Shoppe Keep Preview for PC

Ambition in indie games is often lauded, depending on where the game succeeds most.  Relatively low budget games will be able to sink a lot of time into developing a story and thematic visual style that stand out amongst their AAA peers. However, when a lower budget game attempts to encapsulate the experience of an open world AAA game, things can get dicey.  That is precisely what Shoppe Keep 2 by developer Strange Fire and publisher Excalibur Games tries to do, but is not able to match up.

The game has an interesting premise: run your own shop buy stocking merchandise and upgrading the town around you to attract more customers.  You can do this by yourself or by playing co-op with up to 4 friends.  Gameplay mostly revolves around you buying items and setting prices for them while also maintaining the durability of your items and staving off bandits. You also have skill trees for Management, Business, Movement, and Combat.  Perks in these trees are earned by accumulating skill points.

Shoppe Keep 2 is certainly a unique experience, I haven’t seen a game so laser focused on running a store whereas other games would regulate that same task to a side activity.  Rather in this game, taking quests from townsfolk is the side activity and completing these, as well as building up your clout, are all in service of in buying new items to sell at your shop.  Money also serves as a function to upgrade your town, doing so will give you access to more items to order.   Newer high value items will attract higher paying customers, the pursuit of these high value items was my main impetus for most this game.

While these complex systems working together in a large world the player can explore for themselves, there are a lot of issues that undermine the experience.  First off, the art style is terrible.  Characters look like a weird mix of Playmobil/Runescape models.  The way monsters and buildings in town look is fine, but nearly everything else looks like a Roblox modded game.  The environments look sterile and indistinctive, giving you very little motivation to see the world other than to accumulate more resources.  This isn’t a very fun game to play single player for long sessions.

The Co-Op experience in this game is where I found the most enjoyment in my experience, but it was partly due to my anecdotal experience with one player. I was joined by a fellow who gave me 782 Million Gold in my bank vault.  So, the rule book got thrown out the window right away, I could upgrade my town and get some of the best items in the game.  This gentleman then proceeded to start placing down pedestals around my shop which led me to believe “Oh he’s preparing the displays for us to sell stuff, I’ll start ordering and upgrading more.”

Only when I came back after doing that, there were pedestals filling each square inch of my Shoppe.  Then he disconnected.

I was more amused than annoyed, but if another player had this experience it probably wouldn’t be as funny to them.  Another player joined and he generously helped me clean up the mess the previous player made.  He told me where to go to get the rest of the world unlocked.  And from there I got to experience the world outside the town.  All you can really do here is hunt monsters and gather materials, but it’s a nice distraction from running the Shoppe.

While Shoppe Keep 2 isn’t the most polished or well-executed game, it is admirable to see an ambitious idea like this attempted. AAA developers are greatly outnumbered by indie devs and seeing how a smaller studio might approach the idea of an open world game with management and RPG elements is a fascinating experience.  Unfortunately, the appeal wears thin for those looking for any streamlining of the redundant tasks you’ll carry out, or any meaningful quests beyond gathering new materials for your Shoppe.  Hopefully we will see a sequel from this developer that refines their management systems; as well as an attempt to breathe life into the world through writing or unique art design.

Take a Look at the Shoppe Keep 2 Launch Trailer:

Shoppe Keep 2 is now available on PC via Steam Early Access for a discounted price of $11.69 (sale ends May 10th).