I especially liked the idea of the narrative battle system. Instead of people taking damage and being slain, I wanted the text to be changed in the system settings so the battle system felt more immersive; for instance, taking damage might have been reworded as being coerced into the product. That said, I loved the idea of charming, informing, and so forth, and getting dollars at the end for the customer interaction was good stuff.

The writing pops in some places. Nice guy's "actually, actually, actually" had me lol'ing.

I also appreciated the hand drawn art and the tileset customizations, like that very green tiled floor. I was walking on tables in the side room, but there weren't any game-breaking collision settings that made it unplayable.

Unique game concept! Overall enjoyed it!

Hi there!

I'm one of the 6 judges for this RPG Maker Game Jam 2025. I was one of the 2 judges assigned to your game, and we have been assigned to rate your games according to each metric highlighted on the game's main jam page, and submit these ratings to the organisers, who will then appropriate what happens with that. Please contact them in the Q&A if you have any further questions about the judging process. The judges will work on different time schedules, so even if I may have finished playing your game, the entire process might not be finished as of yet. Many of these reviews I am posting while still judging.

All that aside, I'd like to share my VOD of me playing your game, which contains up to an hour of gameplay, and some final thoughts at the end! Depending on whether I stopped the VOD early or not, it will also contain many of the thoughts that I say to you below, which may cause repetition. So just be aware of that.

I will also attach a review below this VOD. I will not disclose my ratings for each category as of yet, but those will be revealed in due time. Not all judges are required to post a review or VOD to each game, but many will do so even if it's optional, including myself.

Here's the VOD:

All in all, I liked the idea of this game. The idea of having customers come in and order games, and then for you to use several techniques to handle the ups and the downs of the process, and to have some sort of bargaining occur - that was really cool to me. This whole setting is something I'm quite familiar with, having experience with board games and such (I maybe have several thousand dollars worth of board games collected over the past 10 years or so, lol). So this kind of hobby store atmosphere is familiar to me. Particularly the portion with the D&D game was very engrossing - I almost wanted that to be the main part of the game! Because that dynamic was very relatable to me.

I liked the ambition to use a lot of these custom graphics with portraits that had a lot of heart and soul. Even if the floor tile grated on me to no end (gah - why is it so garishly green and black! T_T), I understood the aims for the central appeal of the game. It's a very cool concept. I do feel like some of the execution of the game left me a little wanting - which I explain in the categories below, to the best of the detail I can muster for each category. I admire the game for trying to do something unconventional.

So yeah! Given my overall thoughts on the game, I think I'll go into my praises as well as my criticisms for each category of judging, without spoiling scores for each (those will come later).

Theme
It was a little unexpected to have the battles occur as sales. I think that's enough to warrant that it was beyond expectations. There were twists and turns. I wouldn't say I was blown away by the usage of the theme, but I think it's an average amount of relevant. Maybe a little bit of a stretch, but nothing massive. Points awarded for surprising events in the game itself.

Gameplay
It was cool to have sales occur as battles, but I'll be honest in saying the battles started to stretch my interest fairly quickly. There was an attempt to have a "analyse enemy" function, but it doesn't really matter if most of the options end up working via trial and error anyway, so that frustrated me. The battles just weren't refined to my liking. At least it was easy to win, so it wasn't overly frustrating, and the battles were easy enough to breeze through, but I would have preferred if they required a bit more strategy overall.

Engagement
The concept was cool, but the story could have gripped me more. I didn't end up caring for the shop as much as I'd hoped, because I didn't identify with or care for the characters enough to care for the fate of the shop itself, sadly. They talked about stuff and things breezed by, but I felt I didn't really have a hook to identify with or care about a character too much. The only time that the story excited me was when a bunch of side characters played D&D, and that wasn't quite so necessary to the bottom line. At the end, the boss provided a small amount of conflict to make me care about the nature of the company, but because of my lack of investment in the characters that I mentioned earlier, it was only to limited effect. But the portraits looked good! So that elevated it a bit.

Presentation
The portraits looked lovely and cute. I liked the general vibe of the store. The mapping was quite ordinary, with the biggest offender being the green and black floor that quickly became a sore sight to the eyes. But the portraits and enemies looked really lovely. The music and sound effects were fair. Overall, decently presented, with room for improvement.

Polish
A minor bug where a character talks but is not in the room, in the break room. Details in VOD.

Conclusion
All in all, I'm thankful that you have created this game - every game is a gift! - and I hope that the feedback is useful. I appreciate the time and effort you have put into this game... art like this worth pursuing, and I thank you for doing so. I wish the very best for your developer journey. Cheers!

Boomy plays: A week at Restart games
Overall, fairly enjoyable experience. I know the theme of "beyond expectations" is really vague but I wasn't expecting combat based on the first 10 seconds of the game. I love the theme (gives me strong vibes since I also work in retail) and I love how it was all executed. I also like how the final boss (I won't spoil it) is kinda cliche but also manages to draw camaraderie. I liked all the small talk between turns in battles and the storybuilding between scenes.

The game is kind of short at about 20 minutes; I'm sure I could've pushed the play time more if I didn't 'run' from so many encounters and talked to more NPCs. Browser play was smooth and seamless.