This long-awaited shopkeeper sim feels trapped between selling and storytelling.
I don’t dream of labor. My thoughts aren’t filled with get-rich-quick schemes, I have never developed a “grindset,” and my browser history is free from searches on “how to start an LLC.” I may have to work for the things in this world I love most, but I will never pray to my job as though it were a god. In Mineko’s Night Market, there’s an actual god of commerce, and it’s a giant cat who lives in your shed.
As Meowza Games’ first outing, Mineko’s Night Market is a very cute and soft business management sim that kind of just papers over the fact that we’re making a young girl economically revitalize a whole town by selling crafts to neighbors. The writing is quirky, the setting is appropriately rural while still vaguely gesturing at modern trends, the art is this kind of pop-up picture book-ish style that feels just a little derivative while still managing to do the job—“be cute”—it was meant to do.