As we have always said, in “A Place for the Unwilling” you’ll be playing the role of a trader. Think of it as your daily routine, that one thing that connects you to the rest of the world. You’ll be reading newspapers early in the morning out the latest information and then it’ll be time to hit the streets, going from one shop to the next and trying to make profit buying and selling items. You’ll soon find out that, just like in real life, everything’s easier when you have money, so while being a good trader isn’t necessary it’ll help you meet your goals.

Now, ours isn’t a trading game, it’s a narrative game where you’re a trader, that’s a significant difference. While we’re making sure trading has enough depth, it’s still being kept as simple and accessible as possible. Transactions will be limited as well, moving stock around will take a couple of hours, that’s our subtle way of telling you to maybe spend some time walking around and talking to others but don’t worry, you’ll still be able to be a workaholic.

Item value won’t be the same in two games, as the market is always changing based on both random events and your own actions. It’ll be somewhat predictable because we want you to come up with good strategies, but there won’t be such a good thing as perfect routes to memorize and follow. Buying specific items could lower their availability or increase its price, which could mess your perfect strategy.

And time! We couldn’t forget about that. It’s a strong part of our core and it’s affecting trading as well. Prices will change at the beginning of each new day, but that’s not the only way it’ll influence your story. When checking shops and deciding what to buy you should prioritize, there will be some anonymous traders among the citizens, buying and selling stock and changing the item value, just like you. Perhaps it might be a good idea to first visit those shops where you know you can make a profit instead of just losing time going to all of them.

Regarding the development of this feature, it’s been just like the rest of the game. We make something, decide it’s not good enough, come up with something new and repeat. It’s coming up at about the same pace the rest of the features. When we first began working on it, we used an overcomplicated system that had players juggling around with 30-40 items and many shops to visit, it’s was almost impossible to analyze all that data, even more, while trying to pay attention to the plot.

Our approach to trading in “A Place for the Unwilling” must have been rebuilt about 3 or 4 times by now, but with every new iteration, we learn something new. Our current version has been simplified but still, has plenty of depth, it fits the game and our minimal interface.

It’s far from being ready, but rest assured, once we’re there we’ll share the whole process, the internal tools we used and the concepts that led us through it.

Our next update, in two weeks from now, is gonna feature a guest that has been doing a small collab with us. Stay tuned! :-)