Leaves are changing colour and we’re all imagining the bookshop/bakery/cafe we will open when we quit everything and move to an idyllic small town with a thriving local economy. Sounds perfect but so unrealistic so I bring you a list of simulation, management games that have a sprinkling of RPG elements to help you live out your small town indie business dreams.
Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar
Starting off with a recent release; Grand Bazaar is a remake of the original DS game Harvest Moon: Grand Bazaar. This iteration has had a huge face lift graphically and has tons and tons of new content added in its new release.
You move to Zephyr town to take over the old farm to help revitalise the town’s economy. Every Saturday Zephyr Town has a Bazaar, where you can run a stall selling produce, crafted items and anything you find. It’s a classic farming game calendar set up with characters for you to socialise and romance. Each season has trending items that people want to buy for you to fill your stall’s stock with for ultimate profits. You can decorate your stall and tables to gain buffs that attract more customers. It’s small enhancements to the market mechanics that really make a difference. Help the townsfolk start their own businesses and keep an eye out for characters you may recognise from previous games looking to run stalls at the bazaar too.
It’s a classic style of life simulation game with a weekly Bazaar to keep you working towards upgrades for yourself and for the town. Restore the town’s reputation for having a world class Bazaar. For classic cosy farming sim gamers, Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar might be the shop management game for you.
Available on Steam, Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2
Discounty
Another newly released game, this time from independent developer Crinkle Cut Games with their game Discounty.
You move to a small town at the summons of your Aunt Tellar, she owns the local discount supermarket that you are going to be working in 6 days a week. This little town is weird though and your aunt is dodging all of your very reasonable questions. But ANYWAY you have a good jingle for your Discounty advert so who cares if the water turns weird colours. Start small and upgrade your stock and shop to serve the people of Blomkest and investigate the strange goings on by night. Work with the other businesses in town to expand your offerings in the supermarkets and solve local issues to keep the townsfolk happy, otherwise they might protest your store and avoid shopping with you all together (for a while at least).
The dialogue is funny, awkward and makes everyone in town seem a little bit suspicious. There’s a tense divorced couple, a kid for you to redeem through hard work and long shifts at your discount store and three very intense business ladies who you must impress. Also there’s a radioactive forest, an old abandoned factory, and so many groups of rats around town. Oh and the water supply has been contaminated and the ocean has turned green… Something strange is definitely happening in the town of Blomkest. Your shop isn’t separate from your other quests, when you’re the only shop in town, what better time to find out about the mysteries in town than when they are shopping. The game play loop is addictive and keeps you saying “I’ll play one more day”.
Play Discounty on all platforms! Check out their website here
Cuisineer
Welcome to the town of Paell, you arrive home to find your parents in their infinite wisdom have sold everything inside the restaurant to fund their trip around the world. They’ve left you the restaurant building and their debt. You decide to run the restaurant in their absence.
At night you adventure out into the world’s dungeons to collect ingredients for you to serve in the restaurant and collect resources to help you upgrade and decorate your family restaurant. By day you run the restaurant creating a menu based on the ingredients you have collected. When you open your doors you dash around the restaurant keeping up with orders, serving and managing the check out.
Rogue-lite mechanics in the dungeons and world environment make up one half of the gameplay. It’s very fast paced, it’s easy to end up in a sea of enemies and get completely surrounded. But as the dungeons are open you can also just sprint away from most encounters and reenter slowly working your way through the hoard of enemies. I have found a tactical retreat from time to time helps a lot when exploring this game.
Cuisineer’s management sim mechanics for the restaurant are pretty straight forward. With residents in the town of Paell also having quests for you, you need to think ahead about your menu. When someone asks for 50 chicken and then before you go to deliver it to them you realize you’ve roasted 70 chickens. It’s a disappointing moment. When you select a menu item you can’t list how many, it just keeps going until you run out of resources to make it. Collecting new recipes really helps you diversify your menus so you can hoard different ingredients and meals to meet the requests of the townsfolk.
This game is full of colour and fast paced game play, moving from diner dash speeding around the restaurant to classic rogue-lite mechanics of trying to get out a dungeon before taking the fatal hit that empties your inventory. It’s good fun, full of colourful characters and beautiful top down graphics.
Cuisineer is available on Nintendo Switch, PC via Steam, Xbox X/S and Playstation 5.
Check out their webpage here
Moonlighter & Moonlighter 2
Moonlighter 2 releases October 23rd 2025
You play as Will, in the town of Rynoka where you, by day, run a shop called The Moonlighter, the oldest shop in town. Help the town regain it’s reputation through upgrades on the bulletin board and upgrade your shop to attract new shopper types, such as heroes and the rich but watch out for thieves who will try to pocket some of your stock.
Moonlighter is another rogue-lite crossed with a shop management game. In Moonlighter you run a shop selling adventuring items, potions and anything you find while crawling through their dungeons. There are four dungeons in the base game for you to explore, defeat enemies and collect all sorts of items. Each dungeon has varied enemies with more environmental elements as you progress. Moonlighter is a loved indie classic with a simple game-play loop of go in dungeon, find items, make it out, sell items. With challenging dungeons and shop management mechanics to fund your upgrades for the shop and for your own equipment.
Moonlighter’s successor, Moonlighter 2, is on its way so whether you’ve played the original or not, you have a sequel bringing everything you love about rogue-lite shop management games and whole new dungeon exploring adventures.
Moonlighter is available on all platforms. Check out the Steam Page
Moonlighter 2 is going into early access on PC and Xbox GamePass on November 19th 2025 – Learn all about Moonlighter 2 on Digital Sun’s website here
Magical Mixture Mill
We’re slowing it down a little bit now. Entering cosy, casual shop management games.
Magical Mixture Mill is an indie game available on steam. Set up automations to create all sorts of potions. Explore the weird and magical world to find ingredients and fulfill requests for curious customers who will come by regularly for their usual top ups. Upgrade your shop, potion list and set up automations for your machines so the crafting can continue while you’re busy serving knights, witches and whoever travels through the world’s portals to visit your little shop. Set up machines to create potions, produce complex ingredients from the resources you discover in this magical world. Customers who have potion requests on top of their day to day shopping so make sure to keep an eye out for rare resources and don’t be afraid to try new recipes.
The automation puzzle elements of this game are crazy, you can piece together machines into production lines. Find the lay out that works for you and maximize your space. Or you can let things land on the floor and move them over yourself later – this definitely wasn’t me. The walking animation alone sold me on this game, it’s bouncy and fun, harvesting and gathering resources is great fun and progresses you towards finding new areas with even more new resources. If you are looking for something kinda witchy Magical Mixture Mill is a great casual game to explore the world and craft new potions.
Check out Magical Mixture Mill on Steam
All of these are great games, some market and shop management classics like Moonlighter and Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar freshly remade. Sink your teeth into some funny and funky worlds with mysteries and crafts for you to enjoy – all of these are perfect for cosy comfy mystery solving season.
