parents)
• When my thief adventurer wants to buy my best weapon for a sword-wielder and many similiar stories
• Dying in a dungeon because I abuse the dash abilities of some characters (You hit a wall while running and you fall down)
• Selling items to a rich girl at way higher markup percentages
• Buying too much inventory at the low price fluxuations
• Staring in awe at some of the funny dumb stuff that happens

[Topagae]

"Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit..."

[Adorya]

The only drawback is once you got the gameplay down, it get a bit repetitive, but it's typical of Easygame station games
Also I am surprised it got steam seal of approval...maybe we will have others EGS translations in the future?

[jack_norton]

Topagae: Not really sure manga/anime is really mainstream. I mean, outside console games, how many popular PC games you see with anime/manga art? Just looking at steam, is hard to find 5, while you see tons with 3d or classic western art.
Also look at BFG (bigfishgames.com , largest casual game portal) and look how many games with anime/manga art you see in the top100 list?

[LordShiranai]

Topagae: Not really sure manga/anime is really mainstream. I mean, outside console games, how many popular PC games you see with anime/manga art? Just looking at steam, is hard to find 5, while you see tons with 3d or classic western art.
Also look at BFG (bigfishgames.com , largest casual game portal) and look how many games with anime/manga art you see in the top100 list?

I agree when it comes to PC games that are sold in the North America. (The Console market is a different story.)

The games which attract the so-called "core" PC gamer are generally FPS, RTS, WRPGs, or subscription-based MMOs. The vast majority of these will use use a primarily "western" art style. (A lot of MMO players will often discount anything with even somewhat "anime" inspired visuals, such as AION, as being a Korean grindfest or a cheaply made F2P knockoff.)

The Visual Novel genre is an exception, but most people looking for those types of games are also fans of anime or manga. It is also still considered niche in North America.

Many casual games also tend to use what could be considered a "western" art style, though a lot of them consist of what appears to be rushed, low quality 3D models for characters. However, there are many notable games where anime-inspired art is utilized. Some of Playfish' games on Facebook come to mind.

If find that some hardcore PC gamers often interpret anime-style art as meaning the game is intended for "console gamers." A surprising amount of the PC crowd are elitists, and feel that console style games necessitate shallow game play.

[gekiganwing]

Recettear is available on Steam, GamersGate, and ImpulseDriven for about $20 US. I haven't used any of those services, so I made sure to read their About Us pages. Even afterward, it wasn't entirely clear if the player has to remain online while playing their content, or whether single player games can be downloaded to a laptop and then played anywhere.

If find that some hardcore PC gamers often interpret anime-style art as meaning the game is intended for "console gamers." A surprising amount of the PC crowd are elitists, and feel that console style games necessitate shallow game play.

Fans will disagree over anything, no matter how trivial, to assert how awesome their favorite genres/styles/creators/whatever are. If you've been online too long (like I have...), you've probably read arguments why grimdark 3D games are mature and complex, and therefore good. I'm a fan of cute games and 2D graphics...

[rioka]

I was wondering when Recettear was going to be brought up here - it's been in my radar since it was still in Japanese. With that said, I will be planning to get it maybe next month as I just went on a really expensive vacation last month and I still have sticker shock. D:

[Nanashiko]

Capitalism Ho! I haven't played this game yet but I have read about it watched some gameplays with it and stuff it sounds quite cute and interesting. Not sure how well I would do in it being most games where there is stuff like run your own shops I fail XD I would like to play it if I get the chance.

[Radhreni]

Recettear is available on Steam, GamersGate, and ImpulseDriven for about $20 US. I haven't used any of those services, so I made sure to read their About Us pages. Even afterward, it wasn't entirely clear if the player has to remain online while playing their content, or whether single player games can be downloaded to a laptop and then played anywhere.

Steam is the only one that requires anything during the game, namely running Steam in online or offline mode. GamersGate I'm not familiar with, but it sounds like there's an optional downloader and that's it.

I have the Impulse version, and while you have to have Impulse installed to download the game, you do not have to run it to play. You can even transfer the game to another machine after downloading (like in your example).

Be aware that only Steam automatically patches to the most recent version. You'll have to get a patch from Carpe Fulgur's site for the other vendors' releases, but it's straightforward.

[DaFool]

Recettear was very successful at 26,000 copies sold so far (good for an indie game). Though I haven't bought it yet since I'm currently enjoying Atelier Rorona (and it's less capitalistic outlook, lol). I think we can expect the next release be Territoire, an SRPG in the same style.

[Adorya]

Seems to be the hype for successful indie game is on Minecraft, it's the current dev dream to achieve this kind of popularity with a mmo sandbox indie game

[Topagae]

"Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit..."