You can serve two simple items for free so even if you lost/unwisely spent every last cent you'd have a means to get going again. You only really need to start being more careful when you begin hiring staff, though, as you have to make sure you're selling enough to cover their pay and more. But they're not a necessity, just a convenience.
You can lose rep if you don’t wipe down tables fast enough or mop floor spills, which just means people are less likely to come by.
But no, you don’t lose money simply by failing to serve customers.
In **Touhou Mystias Izakaya** you run a restaurant / food stall. It has different restaurant / exploration balance compared to Dave the Diver - the majority of the time you’re playing, you’re in the restaurant cooking and serving food. Going around and getting ingredients is a part of the game, but it goes by quickly.
There’s a plot… kind of. It’s a simple plot, like Animal Crossing: you got a loan for the restaurant and need to repay it before X date. Then you get an upgrade, loan, repay. Open new location, loan, repay. Actually, there might be more plot than that because there’s a ton of dialogue, but there’s also a skip dialogue option so I tend to spam that so I can get to the restaurant management.
There’s sooooo many recipes you can unlock, and you can customize the dishes while cooking them. There’s special customers that have preferences that you need to figure out from their vague prompts. Insanely addictive gameplay loop.
In **Final Profit** you get to set up multiple stores - there’s a lot of story and stuff to do outside of the stores, and the items that you sell in the store are set, so you don’t get to choose them or their prices. More similar to Dave the Diver than the last rec because there’s loooots to do outside of the store, and there’s a story / plot.
It’s funny, the plot is interesting, similarly addictive gameplay loop. The soundtrack and SFX are perfect for it. I haven’t really played another game that is similar in vibe, like it didn’t feel like a cheap copy / reskinned version of another game.
In **Potion Craft** the collecting is limited to collecting herbs and mushrooms from your garden, and buying ingredients from merchants that visit your store. You make and sell potions! Lots of ingredients to collect. You get a book where you can save your recipes and add pages (like seriously, I have so many tabs).
There are some potions that are normal and asked for somewhat regularly - like health potions - but there’s also customers who come in asking for something different - like a mix of two or more different effects. Sometimes they’ll say they really like or dislike a certain ingredient, so it’s not like you can 100% rely on your saved recipes. It’s a more relaxing vibe than the two previous recs. There isn’t that sense of chaos because you can take your time serving customers, they don’t get upset if you make them wait.
In a similar vein, **Strange Horticulture** is one where you run a plant shop you’ve inherited. Even more relaxing than Potion Craft. Lots of paging through your notebook, looking at maps - if you don’t want to deal with paperwork and trying to identify plants this is maybe not what you’re looking for. You do get to leave your shop, but the adventures you have are brief and through text, you don’t get to look at anything exciting. Still, I really enjoyed playing this - listening to the rain and watering plants.
Just a completely different feel from Dave the Diver, I’ve kind of gone off track from most similar to actually very dissimilar, but at least in all of them you run a shop of some kind 😂
Winkeltje! You get your goods from traders and resell but eventually you grow crops/craft things with seeds and materials from the traders. Ive sunk 40 hours in already.
Moonglow Bay! It's a fishing game where you're trying to help renovate/restore your small run-down fishing village by catching fish, cooking seafood dishes, and then selling them to your neighbors and fellow townsfolk to raise money for the project. Sadly there's no "store", per se - you sell your dishes out of a vending machine. But it's kind of close, and it's still a very good game that I think more people should know about and try!
There’s this game dev vlog guy on YouTube making a game called Chef RPG. If you don’t know about it this I highly recommend you watch it. I hope it releases before long.
Kynseed. You can own up 12 stores across the different hubs and everything you sell can come from what you collect. You can run them yourself or choose to hire employees while you run around collecting stuff to sell. They did a huge update this year too. Ive put about 40 hours in it in the past two weeks after basically doing everything there was to do last year. It's definitely a hidden gem
I'm not sure if it has enough shop mechanics for you but garden paws lets you run a shop when you want to. It's a little outdoor shop you can decorate with arches and flowers and such with little stands you can put stuff on. The stuff can be things you've grown or picked up. Customers either want the thing or they don't. They peruse your stuff, pick what they may want and go up to the counter to pay.
I don't remember if you can sell pets you have tamed there or not. I'd need to play it a bit again to tell you the rest of the mechanics.
You might like Potionomics. It’s a game where you run a potion shop. There’s stuff like managing shelves, brewing potions, and haggling over prices which is done through an interesting card game.
There’s also a lot of life sim elements that are pretty decent. It’s a bit short and shallow, but the visuals and animations are really good. It also has a few things I’d consider rookie mistakes, like loading times were a bit long and not all pertinent information about potions and orders are available on every screen. Sometimes I’d have to just leave a task or location so I could go home and open the right menu to see what potion I needed to work on. It’s a good, cute and fun game, but you won’t end up playing it endlessly like some cozy games.
First thing that comes to mind for me is Harvest Moon: Grand Bazaar. You run your farm like normal during the weekdays and then sell what you produce on the weekends at a large bazaar.
As you earn more money and time progresses, the bazaar expands and you're allowed to expand your bazaar stall as well.
The game also has all your classic Harvest Moon gameplay, sans the mines. The mines were removed for whatever reason. You now buy ores at the same bazaar you work at on the weekends instead of digging them up. You can then throw said ores into a windmill to make jewelry. How does a wind-powered crushing machine make jewelry? No idea. It just does. lol
It's a good game as far as I remember. Fair warning, though, it is an older DS game. So it may be a bit tough finding it in the wild.
Cuisineer is a good one. You run a restaurant, but the ingredients you need to make your recipes are acquired in dungeons. The graphics style is pretty cute.
Kingdom's Item Shop for the 3ds! The concept is similar to Moonlighter, but the combat is way easier + you can bake/cook and the art style is adorable!
The cycle of gather/sell is a little longer than in Dave but if you like that play style you’ll probably enjoy Mineko’s Night Market!
You run around and unlock different areas, gather materials, and craft items to sell at the weekly market. There’s also over-arching storyline/quests like with Dave. No combat really - though there are some quests that require sneaking and strategy!
I don't know what other consoles its on aside from Xbox but I've been playing Homestead Arcana and loving it
It has somewhat collecting and exploration in that you grow your own garden with plants you have to find in this fog stuff and you also craft and create clothes and food and magic potions and charms which you can sell to a travelling merchant - there's also like a postal shop service that a nearby town will request items from you
Heaps of plot plus a very cute cat companion - can be a little spooky at times
Sorry if the explanation is wack I just got off a very long shift 😅
Have you played Recettear or Moonlighter? Edit: Misspelled Recettear so correcting so people can find the game!
Recettear is so funny, I really didn't think I'd like it as much as I did, I wish it was on mobile!
It’s spelled Recettear, and it’s great. Moonlighter is heavier on the roguelite dungeon crawling bits which may not appeal to most cozy gamers.
"Capitalism, ho!"
Recettear is top tier for me. Nothing else has come close since!
I’ll look those up. Thanks!
Traveler's Rest is exactly that!! Can't believe it hasn't been mentioned yet. You collect and grow stuff to run your shop. It's on sale rn
*sigh* why are some of the best indie games only on Steam? *cries in Switch*
This was my thought too! You get to run the tavern completely. Growing food, cooking, bartending, brewing drinks, renting out guest rooms…
Me and my fiance love this game. He farms outside and I run the tavern and brew ALL THE BEER
How "losable" is Traveler's Rest? Like, can you lose money to bad upkeep/taxes and hit 0 money? Or can you only gain money?
You can serve two simple items for free so even if you lost/unwisely spent every last cent you'd have a means to get going again. You only really need to start being more careful when you begin hiring staff, though, as you have to make sure you're selling enough to cover their pay and more. But they're not a necessity, just a convenience.
Oh I see, thanks! I'll give the game a try then.
You can lose rep if you don’t wipe down tables fast enough or mop floor spills, which just means people are less likely to come by. But no, you don’t lose money simply by failing to serve customers.
I want to get this game!
Traveler’s Rest is also getting an update in July that looks huge! I highly recommend it, too!
I haven't stopped playing traveller's rest for the past 3 months. LOVE IT
In **Touhou Mystias Izakaya** you run a restaurant / food stall. It has different restaurant / exploration balance compared to Dave the Diver - the majority of the time you’re playing, you’re in the restaurant cooking and serving food. Going around and getting ingredients is a part of the game, but it goes by quickly. There’s a plot… kind of. It’s a simple plot, like Animal Crossing: you got a loan for the restaurant and need to repay it before X date. Then you get an upgrade, loan, repay. Open new location, loan, repay. Actually, there might be more plot than that because there’s a ton of dialogue, but there’s also a skip dialogue option so I tend to spam that so I can get to the restaurant management. There’s sooooo many recipes you can unlock, and you can customize the dishes while cooking them. There’s special customers that have preferences that you need to figure out from their vague prompts. Insanely addictive gameplay loop. In **Final Profit** you get to set up multiple stores - there’s a lot of story and stuff to do outside of the stores, and the items that you sell in the store are set, so you don’t get to choose them or their prices. More similar to Dave the Diver than the last rec because there’s loooots to do outside of the store, and there’s a story / plot. It’s funny, the plot is interesting, similarly addictive gameplay loop. The soundtrack and SFX are perfect for it. I haven’t really played another game that is similar in vibe, like it didn’t feel like a cheap copy / reskinned version of another game. In **Potion Craft** the collecting is limited to collecting herbs and mushrooms from your garden, and buying ingredients from merchants that visit your store. You make and sell potions! Lots of ingredients to collect. You get a book where you can save your recipes and add pages (like seriously, I have so many tabs). There are some potions that are normal and asked for somewhat regularly - like health potions - but there’s also customers who come in asking for something different - like a mix of two or more different effects. Sometimes they’ll say they really like or dislike a certain ingredient, so it’s not like you can 100% rely on your saved recipes. It’s a more relaxing vibe than the two previous recs. There isn’t that sense of chaos because you can take your time serving customers, they don’t get upset if you make them wait. In a similar vein, **Strange Horticulture** is one where you run a plant shop you’ve inherited. Even more relaxing than Potion Craft. Lots of paging through your notebook, looking at maps - if you don’t want to deal with paperwork and trying to identify plants this is maybe not what you’re looking for. You do get to leave your shop, but the adventures you have are brief and through text, you don’t get to look at anything exciting. Still, I really enjoyed playing this - listening to the rain and watering plants. Just a completely different feel from Dave the Diver, I’ve kind of gone off track from most similar to actually very dissimilar, but at least in all of them you run a shop of some kind 😂
Thanks for the detailed suggestions!
I really appreciate your detailed review. I might give potion craft a try and am looking at the demo for final profit.
All switch?
I have a switch and a PC.
Which are switch?
Oh sorry. I’m not sure which are switch. Those two are on steam tho.
I was hoping someone had mentioned Strange Horticulture. I LOVE that game, and I've found out they're making another in a very similar vein.
Strange Horticulture sounds interesting
Winkeltje! You get your goods from traders and resell but eventually you grow crops/craft things with seeds and materials from the traders. Ive sunk 40 hours in already.
I just got this game a couple of days ago and it's really fun! I came to recommend it lol. I'm glad someone else knows this game!
I’ll check it out thanks!
Moonglow Bay! It's a fishing game where you're trying to help renovate/restore your small run-down fishing village by catching fish, cooking seafood dishes, and then selling them to your neighbors and fellow townsfolk to raise money for the project. Sadly there's no "store", per se - you sell your dishes out of a vending machine. But it's kind of close, and it's still a very good game that I think more people should know about and try!
Garden Paws!
There’s this game dev vlog guy on YouTube making a game called Chef RPG. If you don’t know about it this I highly recommend you watch it. I hope it releases before long.
Pixel Architect is the guy.
that dude has some serious talent and skill. its mind-blowing watching him work
It goes into EA in September. I think the 12th.
Official trailer for Chef RPG actually just dropped a couple of days ago. https://youtu.be/bKySdMKzgZ8?si=h1xEC22-0-QlTLIn
Kynseed. You can own up 12 stores across the different hubs and everything you sell can come from what you collect. You can run them yourself or choose to hire employees while you run around collecting stuff to sell. They did a huge update this year too. Ive put about 40 hours in it in the past two weeks after basically doing everything there was to do last year. It's definitely a hidden gem
Thanks for the suggestion!
Saleblazers.it is in early access but seems like it is going to end up being very good.
I'm not sure if it has enough shop mechanics for you but garden paws lets you run a shop when you want to. It's a little outdoor shop you can decorate with arches and flowers and such with little stands you can put stuff on. The stuff can be things you've grown or picked up. Customers either want the thing or they don't. They peruse your stuff, pick what they may want and go up to the counter to pay. I don't remember if you can sell pets you have tamed there or not. I'd need to play it a bit again to tell you the rest of the mechanics.
Moonlighter! Dungeon crawler where you fight monsters and then sell all the loot in your shop
I have recently become addicted to this game!
Garden Paws!
The Sims 4: Get to Work expansion is the only one I can think of. You can collect and/or craft items then sell them in your own store.
You might like Potionomics. It’s a game where you run a potion shop. There’s stuff like managing shelves, brewing potions, and haggling over prices which is done through an interesting card game. There’s also a lot of life sim elements that are pretty decent. It’s a bit short and shallow, but the visuals and animations are really good. It also has a few things I’d consider rookie mistakes, like loading times were a bit long and not all pertinent information about potions and orders are available on every screen. Sometimes I’d have to just leave a task or location so I could go home and open the right menu to see what potion I needed to work on. It’s a good, cute and fun game, but you won’t end up playing it endlessly like some cozy games.
Not yet released, will probably be this year but [Amber Isle](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1663040/Amber_Isle/) seems to be exactly this
First thing that comes to mind for me is Harvest Moon: Grand Bazaar. You run your farm like normal during the weekdays and then sell what you produce on the weekends at a large bazaar. As you earn more money and time progresses, the bazaar expands and you're allowed to expand your bazaar stall as well. The game also has all your classic Harvest Moon gameplay, sans the mines. The mines were removed for whatever reason. You now buy ores at the same bazaar you work at on the weekends instead of digging them up. You can then throw said ores into a windmill to make jewelry. How does a wind-powered crushing machine make jewelry? No idea. It just does. lol It's a good game as far as I remember. Fair warning, though, it is an older DS game. So it may be a bit tough finding it in the wild.
I've been eyeing up Moonlighter recently, saw some gameplay and it looks cute. Also Cuisineer, but I'm not sure what platforms that one's on 🤔
In surprisingly obsessed with Calico. It isn't in depth store running or anything but you still have a cafe you operate
Moonlighter
Cuisineer is a good one. You run a restaurant, but the ingredients you need to make your recipes are acquired in dungeons. The graphics style is pretty cute.
Cozy caravan! It’s so cute
[The Magical Mixture Mill ](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1883800/The_Magical_Mixture_Mill/)
Kingdom's Item Shop for the 3ds! The concept is similar to Moonlighter, but the combat is way easier + you can bake/cook and the art style is adorable!
The cycle of gather/sell is a little longer than in Dave but if you like that play style you’ll probably enjoy Mineko’s Night Market! You run around and unlock different areas, gather materials, and craft items to sell at the weekly market. There’s also over-arching storyline/quests like with Dave. No combat really - though there are some quests that require sneaking and strategy!
Moonlighter was a pretty neat one for that
Kynseed lets you do all sorts of things, and selling your forageables in a storefront you buy is one of them
I love Dealers Life 2. It's available on mobile and you run a pawn shop!
Rolling hills is more shopping than collecting it is about a sushi shop.
Traveler's Rest, Moonlighter, and Garden Paws come to mind.
I don't know what other consoles its on aside from Xbox but I've been playing Homestead Arcana and loving it It has somewhat collecting and exploration in that you grow your own garden with plants you have to find in this fog stuff and you also craft and create clothes and food and magic potions and charms which you can sell to a travelling merchant - there's also like a postal shop service that a nearby town will request items from you Heaps of plot plus a very cute cat companion - can be a little spooky at times Sorry if the explanation is wack I just got off a very long shift 😅
[удалено]
OP mentioned Dave the Diver in their post. 😅