Ok, so one day I had a brainwave, a super in depth Retail Management game, more specifically Clothes Shop Manager.

I was tired of seeing all these little facebook games which let you run a shop or cafe, but focus only on making your shop look pretty and selling to customers. Surely a shop simulation game should have things such as security, shoplifters, shop watch meetings, trading standards, returns etc...

I've worked in shops for around 3 years, and in a clothes shop for over 2 years, so I thought, why not give it a go.

Now, the game itself is made in VB6, not the best base for a game, but I prefer 2d/text based simulation games, so I feel it's more than adequate to achieve what I want.

I'm looking for peoples comments on what I have so far and the overall idea for my game. Suggestions are more than welsome too.

Graphics aren't yet final, and the game is still very early in production but here's what I have so far.

Why was there a target gender at the start ?
Is this for easthetics ?

Or is this meant to be different (target) customer groups ?

target gender allows the player to specify what audience to target the clothes at. e.g. you could have a female swimwear shop which sells just female clothes, during the game a large target of your consumers would be female in this occurance, there's also an increased chance of returns from any male customers you do get though as the likelyhood is that they were buying an item as a gift and hence a higher chance of wrong size, partner doesn't like the item, colour etc...

Of course if you want a more general store, you could open a sportswear store for "male and female" and sell a mixture of male/female and unisex clothes, this way you'd have a more balanced customer base throughout the game.

That sounds to me you're forcing the player to make long lasting decisions before they're even playing.

If it were up to me, i 'd first make a sandbox mode where they can target any audience they like,

then create some levels where some target audiences are more present or less present in order to bring different challenges to the player.

You should ideally be able to switch the target audience, but it should require some investment to repaint the walls and such :P

thats a pretty cool idea, I already have a settings screen where you can change it (hence the player isn't forced to stick with a choice he or she makes in setup.) at the moment it's free to change, but makes sense adding a small fee to cover redecoration costs :) thanks for the input.

I also agree with the point powerneg made, I didn't want to force the player to be stuck with a decision they made at the start, hence why I added the setings screen to allow them to change it at any point.

E.g. you may decide after a few weeks of running a mens sportswear shop that you want to switch to a female smartwear shop or something. you change the options, you'd then recieve an offer for any current stock you have left (e.g. liquidation/end of line purchase offer) which will be much lower than retail value, but will allow you to switch quicker. alternatevly you could have a sale, sell the items for a little more, and change your store settings once your current stock was depleted.

I also like the idea of sandbox and missions modes, at the moment it will be more of a general sandbox mode anyway, the different store types/genders just allows for more in depth detail on things such as the random events etc... there will be no set goals other than repaying your starting loan.

I will hopefully add some mission modes at some point though to give the player set goals.

I'm far from the quality of a lot of programmers, hence this is just a hobby and will be freeware, so it will also give the players a perfect chance to experiment without any limits and without having to purchase it. Hopefully with it being freeware it will also mean I can recieve a lot more feedback once it does get released and help me build on it and learn more for the future.