Games Where You Manage A Shop In A Fantasy World

Key Takeaways

• Recettear offers an authentic mercantile experience with addictive gameplay.
• Potion Craft’s unique graphics provide a satisfying alchemy experience with diverse customer requests.
• Traveller’s Rest bridges tactical merchant sims & life simulators, allowing players to run their inn how they desire.

Plenty of games over a host of genres, though especially where the strategy genre is concerned, allow players to influence and participate in a large and dynamic economy system that is built on trade and resources. These games typically fall into two categories: either cozy shopfront managers where the goal is to have a good time, or comprehensive economic simulations like Victoria 3 where the goal is to beat as many nations as possible into depending on the customs union.

Rather than focusing on the macro and discussing these grand strategy titles, there’s plenty of merit to be had discussing the former type of game, and seeing how developers have let players act as merchants in their own, unique fantasy settings. These titles in particular are perfect for players who want to be a merchant in a fantasy world, letting them interact will all kinds of customers and merchandise.

8 Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale

A Fast-Paced Item Shop Simulator

• Released: September 10, 2010
• Developers: EasyGameStation
• Platforms: PC

For any players looking for an iconic, unique, and low-stakes spin on normal JRPG tropes, they’d be hard-pressed to find a better title than Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale. Individually marking the prices of goods found on adventures, this title has players live a very authentic mercantile experience.

The game gets to be incredibly addictive over time, and a sort of Pavlovian reaction of joy takes hold whenever the little ‘clinking gold’ sound signifies another sale. Players should be prepared to mark up, reduce, and haggle for items and prices in this title.

7 Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator

Create Exotic Brews Up To Customer Specifications

There aren’t many games that have the idyllic, storybook-style graphics of Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator. Everything in this game, each plant, vial, and customer, has such a great deal of personality put into their illustrations.

This makes the core gameplay loop, in which players discover recipes that better serve the needs of their customers, an incredibly satisfying experience, and one that rarely grows old, as more combinations – and stranger requests – are constantly being found.

6 Weapon Shop Fantasy

An Industry-Oriented Shop Simulator

• Released: February 26, 2017
• Developers: INDIECN
• Platforms: PC

What separates Weapon Shop Fantasy from other games on this list is the sheer pace and scale that the game sets early on. This is not a title where players will be lazily wiping down the bench, watching the dust motes through the filtered sunlight coming from the window as idle few customers browse their wares. This is a full-on, relentless, trial of industry.

Players don’t send one adventurer out to find loot, they send out multiple at once, to multiple locations. They don’t have one forge and one item being crafted, they have an entire factory floor with optimized forges – they are the Henry Ford of fantasy weapon production.

5 Moonlighter

A Novel Merchant Shop Roguelike

The incredibly popular rogueliteMoonlighter has a unique visual style and flair that makes it a hard title to miss. While many merchant and weapon shop games that feature questing for sellable goods tend to see the dungeon-diving aspect of their games as an afterthought, Moonlighter puts care and detail into every aspect of exploration and item selling.

Players will need to develop their skills as both merchants and adventurers to get the best possible items and sell them for the best possible price, all the while engaging in some incredibly compelling boss battles.

4 Potion Party

Manage An Alchemy Shop With Friends

• Released: April 8, 2021
• Developer: RPGames
• Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch

Like a lot of fantastic co-op games, Potion Party simplifies its mechanics to maximize the fun to be had among multiple people at once, all the while keeping an authentic merchant experience that can stand alongside any of the more in-depth games on this list.

The co-op aspect of Potion Party is its main draw, as it’s a unique pull for games of this sub-genre and lets players engage with this humorous, brightly colored world to their heart’s content.

3 Merchant Of The Skies

A Steampunk Spin On Merchant Simulation

Standing among the best merchant games available to date, Merchant of The Skies lets players act as a roving shopkeeper and peddler of goods in a singularly unique fantasy setting comprised of many floating islands.

The game’s unique aesthetic is so cozy and idyllic that it draws players in, and the economic mechanics are the very definition of ‘easy to learn, hard to master’, ensuring that this is a game to keep people going for hours on end.

2 Traveller’s Rest

Manage A Cozy Fantasy Inn

Why sell people potions or weapons when you can sell the greatest gift of all – a warm bed to sleep in and a nice pint of mead? Okay, it’s not really a ‘gift’ if it’s being sold, but the point stands. Traveller’s Rest holds a unique point in the genre between the more tactical merchant sims and the farming or life simulators of games like Stardew Valley.

This game lets players plan, run, and brew to their heart’s content, making an incredible inn that serves up whatever they desire, whether they’re looking for a den of crooks and fiends or an upstanding establishment.

1 Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop?!

A Versatile And Potato-y Weapon Shop Simulator

• Released: July 13, 2015
• Developer: Daylight Studios
• Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Android, iOS

Considering the very obviously comedic title and graphical style of this game, many players will be surprised to find a genuine and compelling experience in Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop?! The gameplay loop is addictive and versatile.

Players will be managing not just the shopfront but the types of weapons produced, the smiths producing them, and the customers who receive the items – which can get quite competitive as higher quality gear starts getting produced.