Thrifty Business review: not just a management game, it gets the magic of thrifting

May was a great month for casual gamers, with pretty much every week having a release for every taste and mood. Thrifty Business was released during this cozy-indie wave on the 18th of May and just like the name gives away, this is a management game where you run your own thrift store. The game was developed and published by Spellgarden Games, the same studio that made Sticky Business, another game I really enjoyed and recommend whenever someone asks for a laid-back game recommendation.

I’ve played about 6 hours of Thrifty Business so far, primarily on my MacBook, and I’m planning to keep playing it until I finish the story. It is a charming game that goes beyond just the management mechanics by introducing customer arcs that so often put a smile on my face while I was playing.

Thank you Spellgarden Games and Future Friends Games for the review key!

Getting to business

Thrifty Business starts by having you buy up a thrift store from its previous owner, who shows you the ropes during your first days, like how to purchase second-hand items for the shop and furniture to display them. Your store starts small, with the option to expand as you pay to renovate (unlock) extra rooms.

It’s definitely a trope in a lot of games to have a tutorial type-character but other customers from the shop mention the previous owner Ingrid here and there and I liked that.

The basics of each work day are pretty simple. Check the app to see what kinds of second-hand items are available, which go from children’s toys, to kitchen utensils, electronics, clothing, and many more; then purchase boxes of items from sellers and unpack them one by one. Since you didn’t purchase each product individually, it’s always a bit of a surprise to see what was inside. It’s also possible to use your money to buy furniture or expand your space. In some days, I just chose to start the day right away, too.

You are equipped with a storage where you can put things you don’t want on display that day. Just like management games usually go, the storage starts small and you can upgrade it.

Becoming part of the local community

Saying this as someone that loves management games and doesn’t necessarily need a story in them, I do think this is where it gets more fun and how Thrifty Business brings a bit of extra flair to the basic gameplay. You meet a few recurring customers who ask you for help finding a specific item – for example, a bed for their new dog – and that starts their arc in the game, with you slowly following their journey.

Completing these arcs gave me a good feeling of achievement, but it’s more than just that. I like to thrift in real life and for me part of the fun is imagining what life a certain item had before and who it belonged to. So in my opinion it was just brilliant that Spellgarden Games captured that feeling in the game by making your character a part of this community where people are looking for connection and these second-hand objects are at the forefront of that.

My final thoughts

Thrifty Business hit a sweet spot for me in the genre, combining all the things I like about management games while putting the neon, pixel-art, queer Spellgarden Games stamp to it.

Do you care about customization? There are so many character customization options and you can unlock so many different kinds of furniture, wallpaper, flooring etc. Do you care about stories? You connect with customers and organize fun community events, where you also get some bonuses for selling products related to such event. Do you care about maximizing your profits? The game gives you bonuses for organizing items a certain way, so you can get that sweet sweet cash faster.

I should mention, though, that if you’re looking for a more complex shop management sim, Thrifty Business is probably not going to do it for you. It’s definitely not the “sweaty” kind, it doesn’t get challenging. It is as cozy as it gets.

*All screenshots in this post were provided with the game’s presskit.

A side note about the blog

In the last couple of months I posted so many reviews of new releases (one of which was a guest review by Dodo). The truth is that all this coverage burned me out a little. I try to publish reviews of games that I received a free copy within a month, so I ended up playing many of them on a schedule – because I do my best to finish them or at least put a good number of hours in before reviewing – and that did not feel so good.

What I am saying is that I really want to go back to a healthy balance of writing about games from my backlog, demos, general reflections, art and recaps, so you can expect me to tone down reviews of new games.

Thank you as always for reading,

-Luna

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