Recettear - An Item Shop's Tale

The translation is hilariously good. I laughed out loud so many times my wife was annoyed at me. I suspect that the original isn't nearly this funny.

A great time, at least played with a 360 pad. Sure buy for me, can't argue with Steam's 13€ pre-order price.

I gave the demo a go. I failed to make the first payment, but otherwise I quite enjoyed it. The anime sensibility isn't usually my thing, and the music,.. dear sweet Cthulu bring me release, but even the voices didn't bug me in the time I was playing.

The dialogue is fantastic though, I will try again to get further. This game is definitely on my watch list.

Gamersgate has it too, at the same price, and one good bit about buying it there is that it truly comes DRM-free -- no dependency on Steam or Impulse. You download the installer and it just works, and you can archive the downloaded files permanently without needing Gamersgate for anything further.

If I do buy it I may opt for Gamersgate, the service struck me as decent when I bought The Path and Geneforge 5, two other games I haven't had time for.

How do you archive those files though? I have the downloader and the temp folder with a 'launcher' file that is 34 megs, so must be the Geneforge files, but it isn't an executable.

Huh. Well, I don't actually remember what I did the last time I was trying to archive GG games, and I looked at what I stored. In two cases, it looks like it must still be dependent on the GG launcher, but in one, it has everything necessary for a full install. So, either I did it wrong in two cases, or not all games are truly standalone after downloading.

If I recall correctly, you first download the GamersGate downloader (the 34MB file MrDeVil refers to). Run the downloader. It should prompt you for a download location; make note of it. Eventually it will tell you that the game has finished downloading, and you can press "Next" (or whatever) to actually install the game. BEFORE you press "Next", go to that download location and make zip file of whatever it downloaded (probably a setup.exe and some data files?).

Er. I think this may explain it better: http://reclaimyourgame.com/showthrea...

Ah, okay. That's cool. will check it out when I get back home. going to have another go at the demo too. Want to see what the actual adventuring is like.

I really dug the demo, put in my preorder on steam, and even shamelessly gave the original japanese game a spin. It's much deeper than even the demo hinted at. I'm soo hooked.

Just played the demo. Awesome game and great dialogue to boot. I actually really enjoyed the dungeon crawling aspect. Since one of the weapons is a magician's staff, I hope there will be some magic-focused adventurers that I can accompany.

I enjoyed the demo enough to play through it again when I missed the deadline the first time around (stupid rock-throwing thingamajigs!), but I'm wondering about the staying power of this game. Can someone elaborate on this 'depth' that people are mentioning?

I apparently stink at the dungeon crawling aspect. I'm on day 8 and I just finished the trainer dungeon. I can definitely see the need for a controller with this one. I don't think I've played a dungeon crawler using the arrow keys in well over a decade. I'm 1 day from the first payment of 10k and I've only got about 8k built up. I have a feeling this isn't going to go well unless I have some amazing dungeon run.

Has anyone gone through the demo and made the payment without ever touching a dungeon? I think I might try that just to see how profitable reselling stuff from the guild and market might be.

Maybe it's just the demo, but is there any way to refuse to buy an item without pissing the seller off? There were several times nearing the payment date that I was offered to buy something I didn't want, but ended up buying it anyway for fear of negative repercussions.

Kehama wrote:

Has anyone gone through the demo and made the payment without ever touching a dungeon? I think I might try that just to see how profitable reselling stuff from the guild and market might be.

I pretty much did. I did the initial dungeon crawl, died and got a single item out of it. For the rest of that playthrough I just stayed in the shop and bought items to sell from town. I think I was about 3-4000 over the target and still had quite a few items left to sell at the end.

It may change later, but on my second playthrough of the demo, the big money was all in the dungeon for that first week. On the last day, I think I had about $18K in cash, more stuff than I could display, and several high-value statues that nobody seemed to be able to afford.

I think you could probably make the $10K without adventuring, but I suspect it would partially depend on luck. You'd need to level up so that you could buy goods from customers early in the week, and then get lucky on getting good items from them. I don't think there's enough profit to be made just buying and selling town items.

Subscribing.

I just started this and immediately had more fun when I switched to a gamepad. The only thing that's driving me nuts is that loud page turn sound when you click to advance dialogue; I've been digging through the .bin files (just renamed .wav files) to find the sound and delete/replace it with a silent one, but I haven't had any luck finding the sound file yet.

Puce Moose wrote:

I just started this and immediately had more fun when I switched to a gamepad. The only thing that's driving me nuts is that loud page turn sound when you click to advance dialogue; I've been digging through the .bin files (just renamed .wav files) to find the sound and delete/replace it with a silent one, but I haven't had any luck finding the sound file yet.

I seem to recall that hitting button 2 instead of button 1 on the pad/keyboard advances the text, but doesn't play the sound.

I seem to recall that hitting button 2 instead of button 1 on the pad/keyboard advances the text, but doesn't play the sound.

Holy crap you're right, that stops that loud sound effect! Thanks for the tip; that will save me a lot of time bin-diving.

Puce Moose wrote:
I seem to recall that hitting button 2 instead of button 1 on the pad/keyboard advances the text, but doesn't play the sound.

Holy crap you're right, that stops that loud sound effect! Thanks for the tip; that will save me a lot of time bin-diving.

You're welcome. I actually like the sound! Weird that they made it that way, but I guess you're not complaining.

I caved in and bought the game. Friday needs to hurry up!

jlaakso wrote:
Puce Moose wrote:
I seem to recall that hitting button 2 instead of button 1 on the pad/keyboard advances the text, but doesn't play the sound.

Holy crap you're right, that stops that loud sound effect! Thanks for the tip; that will save me a lot of time bin-diving.

You're welcome. I actually like the sound! Weird that they made it that way, but I guess you're not complaining. :)

For non-main story dialog it seems that button 3 also acts as a fast-forward button. It doesn't play sounds and it shuffles the text so fast its almost impossible to read. I know this works when talking to the guild master, haven't tried it on anything else. Other events can still be skipped of course.

Rezzy wrote:

I enjoyed the demo enough to play through it again when I missed the deadline the first time around (stupid rock-throwing thingamajigs!), but I'm wondering about the staying power of this game. Can someone elaborate on this 'depth' that people are mentioning?

I think it's one of those games that has many scales to balance. Do I let the adventurer keep the good equipment so he can be better at dungeon crawling and spend more money at the store, or do I sell it and level up my merchant level? Do I sell stuff at a cheaper price so that I get reputation bonuses, or try and haggle every dime out of the townsfolk so that I have a bigger pool of money to invest?

From my examples it may seem like there are obvious answers, but I hope that the game keeps the weekly payments high so that it is imperative to actually make a lot of money or else it's game over.

One of the few things I'm worried about is the length of the game; the official sites indicates that you have five weeks to finish paying off the debt. The first week took me about 90 minutes the first time through, so I wonder if that indicates we can expect the game to last about 7-8 hours. I'm not sure if the game *ends* after the five weeks, but it seems likely that's where the plot would terminate.

I remember reading that you can continue playing after completing paying the debt. CAPITALISM HO!

I'm just glad to see so many people enjoying the demo and planning to purchase the full version. Maybe we'll see some additional ports of this type brought over!

Sinkwater wrote:

I think it's one of those games that has many scales to balance. Do I let the adventurer keep the good equipment so he can be better at dungeon crawling and spend more money at the store, or do I sell it and level up my merchant level? Do I sell stuff at a cheaper price so that I get reputation bonuses, or try and haggle every dime out of the townsfolk so that I have a bigger pool of money to invest?

Yeah there is a lot to think about. For adventurers you can even start min-maxing about what would be an upgrade for the guy and keeping those items on hand. One thing I tried to do was to put no weapons out on display so anyone who wanted one would ask. It worked because the starting adventurer asked me for a weapon and I showed him a longsword. I think the weapon of the adventurer is the most important because damage can be avoided through paying attention. But then even at a 25% discount the longsword was so expensive he couldn't buy it. None of the other people in the store seem to be poor. One old guy asked me for food and I offered him the most expensive item in stock which was worth 2300. He bought the item with a 25% markup without blinking.

What are these reputation bonuses you speak of? I know whenever the swordsman guy came around I would always sell him items for 100% of the value instead of trying to make a bigger profit. (I still made a profit because I found the item in a dungeon of course). After a while of this he started showing a heart symbol whenever I sold him something. I'm still not quite sure how the system works. But it would make sense to give people good deals early on to draw them in as loyal customers. Later on you have more room to work with these people as the items you find become more expensive.

Apart from that, how do you people manage your store? I try to have a wide selection of items. Tear mentions that not everyone is looking for an expensive item. So not only do you need a wide selection but you also need a variety of prices.

Tamren wrote:
Sinkwater wrote:

I think it's one of those games that has many scales to balance. Do I let the adventurer keep the good equipment so he can be better at dungeon crawling and spend more money at the store, or do I sell it and level up my merchant level? Do I sell stuff at a cheaper price so that I get reputation bonuses, or try and haggle every dime out of the townsfolk so that I have a bigger pool of money to invest?

What are these reputation bonuses you speak of? I know whenever the swordsman guy came around I would always sell him items for 100% of the value instead of trying to make a bigger profit. (I still made a profit because I found the item in a dungeon of course). After a while of this he started showing a heart symbol whenever I sold him something. I'm still not quite sure how the system works. But it would make sense to give people good deals early on to draw them in as loyal customers. Later on you have more room to work with these people as the items you find become more expensive.

Apart from that, how do you people manage your store? I try to have a wide selection of items. Tear mentions that not everyone is looking for an expensive item. So not only do you need a wide selection but you also need a variety of prices.

I've only played the demo so all my knowledge is from that, but from the dialogue hints at things like "people won't like you if they walk out of the store" and "it's dangerous to charge too much." Little hints like that make me think there is either an overall reputation with the city, or each townsperson. Also, there is a little pop-up next to the merchant level meter when you sell something or buy something without a 2nd offer. It goes really fast and I don't see what it says. Did anyone else catch it?

Edit: I just loaded up and sold something for the base price to see what it says. It says "Just Combo +2." I have no idea what that means.

There is also another one. I think it only pops up when you make a deal right on the money (hah) within the tolerance the person will pay for an item. I had it happen once with Louie. His dialog was very specific and went something like "wow you really know how to do this". The experience bonus was huge, even bigger than the bonus for a "Just Combo". The one instance I remember was at least +15.

That makes sense. I think someone earlier had the concern that you could just spam easy deals to get the Just Combo bonus. But it seems the bigger reward is to haggle just right with each customer. Later on in the game we supposedly have much more opportunity to haggle with people. They won't just walk out after the second reject.

I've also seen a 'near' bonus, for getting pretty close to the sweet spot on the 1st attempt. The dialogue was something along the lines of "you really know your customers." and the exp bonus was large, I think about 10.

Game is out today. I freaking love this game. I played through the demo multiple times.

Also, the guys who do the English translation are pretty awesome. (They're members of the SomethingAwful forums which is where I know them from)