I shudder at the thought of retail. I’ve done it all—groceries, shoes, furniture, vapes—and the thing I’ve learned is that I’m not the kind to serve customers hand over foot. And it’s also the quickest avenue to shave at least a decade off your knees. The nice thing about video games, however, is that I can find my comfort zone and build shoppes my own way and, in the case of ‘Discounty’, you can almost do exactly that. Developed by Crinkle Cut Games and published by PQube, players will take on the role of a customisable character that goes by the nickname “shopkeeper”.
My shopkeeper is a young hijabi who has come to the town of Blomkest at the behest of her auntie to run her old store. Except it has now become part of a series of chains known as “Discounty” in a last-ditch effort to build out a supermarket across this decaying part of the county. As players settle in, they’ll meet the local residents, learn the in-and-outs of running a store, and slowly but surely take part in the broiling issues that have been compounding the little town for decades. Including but not limited to: corporations causing mayhem, neighbourly disputes, rats, whathaveyou.
Now, Discounty isn’t a supermarket sim or anything like that. It is very much a narrative-driven adventure title centred around running a shop, but the story is driven only in part by how you run the place. Speaking of which, you’ll spend most of your waking hours in Discounty, running around like a headless chicken as you restock items, keep your floors clean, order furniture, and check out the customers that will fall into your store in droves. It’s quite a bit to take on at first especially since the bulk of your time during the store’s business hours will be to manually input the price of all the items you sell. Eventually, you do unlock a scanner which has you simply rotate the items in a specific manner depending on what product type they are.
I found running Discounty to be quite addicting. Like all management games, you’ll keep your feet about you as you do all that you can to keep your customers happy. Happy customers means that more of them will pile in the next day, which gives you more opportunity to sell your inventory. Some items are always in demand, like bread and meat, but others may need a push which you can facilitate by surrounding those products under special “booster” tools you can purchase from the hardware store. Sell more items and you can purchase more inventory and more money means you can pass story hurdles and advance the overarching narrative. Now, Discounty isn’t a supermarket sim or anything like that. It is very much a narrative-driven adventure title centred around running a shop, but the story is driven only in part by how you run the place.
Speaking of which, you’ll spend most of your waking hours in Discounty, running around like a headless chicken as you restock items, keep your floors clean, order furniture, and check out the customers that will fall into your store in droves. It’s quite a bit to take on at first especially since the bulk of your time during the store’s business hours will be to manually input the price of all the items you sell. Eventually, you do unlock a scanner which has you simply rotate the items in a specific manner depending on what product type they are. But ultimately, there’s no real fail state to worry about and even if a day somehow goes bad, the next one will be just fine.
Not everything is about money, though, and Discounty isn’t exactly a store that makes dosh with the quickness. Not that a grocery store should be making hurdles of wealth, mind, but that does mean that you’ll spend quite a lot of days keeping the store afloat. Making money is a slow burn and you’ll have to keep an eye out on what products are selling, what isn’t, and try to find those high margin items to push. Thing is, no matter what, once an item is unlocked your customers will expect that item to be stocked even if the majority don’t buy it. It can lead to some frustrating moments where keeping every customer happy becomes impossible as either your attention is being divided up elsewhere, you don’t have the space to lay out products, or certain products simply aren’t up for restocking until the next game week.
Not that you can make every customer happy (you don’t have to tell me twice) but there were instances where the meatsacks that enter your store get stuck and don’t line up even if they’ve gotten everything they’ve wanted. I wasn’t sure how to prod these bums to my till and eventually by the store’s closing they’ll finally get to the register and get mad at you for wasting their time.
Some other pain points that compound this also come down to the controller support. Discounty is very much playable on a controller, mind, but it’s a bit finnicky. The d-pad and left analog stick will move the shopkeeper around, but oftentimes they can only interact with objects if you push into them with the stick. If you exclusively use the d-pad, you’ll find that your interactions simply don’t align with the direction your character is facing. Also, if multiple interactables are present on a single tile i.e. characters and objects, you’re going to have a frustrating time trying to fiddle your way into selecting what you want to interact with.
Besides all that, running the store is fun! But that’s not your only gig in Blomkest. You’ll soon find the town’s problems squarely at your feet and without a pay raise to handle all of it. Without going into spoiler territory, all you need to know is that Blomkest is struggling to keep above water and with a dwindling population, that means Discounty is the only store in town that sells groceries (food deserts, anyone?). Players will find corruption, corporations trying to seize land for their own benefit, environmental damage, and a local populace that is slowly but surely not having it any longer.
The game has about three chapters and each one takes quite a while as progression is partly gated by how well you run the store and use your time. Discounty is open six days a week and for eight hours a day, meaning that you have limited early and after hours to run the store, meet up with the townsfolk, and complete quests to advance the game’s story. For the most part, the game does a great job of keeping the story going and changing up the pace, either through unique event scenarios or just timely conversations between the actors. Blomkest’s people feel like real individuals with their own aspirations and problems, and you can even tell their personalities apart just by paying attention to when they visit your store, what kind of items they buy, and how much they buy. It’s a nice touch and that sort of attention to detail keeps me grounded in the game world.
The downside is that, when those scenarios have dried up, you’ll find that there isn’t much else to do in-between story beats. Like I mentioned, how well you run the store impacts how fast you can progress, and figuring out what makes the best bit of change took me a while. On the shopkeeper’s day off or even past her shifts, I found Blomkest to be quite lame even with the lovely visuals and chiptune music. Discounty has that same issue many other time-sensitive games have where padding out time doesn’t really exist beyond the base mechanics, like tending to your store. And while the pace of an average day in this game is fairly quick, it wouldn’t have hurt to include short minigames to play and engage with the townsfolk. That sort of thing can help players feel engaged even during downtime and continue to bond with the characters of the game.
I enjoyed my time with Discounty quite a bit, in part thanks to the pacing of the game’s narrative beats and because I can run a store from the comfort of my home. The town of Blomkest is in desperate need of a hero, and it’s got to be you that shines a light on the smog encroaching upon this secluded bit of land. ∎
Discounty
Played on
Windows 11 PC
PROS
- Lovely visuals and music.
- Good story pacing.
- It's fun to run the store!
CONS
- Downtime can't be filled.
- Controls can be finnicky on a controller.
