Become a shopkeeper in a D&D-ish fantasy world in Adventure Mart

Forget dungeons and dragons – it’s all about deals and dosh in Adventure Mart, an upcoming deckbuilder that plonks you behind the counter of a shop selling weapons and equipment to fantasy adventurers.

Adventure Mart sees up to four players managing stores stocked with cutesy takes on classic dungeon-crawler items, from food (dungeoneering bento and aether slushie machines make an appearance) to creatures, such as a pet slime.

Each round represents the day in the life of a high fantasy shopkeeper, as a morning news card announces the current goings-on in the land that will attract would-be heroes to venture into the store before setting off on their quest to vanquish evil. 

The players order the stock that the adventurers are after, before bidding for that character’s business with higher-quality items than their rival marts. Some characters can turn out to be members of the Thieves Guild, shoplifting from the most valuable shop.

To help out, the players can hire employees to work in their shop, helping to up their customer service with abilities and outbid their opponents for sales.

After a ‘week’ (roughly five ‘days’), the players’ stores are liquidated and the shopkeeper with the most profit wins.

The game’s art and tone plays off the tropes of classic fantasy gaming in the likes of Dungeons & Dragons, as well as taking “heavy inspiration” from East Asian and Scandinavian culture – its creators said they worked with a professional consultant to ensure sensitive and respectful treatment of both cultures in the game’s presentation.

Adventure Mart is the second project from Scottish studio DigiSprite following card-drafting board game Doomsday Bots, and initially launched onto Kickstarter at the end of May.

Its campaign was cancelled mid-run as the result of Holding On: The Troubled Life of Billy Kerr and MegaCity: Oceania label Hub Games signing the game – it will now skip crowdfunding to release directly into shops by June 2020.

“Due to the resources that Hub Games can put behind Adventure Mart, we're going to be able to produce a better and higher quality game at a lower cost,” DigiSprite wrote in its announcement of the deal.

“If all goes according to plan, the game should be available in your FLGS sooner than we could have delivered it alone, and without the cost of shipping!”