I have a new obsession. It’s a new game that one of our Geek to Geek friends told me about called Shop Titans. So, like any good addiction, I need to share it with everyone! This game is available for free as an app for iPhone, Google Play, and also available for free on Steam. I am currently playing it on my iPhone and Steam (the game carries over very nicely) and am hooked.

“You’re Basically an NPC”

Yup, you read that right. In Shop Titans you basically are playing as an NPC running your own shop for all the adventurers to come and buy or sell stuff. At first, I thought that sounded boring. I like to play as the adventurer, not the NPC! However, it absolutely is NOT boring. There is so much depth to the game that you uncover as you play.

You can craft equipment, armor, and weapons to sell to adventurers who wander in. You can also purchase crafting items or even finished products from adventurers or other merchants in the city who stop by. Join a guild and help out other players, chat with them if you’d like, and work toward bigger goals. As you gain money and levels, you can even decorate and expand your shop with more mannequins or tables. Decorating with wallpaper, flooring, and fun items help make the shop look more inviting.

Send Your Heroes to Battle!

You can also hire heroes and send them out on missions to earn you supplies that you need in order to craft different items. While you don’t actually fight with the heroes, you can help them out by providing them with armor, enchantments, better weapons, and by leveling them up through completing missions.

You get to watch the fights, though, if you would like! Or just skip them and get the rewards. It’s still nice that the animations are there.

PETS!

You can have pets! Need I say more? Well, I will anyway. You can have pets in your shop which will not only help increase your store’s prestige, but also help make the customers happy.

Energy

One of the ways you are able to do different things in the game, such as haggling with buyers and sellers (or to speed up the time needed to craft items), is to spend Energy Points. These Energy Points will build up on their own over time, but you also earn more when customers play with your pet, sit in a chair, or if you successfully engage in small talk with someone.

Free-To-Play Comes At A Cost

Now for the downside. This game is free-to-play. That is wonderful and you can get a lot of enjoyment out of it without paying a dime. However, that will also require a lot of self-control as there are a lot of ways the developers encourage you to give them money. That’s right. Real money. Of course, this also means that a lot of people are very unhappy with the developers. However, keep in mind that this game offers a lot of content for free, you really don’t have to spend money at all, much like Genshin Impact. This is not a pay-to-win type of game. Really, there isn’t even a “win” at all, it is just a fun game to enjoy.

If you are having fun with the game, there are a lot of ways to help support the developers. You get some great bonuses at the same time by purchasing these extras. Does that mean it is a bad game? Not at all. It simply means that the people who spent a lot of time creating this wonderful game that is giving us hours of enjoyment would like to earn a little money back for it. If you can’t afford it, or don’t want to, you don’t have to spend anything. In asking my guild members how many had spent money on the game, several of them have. But these are also the players who have been playing the game long enough to get above level 50 and were purchasing extras for fun – not because they had to.

It does take some self-control, however, especially when I saw you could purchase different pets (you could buy a unicorn!).

Play on BOTH mobile and computer

As I said before, Shop Titans is available for both mobile on the App Store and Google Play as well as on Steam. I have an iPhone, and that's how I began playing it. So, since I also use my computer a lot for things, I figured I would see how well it carries over to Steam.

While it did take me a few minutes to learn how to get the computer version and the mobile version to sync up, once I did, it was remarkably easy. In fact, Shop Titans has a very well written guide online that explains it. The only issue I ran into was that my Game Center on my iPhone was restricting access for the game. Once I was able to get that straightened out, everything worked perfectly. In fact, as one of my guild members pointed out, there are some things which work better on the computer, and some on mobile.

A Word of Caution For Aspiring NPCs In Shop Titans

I will offer a word of caution here: this game can be very addictive. It is easy to spend a lot of time getting sucked in. Not that it is any different from many other games – especially on mobile – these days. The same thing applies for all of them. Just be careful to not let yourself waste away too much time in this game and not spend enough in the real world. It's especially difficult when there is a countdown timer on items you want to just finish one last thing.

Fantastic Game

A little while ago I was getting bored with the games which were on my phone. I posted to Twitter asking friends what their favorite mobile games were, and that’s what led me to this. If you also are looking for a new game to play, I would absolutely recommend checking out Shop Titans. I am getting nothing for writing this. No kickbacks. Not even an in-game unicorn (although I wouldn’t turn that down).

Thanks to NoRupologies from our Geek to Geek community for introducing me to this game and graciously inviting me to your guild!