Evolution of the Business RPG
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VisuStella, Caz Wolf, Fallen Angel Olivia, Atelier Irina, and other affiliated content creators.
Introduction
By now, the Business RPG is an evergrowing genre. These are sometimes known as an Item Shop RPG or Restaurant RPG, but ultimately, their playstyles are the same. The player character runs an item shop or restaurant for half the day, then spends the other half of the day gathering resources or dungeon crawling. If this sounds familiar, it's because there's a lot of games like it already. These games include the likes of Recettear, Moonlighter, Mystia's Izakaya, Cuisineer, and Dave the Diver. While not all of them are RPG's in the traditional sense, I want to use these five for this article to provide examples with and show how they evolved and what we can learn from these games should we ever decide to make our own Business RPG.
Introducing Each GameLet's introduce each game so that we have an idea of what they're like. Recettear
Release Date: Sep 10, 2010 This is a game about Recette who has to take on the debt of her parents. She does so through the aid of Tear, a debt collector fairy, and paying off the item shop's debt is her goal. Recette does this by collecting goods from the town's wholesaler. However, if she doesn't have enough money, she'll go gather goodes from the dungeons nearby instead. This game is home to some of the memes you see online such as "Capitalism, ho!". Many people consider this grandfather of all Business RPG's. And for good reason, too! The formula used by Recettear is seen throughout the future games regardless of whether or not they have an item shop or restaurant and regardless of whether or not there are dungeons, too. As this game was released in 2010, it wouldn't come off as surprising if some folks did not know of its existence as it was a very niche game at the time. Fans loved this game and though it arrived on Steam rather late, it still managed to accrue 6,000+ reviews at the time of writing this article.
Moonlighter
Release Date: May 29, 2018 Moonlighter is a game that centers around Will, the son of a merchant. However, Will's father has long disappeared and never came back after venturing into the nearby dungeons. Will decides to carry on his father's legacy by running his shop and exploring the dungeons to find items worth selling. The store is ran during the day, and Will ventures into the dungeons during moonlight, hence the name. While Recettear is one of the pioneers for the genre back in 2010, Moonlighter is the one that brought the genre back in 2018 with high levels of success. It uses an extremely similar formula to Recettear but changed quite a few things up. The item shop system was overhauled to be more linear and straight forward. The dungeon and combat was also overhauled to feel better and fit the modern gaming landscape more. All in all, Moonlighter was a modern day success with a review count of 13,500+ at the time of writing this article.
Mystia's Izakaya
Release Date: Oct 1, 2021 Just a few years down the line, Mystia's Izakaya came out as the next big Business RPG. It's a fangame for the ever so timeless Touhou Project series and focuses on one of its characters called Mystia, who runs an izakaya (Japanese food/drink stall) for various reasons, namely debt. Somehow, the debt keeps piling up, but Mystia powers through with her business. Mystia's Izakaya is one of the first of many modern Business RPG's that focus on the restaurant aspect. The Recettear formula is alive and well, but many changes have occurred. Unlike Recettear and Moonlighter, there's no more dungeons. In fact, there's no more combat. There is, instead, a resource gathering focus that's found across many maps. Handling the restaurant is also vastly different from handling an item shop, too. There was also more focus on narrative, too. The game was a massive hit on Steam with a total review count of 17,000+ at the time of writing this article.
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