The Shopkeeper Review

I must be honest - in the end The Shopkeeper left me a wee bit disappointed. If I described to you a game which takes elements from Groundhog Day and The Twilight Zone, mixes them with interactive storytelling, a handful of endings, and sets all of this against beautifully handdrawn environments, adopting point and click mechanics, where the aim of the game is get on the right side of a nasty mother-in-law - would you be intrigued? Of course you would. I certainly was. But in the end I was left a wee bit disappointed.

Because The Shopkeeper feels like it’s got a lot to offer. Like the shelves and glass front cabinets of the game’s mysterious antique store setting - brimming with relics and artefacts and aerlooms and dreams - The Shopkeeper feels like it’s got a story to tell. At first it’s all quite exciting, quirky, intriguing. But very quickly what first feels like a subtle level of depth waiting to be uncovered, is revealed to be a not so subtle amount of wasted potential.

So here is the shopkeeper watching over his store.

At first, I wasn’t actually sure of what was expected of me. Was I in control of the titular antiques shopkeeper, who knew the story behind each and every item adorning his shop floor, or was I in charge of the sharply dressed, ponytail sporting fellow who so desperately wished to please his cantankerous mother-in-law? The Shopkeeper is literally a point and click in the sense that the roles are never explicit: you point, you click, and someone starts talking. You’re never really in control of anyone. You listen, you learn, and you attempt to progress.

Progressing however is where things get decidedly less straightforward. There are a number of antiques to examine within the shop, and it’s up to you, the son-in-law and the shopkeeper, to decide on which trinket the mrs’ mum would like best. Then you’re marched up to the monster-in-law’s office where again you must choose wisely, this time the correct sequence of conversation prompts, to stay on her right side. In all scenarios you’re after money and/or business advice, whilst she continually undermines your acumen and you and her daughter’s relationship.

Can you choose the correct antique?

Guess wrong, and you’re transported back to the shop floor, made to survey yet another antique, and made to engage in yet further dialogue with mum - as if the previous conversations hadn’t taken place. Without sounding overly pretentious or grasping at profundity, I loved the idea of the Groundhog Day type ordeal - being forced to pander to a mother-in-law who has consistently failed to appreciate you, who thinks her daughter is better off without you, shopping for aerlooms that have suffered their own cycle of unhappy owners. But The Shopkeeper fails to deliver the metaphor in an interesting, or in fact coherent manner. There are ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ paths to choose from, but it’s never obvious which one you’re wandering down.

This will definitely isolate certain players. Those tenacious individuals will persevere until they’ve reached the ‘best’ ending which cuts to rolling credits; but those otherwise might struggle past one or two roadblocked conversations before questioning a return for a third. Again, The Shopkeeper has good ideas, but really fails to hang on to them, or see them through to completion in any convincing ways.

And can you impress your mother-in-law?

Perhaps the most disappointing thing about The Shopkeeper is its lacklustre voice acting. The muted palette of faded blues and greens and browns works exceptionally well against the desperate repetition of the plot, framed by its cartoon-like visuals. But the voice acting - of which the game’s intrigue hinges upon - is odd at best, and completely mismatched at worst. There are some threads of narrative which are inaudible, and too often conversations between the four in total characters feels tired and jarring.