This game is an absolute blast if you've ever dreamed of running your own card shop! It really nails what it feels like to be behind the counter of your local game store. Even if you haven't dreamt of this, it is still so much fun.
The core gameplay loop is what makes it so addictive. One minute you're arranging booster packs on shelves (which is weirdly satisfying), and the next you're checking your inventory to figure out what to order next. You get to set up your play areas how you want them, complete with house rules - just like a real shop would have.
But the best part? The customers! Every person who walks through your door brings something different to deal with. You might get someone hunting for that one specific card to complete their deck, or a player looking to sell off their collection. Sometimes you'll even get people wanting to trade cards, which is when your knowledge of card values really comes in handy.
For an Early Access game, there's a surprising amount of stuff to do already. Even after 20 hours, I'm still enjoying the basic loop of buy-sell-trade. Sure, there are some features I'd love to see added (I'll get into those later), but what's here right now is already pretty solid. It really feels like you're building your own little card game community, especially when you see people playing the game in your store, with the stuff they purchased from you!
Ever been in a game store where someone clearly skipped their shower for a week? Well, this game gets hilariously real with it! You can actually manage your shop's smell with air purifiers and scent systems. It's not just a silly gimmick either - stinky customers can actually drive others away from your store.
There's even an achievement for dealing with particularly pungent patrons. It's one of those little details that shows the developers really understand card shop culture.
And speaking of authenticity - let's talk about the most addictive part of any card game: cracking packs! The game absolutely nails the rush of opening booster packs. Got some extra cash after a good day of sales?
You can totally blow it all on opening packs, just like we all do in real life. The animation and sound effects are super satisfying, and that moment of anticipation before revealing a rare card? The best (or worst?) part is that any cards you pull can go straight into your shop's inventory, so you can almost justify it as "restocking".
Selling single cards, however, is frustratingly slow, and if you open way too many packs (which is easy to do) then you end up with a lot of dead stock in your inventory that is value that is not being reinvested back into the store.
I'm playing the game on Linux Mint, and it runs reasonably well for a about half an hour before it becomes a laggy mess. Disabling V-Sync helps a little bit with this, but closing and re-opening the game usually solves all of these problems.
Having said that, mixing early access, a probably non-native linux game, and so, so many objects on screen all at once, probably causes some sort of memory leak or optimisation needing to be done at some point.
The developers are working on some fixes and expansion-like elements to the game, so hopefully there's more stability in my personal scenario. Until then, its a way of moderating my game time in this title.
The only dangerous side effect of this game is that it makes me want to open and collect real-world trading packs, but I do not have real world money for such things.