Art Shop Simulator Reviews

[b]Art Shop Simulator[/b] (Early Access v0.3.3b) is a laidback indie shop sim tailored for fans of Microsoft Paint and [i][url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/582550/Passpartout_The_Starving_Artist/?curator_clanid=45365863]Passpartout[/url][/i]. After inheriting a small art gallery on a busy European street, you make some paintings, set up shop, and focus on earning enough reputation to foist the traumatic-retail-flashback payment minigame onto an employee. [h3]Gameplay[/h3] [b]Controls.[/b] All controls are mouse and keyboard: WASD to move, "E" or "Q" to interact, TAB to open the tool menu; mouse controls the camera, item selection, and item placement. I did not see an option to rebind keys. [b]Shop Management.[/b] General management is accessible if over-simple: keep your art displays stocked, don't sell at a loss, and count change for customers. Every day, check your email to see current market trends and the average customer's wallet size, then open for business by clicking the sign outside your shop (helpfully highlighted by a yellow arrow). After closing, click the sign again to review the day's financials. Purchase shop expansions at the computer. [b]Reputation.[/b] Reputation grows as you make sales. Higher reputation levels unlock new décor items, employee options, shop expansions, and small gameplay features. [b]Employee Management.[/b] Employees are hired and fired at the break room computer (or you can put them in the trash), and are automatically assigned to the register. At time of writing, they don't have personalities, wants, or needs, and can't be trained. [h3]What Works For Me[/h3] ✅ [b]Microsoft Paint Simulator.[/b] What sets this game apart is the painting: you have a canvas, a resizable paintbrush, an infinite color palette, and an eyedropper tool that [i]almost[/i] selects the correct color swatch. I was a little miffed at first that you can't zoom in, undo, add painting effects, or even color match appropriately, [i]but[/i] quickly grew to love the absence of these features. It feels freeing: I had to be more creative to work around my mistakes, and ended up producing a series of colorful pop art paintings (this is particularly funny because my IRL art is best described as "chaotic gothic"). ✅ [b]Character Assets.[/b] Rather than use the unfortunate "realistic" models you see in every indie shop sim, Lovheim opted for stylized 3D models that look right out of [i]Salesblazers[/i]. It's a refreshing change of pace, and ultimately makes the game feel more polished. ✅ [b]Pets.[/b] You can purchase one of several species of pets, name your new buddy, and change their fur pattern. During the day, pets earn their kibble by cleaning up after customers. ✅ [b]Gambling.[/b] Every now and again, someone will wander in with a wrapped package and demand an egregious price for their mystery art. Sometimes you get "Rare" or "Legendary" pieces that can sell for boatloads… and sometimes you've grossly overpaid for a finger-painting. ✅ [b]Drinks + Celebrities.[/b] These systems are new and still buggy, but make the world feel more alive and interactive. At reputation level 6ish, you unlock a drink station and can stroll across the street to the 24/7 liquor store, fill a basket with booze, and return to your shop to ply customers with wallet lubricant. (I'm sorry; I'll never call it that again.) Meanwhile, cranky celebrities may cozy up to champagne glasses and consider purchasing your most overpriced wares. ✅ [b]Event Hall + Auctions.[/b] At level 10, you can upgrade your boxy shop to a [i]veritable museum[/i] with an event hall and begin hosting auctions. Auctions are largely passive, but it's neat that they're part of the game at all. [h3]What Doesn't Work For Me[/h3] ❎ [b]AI Art + Music.[/b] The Steam page clearly states that the game includes both AI-generated art and music. It's not the dev's fault that I didn't read the disclaimer, so I won't get on my soapbox, but it feels especially out of place in a game with such a heavy focus on [i]creating[/i] art. ❎ [b]Decorating.[/b] Don't get me wrong, it's not all bad: the decorations are few but solid, customers interact with chairs, grid-snap is super flexible, and I had great fun designing my gallery. My issue is that item placement can be finnicky; rugs need to be placed [i]after[/i] furniture, certain plants have weird footprints, trash cans eat items and employees when placed nearby, lighting is a two-click process, and you can't place items on the shelves of the tall cabinet. Also, there's no eyedropper for wall paint, so my gallery doubles as an exhibit of shades of black. [h3]Wishlist[/h3] 🟩 Functional eyedropper tool. 🟩 Celebrities bring in more customers or have special demands. 🟩 Artwork traits and customer preferences, maybe? 🟩 More dynamic employees. 🟩 Ability to negotiate mystery art prices. 🟩 LET ME PUT VASES ON THE CABINET. 🟩 Everything on the roadmap! 🟩 Replace AI art with player-made art, a la the Sims gallery? [h3]Final Thoughts[/h3] [b]Art Shop Simulator[/b]'s Next Fest demo was the first thing I played and reviewed specifically because a creator asked me to, so it holds a special place in my heart. I purchased the full game at launch to support the dev, but let it collect dust and updates for a few months before diving in. The first thing I noticed was that Lovheim Studios fixed [i]everything[/i] I didn't like in the demo: there's a yellow arrow pointing to the Open/Closed sign, packages are now delivered by truck instead of exploding at your door, there's more customer variation, and a trying-its-best eyedropper. The second thing I noticed is that for an Early Access shop sim, this is polished and rather unique. Yes, I've seen more than a few bugs, especially involving drinks, but everything is resolved by saving, closing, and rebooting the game. At this point, I've played most of the available content and have had fun. Once you have employees, your shop mostly runs itself; you can leave it in Windowed mode and tackle other tasks, or spend a few hours painstakingly drawing Campbells soup cans with your mouse. Creating art is the highlight for me, but decorating and expanding the shop is a great reason to keep coming back. My level-9 Pop Art Corner turned out pretty well in my not-so-humble opinion: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3530515902 [h3]Recommendation[/h3] If you want crunchy management or Photoshop, this isn't for you. But if you're looking to kick back and be creative, or just want to dip your toe into the vast world of indie shop sims, then I highly recommend checking this out. It's still in development and the AI art is of course an issue for anyone who - like me - has ever tried to survive by selling art, but there's solid bones and a lot of great ideas here. [quote][b]Follow [u][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45365863/]Eekz Today[/url][/u] for more crafting, life sim, management, strategy, and story-rich recommendations.[/b][/quote]

This is an unique simulator among all the simulator trend is going on Steam. The update comes slower than usual which might look a bit disappointing BUT the game itself is a good one. The NPCs looks cute. The game is becoming more stable with smaller optimization. Though there are still room for more improvement. It let's you doodle on a canvas to sell your art but it offers importing any image lower than 5mb size. For the sake of your store looks good -- you can import royalty free images to sell (for fun only).. The canvas need more brushes to paint. Ofcourse you can paint in an external software and import your art in game if it's smaller in size.. In short it has potential. The lighting looks good when placed in store, the environment is soft, not very bright for eye. You might see some bugs but ofcourse this is EA and the DEV says they won't abandon the game which I trust. I request the DEV to please improve the in-game painter a bit and give the brush a stabilizer. One brush is enough if you have a stabilizer to doodle something good with only mouse. Not every player is a painter and still they might want to paint and sell cute art in-game. Not only importing art. Also please offer some more variety of paintings in-game which we can buy from wholesalers and sell them in our store..