Merchant

An hour in, I thought, wow this is cool. Ten hours in, I thought, wow, still going. One hundred and fifty hours in, and I no longer think, or sleep, or breath, I only hustle in the game of Merchant. Scratches a deep down itch, basic and complex all at once. Pixelated and perfect.

This is a mobile game, and you've seen the kind before.

You hire heroes, send them on timed fetch quests, you get items to improve your heroes, then you do it all again. It's a cycle of doing chores on a timer over and over again, and everything operates on a timer. Want to craft some boots? Craft this cloth from this thread, which takes 30 seconds, then craft the boots from the cloth, which takes another 30 seconds. Sell this potion, which takes 45 seconds. Send this hero to fight this guy, which takes a minute. Everything has a timer. Everything is waiting.

Many of these sorts of games operate on a microtransaction system that very deliberately puts players who don't spend money on the game at an obvious disadvantage. Usually it's something like running out of daily alloted points or not having access to certain items or areas unless they pay. This game chooses the latter. It's "ethical free to play" because you buy DLC, according to Retora. What a joke. It's the same ♥♥♥♥ with a different name. They say it's DLC, but it's just things like buying new inventory and hero slots. You know what's more ethical about this than other games that make you buy inventory space? Absolutely nothing. They just call it DLC and act like that somehow makes it better. It's not even inherently immoral, but parading their ethics right in their Steam description is the biggest eye roll I've ever seen; there's an implication that other free to play games that do this exact same thing aren't ethical themselves.

When I said this was a mobile game, I didn't just mean the practices and gameplay. This is a literal mobile port. The resolution is exactly what you see in the screenshots of the game. It's portrait mode, and your mouse stands in for the touch controls. There isn't even mouse scrolling; if you want to scroll, you click and drag as if you were touching it and dragging the screen with your finger.

That's not to say that NOTHING was changed for the PC release. They added "Streaming Mode," which inserts an overlay that fits what I presume is a standard screen (I'm on an ultrawide monitor and it looked like it was in the ballpack of 1920x1080) that tells you where a file that you can replace with your own custom image is located, effectively giving you an overlay appropriate for your stream which is functionally useless seeing as every streamer I have ever watched that wants an overlay can easily make one inside OBS. That's right; the way they take advantage of the extra screen real estate is by making YOU fill in the black space inside their game rather than choosing to make an effort themselves to fill in this space with relevant information. My monitor could have EASILY fit all four of the screens (Craft, Stash, Shop, and Heroes) as they are now side by side, and with the lack of the mouse wheel functionality it would have almost made sense for me to have to click and drag to scroll on these boxes were it like that.

There are small details that I don't mean to leave out. Sometimes you craft enchanted items or find rare enemies that spawn seemingly at random. Nothing about these things shakes up the core gameplay, and even if they add depth you're still swimming in the kiddie pool. There is just not enough of a game here to justify spending more than an hour; in less than half that time you have seen all that it has to offer without the illusion of progress you might attain if you stick with it for longer.

There are additional classes to unlock, but this means nothing when you don't watch the combat. There are merchant skins and shop skins which are cool, but you have to buy them and it's just not a worthwhile investment.

If they were to take advantage of the screen real estate and ditch the DLC model altogether, I could see this being a solid 99 cent game that you get on sale for 50 cents during the Summer Sale, play once, uninstall, and then give away to your friends for a half-hearted thank you every time someone sneaks it into your Humble Bundle with other better games.

You might notice several positive reviews for this game. Many praise it for being a faithful port of the mobile game. Some praise it as a game in general as if it does literally anything that hasn't been done before. But I guess I can't complain too much, seeing as I spent $0 and about an hour of my life between playing the game and reviewing it.

Merchant is a combination strategic RPG and tycoon, originally created as a Free to Play mobile app, and now ported to Steam. The game is played from the perspective of a shopkeeper; You hire heroes to go on quests and retrieve materials, process those materials with the help of several crafters, and eventually either sell the finished items to customers to build your relationship with them, or save them to power up your heroes and send them on tougher quests.

While at a glance it may seem like a simplistic idle game, in actuality it contains a pleasantly surprising amount of depth inspired by traditional RPG elements. As you progress through the game your heroes level up and gain new skills based on their class. Class also effects stat gains from leveling up and equipping certain gear. As quests become more challenging it becomes necessary to send your heroes' in groups, planning their skills around not only the enemy, but each other as well.

Quest timers increase substantially as you progress, but farming materials in previous areas is still rewarding–this allows the player to develop a strategy around their preference between active and idle play. Every piece of equipment you create also has a chance to have additional stats; some may give extra damage or defense, while others may increase XP gain, luck, or quest speed for those who prefer active play. Prestiging high leveled heroes increases their stat gains and allows them to run multiple quests in a row, for those who prefer idle play. To keep things fresh and assist with progress, each week rotates through a double XP or Speed event, as well as an Epic Boss with special loot.

DLC is cheap and consists mostly of small QoL extras for those who enjoy the game. Most noteworthy is the Frozen Tome DLC–just $2.99 for an additional area, hero class, and a second prestige. There is a cloud save feature, and any IAPs/DLC purchased do transfer over from Steam to Mobile versions and vice versa.

Overall, Merchant is a grindy game with a slow but gratifying progression. The art has a nostalgic feel, reminiscent of classic games. My only qualm is that some information is not explicitly given within the game itself, but there is loads of information documented on the MerchantDB, reddit and discord. Both the Retora DEV team and the community are active, friendly, and responsive. If you do give the game a try, I would highly recommend joining the reddit (MerchantRPG) and/or the discord (CAZ3zGv).

Personally, I have been playing on mobile since 2014 and seen huge strides in its development. I can say with confidence that the game has far surpassed my expectations as a free to play game, and become one of my favorite games. Be it through Steam or mobile, I recommend it to anyone looking to kill some time.