 Review By: Jared Black |
Developer: | GAMEINVEST |
| Publisher: | Majesco Entertainment | |
| Genre: | Simulation | |
| ESRB: | Everyone | |
| # Of Players: | 1 | |
| Online Play: | No | |
| Accessories: | N/A | |
| Buy Now: |   |
What could be more fun than running your own toy shop? Well, almost anything if Majesco’s new simulation is to be believed. The aptly-titled Toy Shop takes an inherently fun thing (playing a video game about selling toys!) and boils it down to the most menial of tasks, resulting in a simulation that’s just not that fun to play.
After Mark & Mel’s grandpa dies, the two tykes are stuck with a struggling toy shop to overhaul. The catch? According to the will the two have three years to make the store profitable, to the tune of $50,000 in net profits, or else face losing it altogether. Each “year” is made up of four 30 day seasons, with a special holiday in each (such as Valentine’s Day, “Vacations”, Halloween, etc.), with each in-game day running 5 minutes real-time. To accomplish their goal the two decide to take a divide and conquer approach to the challenge, with Mel running the store while Mark makes all of the toys. This actually lends the game an interesting dynamic, as the player must control both sides of the business by controlling both Mark and Mel at the same time.
As far as actually running the store floor is concerned, there isn’t a whole lot to do. The player uses profits made from toy sales to buy fixtures for the store, including shelves, showcases, seasonal decorations, and even store upgrades. The player can then place available toys on the shelves and set the prices on those toys based on current supply and demand, and watch as customers browse and purchase.
As customers come into the store, the player can tap them to see their current interest in each type of toy, as well as the money they have on-hand. Theoretically this could be useful in determining why a customer would leave the store empty-handed (for example, if you’re out of the type of toy they want, or if prices are too high), but there’s no real way to actually know in the game why a customer leaves unhappy. Other than that however, everything is automated for the player. When a customer finds what he or she wants, they walk up to the cash register and pay for the goods. As items are purchased, their shelf slots are automatically refilled, so the player doesn’t even need to worry about restocking as long as the toys are built beforehand. So when it comes to Mel’s role in this game, after the initial store setup there’s very little to do (other than flipping the Open sign each day) until new fixtures or upgrades need to be added.
Posted: 2008-06-14 13:51:02 PST