A work in progress that needs more work and progress. A good start but very slow pace and missing critical features. Worth keeping an eye on. Recommended, but only for very patient and EA-tolerant players. Whenever a game hits a good formula, that formula becomes very, very popular very quickly. So, when TCG Card Shop Sim caught lightning in a bottle, it was inevitable that lots and lots of similar titles would shake out. And they have. Many of them are asset-flipped clones, but a few have something unique going on. Tabletop Game Shop Sim is one of those aiming to be more unique than 99% of its contemporaries and it really has the potential to pull it off. Realistically, it's a great concept: TTGs are interesting and popular, but rather pricey in the real world and hey, it's the kind of shop that'd be fun to manage. This game is on the road to provide that experience, but it needs a little more cooking time. An army of detailed models... There's money in those little plastic dudes! Proper inventory management and store mechanics Just like good games of its type, it's immensely satisfying to run your shop. Keep your shelves stocked with a variety of products ranging from model packs to rulebooks, dice to painting supplies. Set your layout, mark your prices. Add all of the staples of a good TTG shop: cardboard standees, posters big enough to use as blankets, painting tables and gaming tables. It's all good. And it looks authentic. The gaming tables aren't just flat tables, there are the area-of-effect templates and other bits that are part and parcel with playing a TTG. It feels right. Build your own model army Much like TCG, you can certainly dip into your inventory for your own benefit. Open packs, get parts, build your own models. Perfect for the not-really-a-hoarder-I-promise side in all of us. And you can also sell those models at very marked-up prices - when one well-painted model will fetch you around $100, there's reward to be had even in the pieces you don't want to keep! Play the game! Oh, right! TTG Shop includes something that you'd be hard-pressed to find elsewhere: you can play the game you're selling! Yep, all those models that you've stolen misallocated acquired from your inventory, built, and painted? Group them into squads and actually fight battles in the TTG you're convincing people to zero out their bank balances to get. It's still a little rough and clearly something of a work in progress - but the emphasis is on work because it actually does work! ...with quite a few paint smudges. Okay, so... there's problems. Pacing, pacing, pacing This is not a sprint-forward game. It's a slow plod. Money comes in slowly, especially at the start when you have little to sell and not much more space. As you expand things get a little easier, but only a little. Making things a little more tiring is the fact that you unlock new items slowly, so your ability to expand your earnings is pretty heavily fenced in. This is a very grindy game that must be viewed with patience. Model shortcomings So, the model mechanic. It's creative. But it needs work. A game like TCG Shop used the pack-opening mechanic as a way to give you a much-needed infusion of cash for the early game. Break open packs, sell individual cards, occasionally strike it rich and get a nice windfall. In theory this is also the case here in TTG Shop... but not really. Because each model requires a number of parts to build and each pack contains a group of random parts, you can open a dozen or more boxes (which are not cheap) just to get enough parts to build a single model. Which means that unless you get lucky, you're at best breaking even. Beyond that, there's the painting side of it. Anyone who's played or even known someone who plays a TTG knows that model painting is about expression and artistry. The painting system as it currently stands is depressingly thin. The minigame is short and simple (thankfully), and while it's a little... awkward (and could be downright impossible for someone with mobility issues), it's serviceable enough. But there's no opportunity for any kind of customization, no choices in color palette or pattern, no personality to it. At least not that I've come across. Missing (important) features Got some furniture you don't have a need for now because you bought an upgraded version but you'd like to hang on to for when you can afford more floor space? Tough. Your only option is to throw it out . No boxing it up and storing it, no selling it off. Your options are "keep on the floor" or "throw in trash." When money is dribbling in rather than flowing, wasting assets like that is painful. Inventory management is poor, and the stockroom shelving available is almost useless; one box per slot, same capacity as sales floor shelving. A semi-organized heap of boxes on the floor is about the same, but free. If you're not using employees (a further drain on your finances) you might as well save the cash. Moreover, storage shelves don't "remember" their stock, so unless you have a good mental organization system, you're going to be stumbling. Shop customization is theoretically coming but not here yet and it really can't arrive too soon; the default interior is dark and pretty shabby - which would be expected in a start-up shop - but the ability to get rid of it would be nice. Employee functions are very bare-bones and those that are available are incomplete. Stockers only restock completely empty shelves, so if there's one unit left he'll be idling. Cleaning isn't an option, and all employees are painfully slow at their tasks. Better to just do it yourself. Pricing seems wonky and almost arbitrary in how markups affect sales. No sandboxing If you had the idea to explore what all the game can offer up front and sandbox play by editing your save file, you can forget it. Unlike TCG, the save file is encrypted all to gibberish. Not even a hex editor will help you. The Bottom Line Unlike almost every other game following in the footsteps of TCG Card Shop Sim, this one has creativity, originality, and real promise to it. Assuming development continues on it, this could really end up being something special. For now, it needs that development time and love. If you're of a mind to take a gamble on an EA title to support the developer, then this one seems to be deserving of some support. Just bear in mind that it's not a finished product and has a long way to go.
Expand the review