IGF Spotlight - Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale

Recettear is a dungeon adventure game; however, the focus of the game is less on the adventure and more on the item management. In this game, you control a girl named Recette who must turn her house into an item store to repay the debt amassed by her father. Your store partner, Tear, is a fairy from a finance company who teaches you the basics of the game, including how to manage the store. You will have weekly payments where you must pay the company part of your debt, so every day, you must do your best to acquire the funds to pay back the amount.

To fill up your store with items, you have the option to buy them from the local markets and guilds, or you can collect them in the various dungeons. Because you are a mere shopkeeper, you will need to hire an adventurer to go with you so that you can collect the items you find safely. Amongst all the items you acquire, you can choose which ones you wish to put on display at your store, and you can set a price for each item that will net you a profit. There will also be times when customers approach you with items they want to sell, so you can negotiate with them to obtain those items for the cheapest price possible.

Learning how to negotiate comes simply, thanks to the tutorials, but there was one downside to it; the price to sell often resulted in receiving the same amount of profit, making for seemingly repetitive transactions. However, there are a few customers that come in whom you can exploit for a much higher price. It just takes time to learn how to gauge which customers you can attempt to exploit. So while this style of adventure might not be for everyone, it was definitely an enjoyable experience and worth checking out. For more games like this, check out the Downloads blog on GameSpot.