Possibly the most fun I’ve had on a business simulator game to date, Great management system, Great map design, numerous avenues and approaches to running a business and a fantastic story to compliment. Join us on our adventure as we unravel this Business-Management RPG in our Craftlands Workshoppe Review!
Craftlands workshoppe boasts itself as a “Funny Indie Capatilist RPG Trading Adventure Game” – Aaand breathe. Although that is quite the ambitious claim to be ALL of those things… I was blown away to discover I was not being lied to.
Published by Excalibur Games, Craftlands Workshoppe takes you on a story-driven business adventure, where you are the apprentice of a shopkeeper who has mysteriously disappeared. It is down to you to solve the mystery of his disappearance, finding a balance between progressing through the story and ensuring that your business doesn’t begin to struggle.
Contents
Gameplay
The gameplay presents you with a number of directions you can take in terms of professions of craft, you can become an alchemist; brewing a huge array of potions and alcohols. A blacksmith; constructing weapons and armours(as well as other things). or you can become a Chef; Cooking many delicacies and foods. Eventually, you also unlock the crafting table as well, which is the fourth profession, though it relies heavily on being able to construct things through the other primary professions.
You will stumble your way through the story, trying to run through the questline while also keeping your business afloat. There are HUGE amounts of approaches you can take to running the business. You can have workers craft a large number of your goods for you, whether using stock that you purchase, or using stock that they purchase for a premium rate.
There are also a number of ways that you can flip the goods in order to try and turn a solid profit, including selling the goods yourself, selling in bulk to cargo ships for them to cart off to neighbouring locations. or using your workers to sell directly to the timothy for a cut of the value of the item.
The workers are incredibly well made, The more work they do the more they level up. Allowing you to improve their efficiency upon levelling, but also leaving you having to establish whether they will earn you enough money from doing so to justify the necessary payrise.
Craftlands Workshoppe doesn’t hold your hand, there are no bailouts, no bank loans to get you out of a sticky spot. But it does have a safety net in that you have different purses; an account for your workers’ money, an account for your money and an account for the shipments. If your workers are turning a loss. You just have to keep the money out of that account so you can manually pick up the pieces and turn a profit yourself.
I found myself getting more and more immersed the longer I played, I mastered the cooking profession first and then immediately began work on improving the next. All the while slowly progressing through the main questline.
Criticism’s
One criticism I have for the game is the energy feature. Though upon reaching 0 energy you are left being unable to action any more crafts. My problem lies with its replenishing system. To gain it back you need to sleep. But as long as you sleep before 7 am the next morning you will get it all back. Whether you sleep at 11 pm the night before or 6.59 am, the time will forward to 7 am and you will have maximum energy.
I believe the game should implement an over-time system of health regeneration while sleeping. encouraging the user to maintain a realistic sleeping pattern. resulting in late nights affecting your energy levels the next day. The sleeping function is there so this is obviously the desired system. But at current it is poorly included. However, being an early access title, I’m willing to give this a pass for the time being.
Graphics
The graphics on Craftlands Workshoppe has a simplistic design but is uniquely beautiful. You explore a well-constructed map. As the map unravels itself piece by piece.
Character Design
The character design on Craftlands workshoppe is relatively simplistic. But it is enough to make the character feel like an extension of yourself. Allowing you to change skin colour and hairstyles. Unfortunately, at present, there aren’t many options to make your character female.
Map
The map on Craftlands Workshoppe is incredibly well thought out and surprisingly large. With numerous quests and trades that the player can do in order to learn new recipes.
All of the places that need to be regularly accessed like the Freight NPC’s and the resources are neighbouring your shop. Whereas the shops are an inconvenient distance away, encouraging you to utilise your workers more in order to establish a healthier profit.
Bugs
There are a number of graphical glitches that occasionally happen, but none of them are game-breaking, considering this game is still early access. The bugs are few and far between. And nothing that impacted the game beyond a few cheap laughs.
Story
As touched on earlier, you are the apprentice of a shop keeper who has mysteriously vanished, you need to take over and run the business in his absence. But at the same time trying to investigate what has happened to him.
The story unravels itself at a healthy pace. having a perfect balance between progressing through the RPG-Business management and progressing through the questline. You need to be a jack of all trades as the game encourages you to craft items from ALL of the professions in order to progress through.
The story is incredibly well written, with some minor grammatical errors that I’m sure will be ironed out eventually.
Sounds
The sound on Craftlands workshop somewhat resembles the charm of Animal Crossing. The squeaky non-sensical noises that leave the character’s mouths as they ask you to help them run an errand. Or offer you a bit of advice.
While you are working in the workshop, there is a beautiful ambience as you are running the shop. The sound of a crackling fire as you cook. The service bell ringing while you are out back trying to prepare orders. And not to mention the happy song that runs on a loop in the background. Never getting old.
Craftlands Workshoppe Review – The Verdict
Craftlands Workshoppe is one of my favourite business management games of all time. It has a stunning blend of RPG Elements and adventure and there are so many different ways of making money that it gives you room to experiment on the optimal money making method. Sometimes you end up with egg on your face and other times you see yourself rolling in the cash.
With the business management game market being flooded with mobile standard games these days, Craftlands workshop is an absolute breath of fresh air to the genre. Easily the Business Management Sim game of the year in my eyes!
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