For years now, I have discussed my dissatisfaction with games driven by crafting. I have held the opinion that most of the time crafting is just filler for a lack of story, or maybe a severe lack of ideas. It never seems fruitful, nor is it generally fun to craft items in a game. I have held this belief for over a decade.
And now? Well, shoot, now I have found something that has changed my take on crafting.
Mineko’s Night Market from Meowza Games is a title driven by crafting material and surrounded by happiness, mysteriousness, and a good-natured adventure. Lord, does this mean I have to continue to like crafting games? If they’re anything like this, then probably.
So, let’s break out that crafting table, gather some flowers, and create something that helps us through this review.
Craftiness in its gameplay
Storytelling Goodness
Mineko’s Night Market might be driven by crafting, but it kicks into gear thanks to its narrative’s sincerity and heart. The game begins with Mineko arriving on a Japanese island that is slowly rebuilding its reputation and panache. The island was known for housing a mythical cat named Nikko, and sightings of that cat have picked up, so much so that ‘agents’ have arrived to investigate the tall tales told of Nikko. Curious and a bit reckless, Mineko goes on her own adventure to discover the creature but gets caught up in the chaos of the Nikko hunt only to find herself nearly drowning because of the carelessness of some agents. When she awakens, she isn’t dead, rather she is in her own home, as she was seemingly rescued by an unknown entity (Hmmmmm). Now curious more than ever, Mineko makes it her goal to uncover what is going on with the legend of Nikko, while at the same time trying to fit in with the locals that make up her new island home.
The story is adorable as heck with a hint of playfulness, but at the same time is grounded with its sincere accuracy of how a child would react in a new environment. Mineko’s sincere disdain for new surroundings and her urge to prove herself right out the gate fit well with any child who is put into a new housing/living situation. Even before you mix agents and mythical creatures into the narrative, this is an accurate depiction of a child sincerely having to adjust to a new environment and having a hard time doing so. Moving to a new place is never easy, but eventually, it does smooth out, which is slowly the case with Mineko’s situation, as she meets new people and begins to find purpose. It progresses beautifully with the gameplay, which is a huge plus in my book when you’re trying to mix gameplay and story.
Anyway, the silliness of the agents in the story helps to dumb down the seriousness of the life-altering situation for Mineko. The comedy and goofy nature of the narrative create a dab of drama mixed in with a good chunk of amusement. Combined, they help to deliver a story that is both emotional and relatable to a younger gaming audience. The good folks at Meowza certainly crafted this gem well and delivered it when it came to creating a relatable connection with the player. When you do enough research and put enough love into how a character would emotionally feel in a certain situation, much like Mineko’s, then you get games with stories like this. Accurate, perfect, and a motivating backdrop to the gameplay.
The story was incredibly meaningful to the last drop. It felt like an 80s film where the main character is miserable, doing their best, and then jumps into action to find out they have a bigger quest ahead of them that will change their life forever. It’s a lovely narrative structure that works well within Mineko’s Night Market.
Crafty Gameplay
Outside of a wonderful story, the main mechanic that is front and center with Mineko’s Night Market is crafting. Why crafting was good in this game boils down to how well it fits within the story. You see, dear readers when you are miserable in a new environment, you immediately try to distract yourself with something you can do that can make you happy. Mineko’s talent is crafting material, something stoked by the gift of a crafting table by a local resident, and the first thing she learns to craft with that table is flower bouquets. Those are the step-off points for the gameplay. You know, outside of the gathering, which we’re about to get into.
As Mineko travels through the small island town, there are scattered flowers everywhere. These flowers come in different colors and shapes, with each serving a particular purpose in a bouquet arrangement. Once the right number and type of flowers are gathered, Mineko goes back to her home to craft beautiful bouquets with them. The quality of a bouquet is another game element here, where you must cut stems off the flowers at the right spot to either create a perfect bouquet or just a good one. The game takes a page from Stardew Valley, where failure doesn’t happen, just degrees of success. That’s a positive piece to gameplay, as kids need to know that they’re doing more good than not as they travel through life.
Continuing with flowers, the gathering of the flowers stretches across multiple places, as the island’s map slowly opens as you progress. The flower picking is finite, by the way, which makes sense because the island probably couldn’t sustain a billion flowers at once. Each day, you only have a certain number of flowers to pick from the ground. Once those are gone, you must go to sleep and revive them. You can also run out of energy picking them, as dictated by a heart meter. For every flower picked, you lose a small percentage of your heart. Don’t worry, you don’t die in this game, rather you just get tired and must go to bed to revitalize that heart meter. As you progress through the story, the heart meter gets bigger and bigger, which allows you to gather more material (beyond just flowers when you get far enough) to craft more items.
There is something strangely pleasant about going around town finding certain flowers and picking them. I can only imagine it’s akin to chopping down trees in a game like Stardew Valley where having a small goal and accomplishing it is probably equally as satisfying, if not downright motivating to keep going. This type of grindy collecting doesn’t seem all that bad, especially when gathering these flowers is purposeful. You will also gather other materials, like wood, as you push through the story and other things. All of it is purposeful. How is it purposeful, you ask? ‘Night Market’ is a huge hint in the title. Stay with me.
As you collect the flowers, make bouquets and wash-rinse-repeat, the game counts you down from Sunday to Saturday on a calendar with each passing day. The goal here is to make it to Saturday night when you get to sell all your crafted goods at the Night Market. This is where the interesting gameplay goes from 7 to 11. While crafting is a pleasant and easy experience, selling what you made to customers is equally satisfying. You can overcharge or undercharge folks (they call this haggling) during this moment and gather a lot of money in a short amount of time. There is just something fun about taking a chance haggling with customers for the material you made. Even more so when you succeed in the haggling, which can be a chance-y situation if you don’t end up selling everything because customers can say no to the price. Once they reject the purchase price, they don’t negotiate anymore – they just move on. Losing a sale could be the difference between owning a new tool, adding a new crafting table to craft new items, or progressing the story. It’s a chance, but sometimes a lucrative one.
Beyond selling, the Night Market serves a couple of other purposes. The first is that you get to purchase materials and goods from other vendors. You can pick up things like dyes, clothes, and all sorts of random goods. As you progress in the game, these smaller items, like dyes, become useful. The Night Market also serves up mini-games for the player and short distractions that add to the ambiance of the budding narrative. These are short stints of added fun where the player can win trophies and interact with the game in different ways. The added value of the experience is nice as it is entertaining. But the real crux of the Night Market’s purpose is gathering, selling, and progressing the game towards other things. And there are a ton of other items you can get to have more fun. The acquisition of the fishing pole and the ability to fish makes the gameplay addictive as heck.
Now, once the Night Market is closed and the week begins again, the game adds a bit more to the adventure, while setting similarly structured collection/crafting goals in motion. As you push forward and begin to uncover more narrative items and gain new abilities, you get access to more gameplay options. At an early point in the game, quests come into play. While they aren’t the Skyrim-sized side quests, or Starfield as a more recent example, they are additional distractions from a crafting game.
Anyway, Mineko is tasked with quests provided by residents, including her own father, and has the chance to go on more adventures, while also making more acquaintances. Eventually, thanks to the story quest and side quests, Mineko’s life grows from miserable and alone in a new town and slowly starts pushing towards popularity and happiness as she gets to know more people and accomplish new tasks. The narrative skates alongside all this progression by introducing new situations with Nikko, asking Mineko to go against more agents to discover more clues on the main story path, and begins to evolve what Mineko can craft and sell. Everything in the gameplay slowly and surely becomes bigger, more complicated (in a good way), and most importantly more motivating to grind the gathering out and push towards new adventures in the game. Even the Night Market begins to get better as Mineko progresses, which also reflects Mineko’s slow push forward to being settled and happy.
In a way, Mineko’s Night Market goes from a crafting game to a fun RPG led by a wonderful narrative. The game adds more ways to craft but demands making money to buy new tools and crafting tables before the player can move forward. Selling becomes less of a chore because of this and you easily forget how mundane and repetitive the selling part can be when mini-games are thrown into the mix. The devs at Meowza Games added the right amount of progression to the hero’s journey in Mineko’s Night Market. They methodically and meticulously crafted this simple crafting game into something more than what a normal crafting experience brings to the table. It’s a well-placed journey where the hero grows with the narrative at an appropriate and fun speed while complimenting it all with engrossing and fun gameplay.
All this with crafting as the very backbone and crux of the gameplay. Mineko’s Night Market is a fun experience, even for an adult. Well, at least this adult. While this game was made with kids in mind, and I’m sure not all adults will latch onto it or even try it, I think there is enough here for any open-minded gamer to enjoy.
Let’s wrap this review up. Maybe sell it on the Night Market.
Conclusion
Mineko’s Night Market from developer Meowza Games is an adorable, relatable, and fun crafting adventure that pushes everything along with a story that runs perfectly parallel to the gameplay. While its main audience might be younger gamers, there might be enough here for older gamers to enjoy.
