Recently I have been really enjoying simulator games, and so when Winkeltje: The Little Shop came to Xbox, I was interested in downloading it and seeing what happened. This little shop game has a lot of different options, things to manage, customers to please, and more.
Winkeltje: The Little Shop starts off by telling you a story. You see, you are in a lot of debt, passed down from family members who are no longer around. You want to pay off this debt and clear your family name. To do this, you have started a little shop with some of your savings, and you will need to purchase products to sell and furniture to showcase these products on. When you start your day, people will come through the door, see what you have, and often stand at your counter to ask for items you don’t have on display.
You can then run around refilling displays or giving the items to the people directly, though they seem to be more satisfied when taking it off the furniture itself. In the corner of the screen there are a bunch of goals, as well as a tracker to tell you when your next debt payment is. These payments can be made at the beginning of the day or at the end of the day, but if they are not paid, the debt doubles, which nobody wants.
When it comes to purchasing products in Winkeltje: The Little Shop, you can purchase items at your counter, but they cost a lot. The amount you make per sale is really limited. Instead, you should wait for a merchant to come during your day, and spend some time seeing what items they have on offer and what their prices are.
Along with purchasing items, you will need to keep an eye on your storage. You cannot hold more items than your shop can keep, so you might need to purchase furniture that increases the amount you can hold. It’s a big management and balancing game! You can actually increase the size of your store, though it is expensive, and eventually start purchasing machines that let you produce your own items.
The first skills I had, I put into gardening — quickly purchasing seeds and then growing my own crops instead of needing to purchase them from a merchant. Once you harvest, you actually gain seeds from harvesting, allowing you to continue growing. Each day, however, you will need to remember to water them. Depending on the plant, it can take a few days to actually grow, before you are able to harvest them.
After that, I started unlocking machines that allowed me to make food and clothing, depending on what items I had to put into them. A stove had me taking food and cooking it up to various food products I had unlocked. More get unlocked over time, and these machines are instant, which is very quick, when someone wants them. You can then go out back and cook.
The game itself is very simple, almost mindless, as you take on your day and then go to the next. There are different seasons which will mean some products are more popular at specific times of year. There are also days that have events going on, sometimes having your shop open later or having a specific type of produce more in demand. There often isn’t much warning in this.
My biggest issue with Winkeltje: The Little Shop is the UI. Many of the small windows (maybe they don’t translate to Xbox well) do not seem to make a lot of sense for me. I spent a lot of time purchasing decorations, but my appeal wouldn’t go up, because I was at max appeal. There seemed to be no way to unlock a higher appeal. But some of the UI on my quests said I needed to do that. It’s very confusing and the answer was hidden deep in menus, as small text on an already small display. When it comes to building, the game doesn’t really explain how to build or place stuff. I ended up creating a bunch of walls I didn’t need and being very confused on doors. It took a while to get the building figured out.
Even with the confusion over menus and trying to figure out how they work, I have found day to day shopkeeping in Winkeltje: The Little Shop to be fun and relaxing as it is played. You can easily keep up with your debt and ensure that you are making money, even if you don’t understand any of your quests.
You can find Winkeltje: The Little Shop on Xbox and PC.
