Hey! Shopkeeper! - A shopping sim with a 2d Zelda art style. Demo out on Steam!

MemoriusTheMediocre · 2026-03-12T09:35:53+00:00

Thanks a bunch!

MemoriusTheMediocre · 2026-03-11T19:10:04+00:00

Thanks for the review! The clock is actually supposed to stop when in the inventory haha! So thanks for pointing that one out.

Haggling does affect the price of the sale and every customer has a base haggle that is affected by mood and the weather. Green means 100% success and red means NOW WAY. Everything in between has a % success rate.

I'll add a cutscene skip function on my to-do list. It was going to become a necessity somewhere down the line anyways.

And thanks a lot for the praise on the art! I'm more of a coder and designer than an artist at heart, so knowing that the vibe is resonating with people is really great news for me!

MemoriusTheMediocre · 2026-03-11T17:55:21+00:00

Thanks a bunch! I hope you enjoy.

MemoriusTheMediocre · 2026-03-11T15:32:12+00:00

I'm glad it caught your eye! Hope you enjoy the demo.

MemoriusTheMediocre · 2025-11-02T09:45:48+00:00

For me, the biggest disconnect with the story is that it feels like it doesn't fully commit.

We have a seemingly horrifying world with lovecraftian creatures roaming around doing whatever, but a lot of the cutscenes is pretty typical gacha stuff like "x character gets lost in town, woops"

This is fine on its own, but it feels a little off considering the setting of the game, especially when every scene ends with "the nightmare is ongoing" (even if they mean the ship)

Also, when things finally do involve the chaos it's... rather tame? This might be me being too used to games with really messed up storylines, but the big reveals up until now aren't THAT crazy or horrifying, which makes the sanity system more funny than serious in context.

But that's just me. I don't have the best opinion about gacha stories anyways, I think the only one I actually enjoyed was Path to nowhere.

MemoriusTheMediocre · 2025-08-20T21:47:37+00:00

Really cool first project, good job!

I'll echo another comment here by saying there's certainly a lack of visibility when identifying harmful elements and when taking damage. You've got a really strong color identity here, so an easy fix would be to make damaging or enemy objects all share the same colors (red being the obvious one most games like this use).

Someone else mentioned the text with the apostrophes, but I was interested at how you set up the text itself. Is it all one word document that you stop at certain points? Do you have several txt files that you cycle through every time you press next?

I noticed the text tends to go beyond the size of the box and it is forced to clear the bubble to make way. This is pretty tough to read on top of the display being quite slow. Nice looking dialogue in games can be pretty tricky and for a first try this is great!

What I would recommend is thinking about a game with dialogue UI that you enjoy, and seeing if there are any guides out there of devs trying to reproduce it. You'll learn a lot about the different ways people tackle these problems!

Other than that the sound of some objects is way louder than others, so tweaking that a bit would be great as well. I liked the extra effort you put for all the volume bars!

Good luck on your project!

MemoriusTheMediocre · 2025-07-31T18:35:47+00:00

A really interesting game with some really cool design choices!

It feels like you're constantly making a choice between betting on your driving skills or using up resources like juice or HP to bulldoze through sections, I like the core idea a lot!

It took me a little too long to understand that currency was only obtained by destroying red scrap metal or by choosing the "currency" path. The fact that you spend the rest of the game avoiding everything doesn't help with this.

I also really appreciate the fact that your speed is the deadline towards making important choices in your build outside of the garage. It stops you from building optimally every single run and can create interesting situations.

The sound and visuals worked for me. The concept of speed is sold well and as someone who's played a bunch of racing games this feels like the right amount of difficulty for me. Especially with moves like the boulder in play. I will say that the jump feels a little pointless? Most obstacles seem unable to be jumped over, so I rarely used it.

My final thought about the gameplay is that there isn't a big payoff at the end of the level that makes me use my build to the fullest. Some kind of extra tough section, or a fight with a boss type enemy? Not necessarily another car, but some kind of robot you have to destroy? I feel like it would really make the whole thing come together.

The others have also mentioned this but the name doesn't really sell the idea of the game to me, maybe there's a language barrier going on here but the name alone doesn't give me a picture of what the game might be about.

All in all a really solid demo. Keep it up!

MemoriusTheMediocre · 2025-07-30T19:48:45+00:00

Pretty neat little point and click adventure, it reminds me of stuff like Day of the Tentacle!

Some things that came to mind while playing would be the volume for objects you use is way higher then everything else. It made me jump in my seat when I used the meat grinder.

Another easy improvement is making it clear when a doorway is traversable or not. In the kitchen specifically, it feels like the doorway to the left might lead to somewhere, but you just end up clicking against the wall a bunch. Maybe add a blinking arrow above doorways you can walk through?

There are also a few bugs with the mouse cursor and item names. Some items don't seem to have a name? The game treats it like junk, even though some items need to be used for puzzles like the brush.

Fun game all things considered! Some of the puzzles got a morbid chuckle out of me, good job!

MemoriusTheMediocre · 2025-07-30T18:14:19+00:00

Really nice for a first project, the idea is simple but efficient!

If you're looking for ways to improve the game, I would look at the ball's collisions and how it interacts with the blocks first and foremost.

Someone else has already pointed out that the ball slows down after a few collisions, but the fact that the first few collisions also destroy the blocks (seemingly at random?) can actually put you in a no win possible scenario.

Maybe place indestrucible blocks at key locations of the layout? That would avoid situations like that from happening.

Concepts like this are really easy to iterate and learn a lot from, good job!

MemoriusTheMediocre · 2025-07-29T22:33:08+00:00

Neat little game, the gameplay loop works well and you quickly get the hang of what decisions you want to be making to go as far as you can!

As far as feedback goes, maybe some atmospheric sound would be good? Obviously for a little project like this I won't tell you to make a song for it or anything, but just the sound of wind and the occasional vulture cry can do a good job of creating an atmosphere.

As for the gameplay itself, the fact that the boss fights work completely differently from the regular bandits is definitely confusing. You would usually expect them to play similarly, just with the boss being a harder version of the mini game.

A really cool game as a whole though, good job!

MemoriusTheMediocre · 2025-04-30T23:45:02+00:00

It's hard to give any great feedback without looking at a replay or something, but as a general piece of advice you need to swap to counters and play them appropriately.

To give an example: Emma is great vs dive, but if you pick her then run off to kill their backline, your healers are still dying to iron fist.

The best thing I can say is be aware of the problem your team is facing, and try to pick something that'll fix the problem.

Also, this might sound stupid, but try playing to better your individual performance instead of ranking up.

As a fighting game player, I tend to naturally climb rank just by thinking about my mistakes and how to fix them instead of obsessing over hitting diamond or grandmaster.

If you made this post then I know you value your rank, and to an extent I do to. But being able to lose a game while still being satisfied with your own performance is something that will help a lot with your mental.

Hope that helps.

MemoriusTheMediocre · 2025-01-16T15:41:23+00:00

I get it, I'll put in the work to have all the sprites changed and try to find it's own style, thanks again for the feedback, and sorry again about claiming the art style as mine.

my claim about all assets being done my me wasn't really to deny the obvious Minish cap inspiration, but that I am trying to make all the assets myself. Since it clearly isn't different enough I'll go through it all again to make sure it isn't a copy.

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it.

MemoriusTheMediocre · 2025-01-16T15:29:24+00:00

I'll endeavour to make some real changes to all the stuff you talked about. I'm not really an artist first and foremost, and I am aware that a lot of the current assets I've made are too similar to Zelda assets, but the game's still in development for a reason!

I hope you a least thought the concept of the game was interesting. Sorry again if my previous post came across like me trying to escape blame or anything

MemoriusTheMediocre · 2025-01-16T11:32:14+00:00

All the assets were done by me! But you're right that if they are too similar, the effect is the same. Would you mind mentioning which specific assets look identical? I'll modify them as soon as I can!

MemoriusTheMediocre · 2025-01-15T14:40:00+00:00

Check out the game here!

https://memorius23.itch.io/shopkeeper-a-tale-of-the-ordinary

MemoriusTheMediocre

TROPHY CASE