Confetti’s Cozy Corner: Thrifty Business is released!
Spellgarden Games’ third studio release, Thrifty Business, is a fun and comforting shop simulator where you, the MC, are the new thrift shop owner in town. You customize and set up the thrift shop, source items to sell, upgrade the store, and slowly become a vital part of the community.
Starting with a character creator, players can create their shopkeeper, choose their outfit, name their store, and select pronouns. The character creator has a range of fun outfits and hairstyles to choose from, including a few afro-centric hairstyles. The skin tone choices did leave much to be desired, especially when it comes to deeper skin tone shades. The jump from the tan-ish skin tone to the deepest skin tone offered was big, and I feel perhaps in an update should be expanded. Additionally, a few more body type options would be amazing to see, also.
The shop simulator, repetitive mechanics in Thrifty Business, are straightforward while providing a decent challenge as the shop grows. The core of this game is the community and getting to know the regulars.
Over time, players learn about NPCs’ backgrounds, likes, dislikes, and events happening in their lives, like adopting a puppy! Eventually, players will host community nights, like Queer Date Night and Game Night, that will bring increased sales to the shop while observing folks in the community get together and mingle.
Outside of hosting events in the shop, it does not seem players can participate in community night because they are running the store.
In the Thrifty Business Demo, there were customer interactions, where they would throw their trash on the ground, and players would need to clean it up. The incentive would be points that could be used later to unlock more furniture and shop customization items.
In the demo, this mechanic was rather aggressive, where players could find themselves picking up trash from all over the Thrift Shop every 10 seconds, it felt. However, in the live game, it is much more balanced and less overwhelming!
Queer representation is very important to Spellgarden Games, as the majority of the developers in the studio are queer themselves. Throughout the game, you will see queer items for sale, such as clothes and toys, and queer decor that can be unlocked to decorate players’ shops. An earlier Queer Date Night community event was mentioned, which is an event that can be done more than once.
Spellgarden Games talks about the importance of queer representation in Gayming’s exclusive interview:
Spellgarden Games is a studio where each release challenges themselves to go a bit beyond their last project, and they’re not afraid to experiment while staying true to the core values and identity.
I encourage gamers who love shop management simulators, community building, and laid-back cozy games to check out Thrifty Business today, it’s available now on Steam [PC] with a console port in the future!
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