I wanted a Shopkeeping Sim. Instead I got some woke trash game. Should have known from the bald headed woman main character, really. But Mx. Two? Really? Get this gender ideology trash out of my life. There are two genders: male, female. End of story.

[Edit:] Oh, I severely hope this developer goes down the same path as the developer of Domina has, with his/her harrassment of people. Imagine making a game that is pandering and accommodating to every gender delusion to ever walk this earth and then intentionally misgendering a woman as "sir" to inflict distress and pain - imagine being so weak that you cannot even stand by your own ridiculous priniciples. :) And I do not care one bit, if it's one of your weak a$$ reddit memes that have never been funny in the first place. :) You misgendered me and you actually believe that you did it for the cause of fighting evil, when in fact you are the new fascism. Another ten years and all of your entitled woke battles will have been lost to normalcy and decency and a huge net of quality therapy. Good day! :)

[Another edit:] Oh, wow. I only noticed now that the developer sneakily snuck in some half-assed apology about him/her trying to PURPOSEFULLY hurt me, not only by misgendering me, but by also just meme'ing about the trauma I had to suffer from trans people in real life, by making light of it and downplaying it with a trash joke.

Yes, the game DOES push an agenda, a very clear one. Everyone with half a brain that hasn't that remaining half brainwashed by harmful ideology can see and smell it. You know what diverse actually means? People with CHARACTER TRAITS and a range of DISLIKES and LIKES. FULL STOP. You know what a character trait is for example? If someone is honest. A character trait is not some kind of skin colour, btw. or your sexual preferences. You know what a dislike is? If someone dislikes cold feet. You know what a like is? If someone likes spinach. You know what isn't diverse? People basing their whole being on a sole mental health issue, like believing you are the opposite sex or believing you can just opt out of your gender altogether, just because maybe you are an ugly woman or maybe because you are a gay man that doesn't want to accept that there are many men on this planet who are not gay. You know what an agenda is? When a small minority of people with massive mental health issues believes, that all of a sudden the whole of society has to pander to each and every one of their wishes, has to cater to any of their whims, has to accommodate for each of their disabilities and not only accommodate for this, NO - you have to celebrate it and acknowledge it as some form of higher tier human being, while at the same time sh1tting on everything that is decent and normal.

"Their identity is not even a big thing, they just exist." No, they don't "just exist", because non-binary is not an existing thing and neither is trans, because no one can changer their sex. It is a lie made up to force everyone around you to bow down to some narcissistic fascism. And yes, I am VERY offended by that. Because I won't be forced to tell lies and act like there is a naked "WOMAN with a penis" next to me in the locker room, where I am at my most vulnerable. I am offended by the sole thought of someone trying to coerce me into letting all of my guard down, getting rid of all of my instincts as a woman in the face of the dangers a man can pose to me in a situation like that, just so people like you can bathe in their perceived holier-than-Jesus-ness and their imagined higher moral ground, while you drive the most vulnerable in this society into the ground for it.

This game and its hate- and spiteful community both really boil my blood.

So, first of all: The „loved one“ was a dog, of which unfortunately you have to keep a picture on your unmovable and unadjustable counter. I do absolutely understand people mourning their pets and considering them parts of their family and whatnot, but in this case buyers are kept in an ambiguous dark on purpose to grab more cash. (And the dev already announced that the price of the game will be increased at full release. Of course the game is not worth even the current price at all, but more on that later.)

I thought this game was directed towards an actual human being that tragically passed away or something and for me that made me want to support it. I wanted to know the story behind it. Plus, I absolutely adore Shop Simulations. Imagine my disgust when I found out it was just about a dog. If I were to develop a game and wanted to dedicate it to my pet, I would frokking say so. And I would also share the story behind my grief to make it more relatable. Even if I gave it a magical coat. Now I just have to wonder if this dog even existed at all. Keeping it ambiguous to pull at people's heartstrings comes close to fraud in my opinion.

And then being hatefully harassed in the discussion boards by a mob for criticism towards game mechanics (for something as minor as not being able to recycle or sell unwanted furniture; and reading through the boards, I wasn't the only one being harassed for criticism), by people who try to take you emotionally hostage and try to tear you apart mid-air over a dog that I couldn't care less about and that doesn't even have anything to do with my criticism towards the gameplay, is making me absolutely detest this game. „How dare you criticise this game? It is forbidden to criticise anything, because this game is CoooooZyy and pEAcEfUl!!1“ People actually consider you Hättlerrrr for criticising a game just because the developer explicitly stated that the game is all about a lost „loved one“. As if no other developer or artist ever created something after a loss or in dedication to loss. So anything like that is untouchable ever?

I'll try to remember all the different things that were simply horrible about this game. It's been a few weeks since I decided I cannot be arsched to go for the last five or so achievements, which would have been the most monotonous, unfun grind. Which is in turn somewhat surprising, in a game that becomes a „I wake up in the morning, click some contraptions in my shop and then watch everything happen by itself“ game. But unfortunately the „automation“ (grabbing stuff via an expensive kind of magical pillar with a much too small radius) doesn't level up your skills, while mindlessly auto-grabbing while auto-running (on one of four „funny“ magical mounts that just motionlessly hover beneath you) through a lovelessly, soullessly generated world does.

A world so uninspiring, because literally EVERYTHING is just bought Unity assets, from the trees that are mostly just hovering above the forest floor, to the uninspired items you sell in your shop to the really ugly and sometimes outright creepy NPCs that visit your world through a portal and also leave by said portal, because the developer with his „13 years of experience“ (LOOOOL, wut? Is your name per chance „Thor“ and you also worked at Blizzard?) couldn't be bothered to actually create a meaningful story for this stupid arsch „peaceful and cozy“ world. Why are all those adventurers even buying Healing Potions in a world with no violence? Nobody knows, so we just make them appear from an isekai with zero story, it would seem.

The customer NPCs are designed horribly, from their shrill and ugly hair styles and colours to their yellowish, dead eyes to their eversame clothing and their unnatural movement. They NEVER pay in a way that makes actual sense and that REALLY grinds my gears in a SHOP management game, where currency and money plays probably the biggest role. Also, prices for things do not follow any sensible rule, other than „do a 1.08 mark up on everything or the price will become red“ but people will still buy, just less, because everyone just has a predefined budget, but not a story behind it or actual needs or desires. Also, random animals come and buy stuff, because „hahahaha, oh, so funny, can't contain my laughter, have you seen that goat?? it bought a potato and then paid with a three hundred dollar chip!! amazeballs! best game i ever played!!1 cozy af“

If you expand the shop and get the next higher tier of items, there is no real price increase for those at all, so you shouldn't even bother unlocking anything ever, except for the automation that automatically restocks for you and also automated, soulless cashiers, so you yourself don't even have to play the game. Genius. If I go to my mobile I can have an idle clicker for less money. Just sayin'. Also, there are unlockables for „Setting everything to Market Price“, but nowhere is explained what that really means. Does it mean it actually reverts all the price changes I already painfully did on every single item? (Since of course there is no actual ledger where you could do it all in one place, that would be TOO. MUCH. QOL!!) Or does it mean, set everything to Market Price after I unlock it, because if you unlock stuff, WHY WOULDN'T IT BE SET TO MARKET PRICE FROM THE BEGINNING?? Make it make sense...

Well, anyway, just don't unlock anything. The other game mechanic in a Shop Sim, that actually makes it enjoyable USUALLY. If you actually play a shop sim and not some heartlessly clobbered together Sob Story Cash Grab (TM). And do not expand your shop either, because it suffers from the „Bottle Necking Progress and Padding Play Time Behind Ridiculously Priced Shop Expansion Tiles“ illness. Especially do not unlock the decorations that are scattered around in the expansions like they actually mattered. As far as I remember, you do not get more customers, just because you put up an ugly Christmas Tree that you can just clip through the ceiling if you want to, because nothing in this shop makes any sense.

Some time ago, Let's Game It Out played the game and of course showed all the ways in which it was horribly programmed, for example putting a fully stacked display on your cat. But since the developer was either too lazy or too inexperienced to actually fix those bugs, he acted like they were planned features from the beginning. And because it is „OH SO FUNNY, HAHAHAHA. I LIKE PUTTING HEAVY FURNITURE ON MY „LOVED ONES“, BECAUSE THEN THEY CRUSH UNDER THE WEIGHT AND I CAN MAKE A FRAUDULENT CASH GRAB GAME OUT OF IT.“ Get it? Also, if you want to brew and sell alcohol, you actually get LESS cash, as if you just sold the honey and the fruit or whatever the ingredients were, on their own. Pretty sure that was the case for other multi ingredient recipes as well. And if I remember correctly, the only thing worth selling was fish anyways, which would make sense, because fishing was the only thing you couldn't just senselessly automate and the super snoozy fishing mechanic would pad game time even more for this already incredibly boring game.

There is also no way to build chicken coops or other animal barns, or make your own farm (at least not for every item, just for about ten or so „special“ cauliflowers and sheet) so you wouldn't need to run around thirty kilometers of map to grab ressources or spend 100k money on 40 magical auto-grabber pillars and thus get to experience all the „whimsical“ little gnomes (that do not even talk to you) and unicorns (that also do not talk) and unfunny dinosaurs and sob story bears and some really lame octopus on a mountain that I had to auto-run and clip-through-map towards for like 30 real life minutes to get the achievement. The little farming we get also has a really BAD mechanic. [If you want to read the rest - since Steam has a ridiculous character limit, go to my profile.]