Keep Me Gifted

Cute art style and concept but absolutely ruined by around day 6-8. You will unlock the option to buy more things in the whole sale shop but you barely any make profit so once you unlock the ability to buy them they constantly start requesting items you don't have and couldn't possibly have at that point in the game. $100 in my bank but day 8 was every single customer asking for $700 items I obviously didn't have while the whole rack of 12 items I did have never got requested once. A huge flaw in the system and makes it actually unplayable. I want to play more of this game, but I've seen others also saying these things and the devs don't seem to have fixed it. We need higher profits, and expensive items should not be requested until much later in the game and/or they should be requesting the things you have had in stock that day and if you run out of stock of an item that was in stock that day then fine, but it's ridiculous when every single customer requests things you can't buy. Please fix the game devs.

This game is really fun but has room for improvement (like many early access games! so I am not criticising).

I love the game concept and think it has a lot of potential.

In terms of gameplay, currently, it seems to be quite difficult to get into a rhythm in making enough profit to keep the store stocked and enable some type of transactional flow. I seem to only make a little profit each day which allows me to restock a few products, but I often run out of money or stock before the day ends and am stuck clicking through customers till day end. It would be great to see an early close feature, where the shopkeeper can close the store if out of stock - or pay more for faster delivery from the post man that comes each day - for more immediate delivery to restock items.

These little inconveniences kinda damper the cosy vibes and make it a bit more grindy.

Another workaround for this might be to a have a free play mode where the goal isn't about making profits but just being able to fufil orders and wrap - that would be so fun and I would likely play a lot longer than I am currently.

Otherwise, the game itself is enjoyable - I love the art style - quirky characters and interesting interactions. There is definitely enough there to keep you playing a while. Love the idea about themed DLC or seasonal events.

Thanks for all the efforts with the game!


UPDATE: I read through the discussion board and you can adjust prices of stock. So I think this was partly my problem in not making enough profit. This wasn't demonstrated in the demo with the cat - so I somehow missed this. I am now playing and altering prices, so hopefully that helps :) ty ty

I really wish I could give this a recommendation, but after just shy of 10 hours of playing and 2 different saves, I am adding it to my "Keep An Eye On For Future Updates" pile. The game itself has promise, but there are so many bugs and things that make it hard to stay motivated to keep playing. If these ever get addressed I would give it another chance, but until then I can't recommend it in it's current state.

What I Enjoyed

• Simple and easy to understand mechanics.
• I enjoy hand-drawn art styles and this one hit that mark for me.
• There was a fun variety of items and I enjoyed strategizing which items to buy and what price point to set them at to increase profits.
• I actually enjoyed running the shop and meeting all of the customers. I liked the quirky personalities and interactions.
• The haggling mini-game and tarot readings added an extra something to keep sales interesting and break up some of the repetition.

Why I Can't Recommend

• Too many bugs. On my first save I got soft-locked around Day 15. My shelves were fully stocked, but the customers acted as though my shelves were empty.
• I was really excited for 'Betsy' and having extra orders, but 90% of the time the orders shipped failed to arrive safely which meant bad ratings for the shop. On top of that new orders always showed at the top of the list, but the screen loaded at the bottom of the list. It was annoying having to scroll through every completed order back to the top to find the new ones. After a while I just stopped using this feature.
• It's impossible to get a 5 star rating on 'Welp'. Even if you try to make everything perfect a customer can decide to leave 4 stars "just because". The highest score I managed to get was a 4.1 rating. On top of that sometimes the customers will ask for things on the wrapping (stickers, specific messages, etc) but what they are asking for is not an option and/or the options you do have are wrong (ie. there are two possible options for Lightning Bolts, but neither one of them works when a customer asks for them).
• I enjoyed unlocking upgrades for the shop, but the wrapping station one seemed pointless. Nothing seems to change other than the cost of wrapping which is such a minor cost component of the game.
• There are several achievements that appear to be broken. I know 100% for sure I met the requirements for a few of them (like meeting the mail man and wrapping my first gift), but the achievements did not unlock.
• There are some graphics issues with the wrapping where the stickers are added under the design of the wrapping paper or under the ribbon.

Final Thoughts
This game feels unfinished and abandoned which is so sad because it had so much potential! I actually enjoyed the gameplay a lot more than I did other shopkeeper/packing games. I was disappointed that this ended up not meeting my expectations. There are other bugs I saw noted in the discussions too aside from the ones I personally encountered.

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