Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale

Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale

Mr Moopsy Oct 8, 2014 @ 9:36pm
possible to beat game without restarting?
Yeah....im screwed. I was wanting to beat game no restarts.
But im on the 200k day and have 80k. clearly the day is lost.

that aside. My hopes and dreams of being the sexiest and most badass item shop owner being crushed.

Has any1 beat the game no restarts?
Is the game designed so i fail at some point at least once?
My friend lost at the 80k mark, but now is breezing through having well over 80k at the 30k mark. leads me toi believe a death gives a big advantage second time around, but want to know what people think.
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Showing 1-15 of 29 comments
It's entirely possible to one-loop the game. I've been meaning to do that myself and I'm making good progress toward it.

Speedruns of the game easily clear the game in one loop, with time to spare.
cearn Oct 9, 2014 @ 9:57am 
Yup, it's definitely possible (Here's an older thread about the same subject, complete with various tips).

There are two parts that have a big effect on whether you win or lose:
  1. Effective time management. You want to be able to make as many transactions as possible. If you spend most of the timeslots either in dungeons or the village, and not in the shop, you won't have enough time to sell the things you have.
  2. Unfamiliarity with the (hidden) game mechanics. In particular,
    • Pricing Mechanics[recettear.wikia.com]. By selling/buying at the right percentage (basically sell at ~108%, buy at ~70%), you can get pin combo bonuses, which means your merchant level rises much faster, giving you access to better items and other goodies. Note: the market sells at 70%, so even at 105%, you'll still make a tidy profit.
    • Budgets and Customer Reputation[recettear.wikia.com]. Each customer has a set budget, that increases when you perform successful transactions with them (this also rises faster at the right sales percentages). Increased budgets mean you can sell better items. Getting higher rep faster means being able to sell better items faster.
    • Item categories[recettear.wikia.com]. Items belong to categories, some of which may be quite obscure. With this list, you can make sure you don't accidentally try to sell the wrong thing.
    • Item booms[recettear.wikia.com]. When these are active, stuff the tables at the windows with the desired items and you will be swarmed with the customer that wants it. You can easily get 7-10 sales here, so it's a perfect way to make quick XP and rep points ... provided you sell at the right price.
    • Venders[recettear.wikia.com]. Oh glod, venders. Yes, the sell at 100%, but as they're separate from the normal transactions, they're basically bonus sales. Also, some of the most expensive items are shop decorations, which don't really sell well over the counter, but do sell inside venders. This is probably where most of the money comes from eventually.

The reason you have more success in a second loop is because you retain all the old levels (adventurer, merchant, reputation) and items, which gives you a substantial lead.


Just curious: what is/was your current strategy for the game? What's the percentages you sold/bought at, did you know about the booms, and how much time did you spend at the shop/village/dungeons?

Mr Moopsy Oct 9, 2014 @ 11:23am 
Makes sense. I imagine if I did a fresh restart I would also do much better. But I was just barely making it check to check.

My "strategy" more or less trial and error learning with way too many failures was this:

Little girls....suck. Sell to them between 110% and 115% and maybe you will get lucky.
Old man....is the man! I sell to them, fairly often 120-135%
regular man....135-150%
woman... 125-145%
my adventurers... 100-115% All I care about is getting them the beter gear :P

FUSION: This was something I have only played with towards the end of my run...but...man...I wish I did so sooner. Farming for fusion items was where the real money was at.
Items were 10k+

Boons: 260-270% I have never tried going higher but feel like I could have.

recession?(less value) 80% or less. I try to not sell...

also, I never used the other adventurers(tried only once). Personally, I found they were vastly out leveled and could not compete with my higher leveled and better geard seedy adventurer!

final notes: I suck at orders. hardly ever remember when they were...or have what they wanted....I think If I overstocked everything I would do a ton better as well. Might be a high upfront cost, but it would pay off.
SPOILERS ARE CONTAINED WITH THIS POST, WHICH GIVE YOU ADVICE ON THE GAME. JUST FYI.

For orders, try accumulating some extra super-cheap items that you can get unlimiteds of at the market and guild. Like, have a few extra of the cheapest hat around, just in case someone asks for hats.

Just pin is around 106% to 108% so your merchant level and reputation with each customer will rise a lot faster if you sell it for that amount. You do make less out of the deal though. That said, you can go up to 120% for at least some customers without making them haggle (haggle always breaks the chain).

You can check what's price up/down and what orders you have, by talking to Tear while inside the store.

Customers' budgets are determined by their reputation level, basic budget, and max budget. Specifically, it is BASE + (MAX - BASE)/10*REP. REP = reputation level = the number of times you've seen hearts come out of them. (All the NPCs of the same appearance have the same reputation level.) (Later on, they will start gaining reputation levels even without showing hearts, but they show hearts the first several times.)

Here's how price up/down changes base price of an item:
what? |normal| up | down | retail | 100% | 200% | 50% | wholesale| 70% | 84% | 56% | buyback | 30% | 36% | 24% |

Also, if you fill an order with a price up/down item, the base price of the combined total will be based on the price up/normal/down status of the first item. You can choose to use this to your advantage if you choose to do so.
Last edited by Quint the Alligator Snapper; Oct 9, 2014 @ 11:54am
Mr Moopsy Oct 9, 2014 @ 1:05pm 
what is pin?
"pin" means that you were really close to the customer's exact price expectation for the item. You get merchant XP bonuses for being close ("near pin") and very close ("just pin").
Mr Moopsy Oct 9, 2014 @ 1:28pm 
How big of an xp bonus are we talking about? does it justify about 20%+ loss in sales?
Near Pin gives a 50% increase in XP for that sale (15 MXP rather than 10), while Just Bonus gives a 200% increase in XP (30 XP rather than 10).

source: http://recettear.wikia.com/wiki/Merchant_Level (and it is correct as far as I can remember).

(And in the meantime I ran across this: apparently someone wrote all this up, from reverse-engineering the code, allegedly: http://recettear.wikia.com/wiki/Pricing_Mechanics )
Last edited by Quint the Alligator Snapper; Oct 9, 2014 @ 1:39pm
cearn Oct 9, 2014 @ 1:56pm 
Originally posted by Mr Moopsy:
How big of an xp bonus are we talking about? does it justify about 20%+ loss in sales?

Let's say you can do 7 sales in a timeslot. If you constantly haggle, you'll get 7*10 = 70 xp for that. If you're nice, and get the pin bonusses, that's 7*15 = 105, and the combobonus, which doubles everytime (up to 128), for a combo bonus of 254. So it's 70 vs 359, a difference of 5x. Now, usually the comparison is a little bit closer, so say it's about 2-3x. This means you get the better gear (and earlier fusion and venders) and higher budgets twice as fast.

About orders : you always want to complete the orders. Before you go out and buy stuff, check Tear for the current orders, see what you have and if you can't complete them, just buy something that will satisfy the order. Really, anything will do. It's always a good idea to have a number of the cheapest items of each category for emergencies. Not for the money, but for the xp -- you never want to break the combo chain, as that's where the real XP lies.
Last edited by cearn; Jan 5, 2015 @ 12:00am
Mr Moopsy Oct 9, 2014 @ 2:01pm 
oh, I get just bonus when im selling 120%+ is that the same thing?
It seems there might be a second just price that is around the customer's willingness-to-pay markup amount. But I'm not sure.
cearn Oct 9, 2014 @ 11:01pm 
Yeah, you get the XP combo bonus at 120%, as long as you don't break the chain. But you still miss out on the substantial pin bonus XP, and the increased rep points, meaning that you may have good stuff earlier, but most customers can't afford it.

In the end, though, the percentage strategy is only one part of beating the game. As long as you spend enough time shopkeeping, you should be able to beat it. It's just that selling around 105-110% makes it easier, and you get to see more of the game's mechanics.
Last edited by cearn; Oct 10, 2014 @ 4:22am
Aerodux Oct 10, 2014 @ 1:44pm 
Originally posted by Mr Moopsy:
Makes sense. I imagine if I did a fresh restart I would also do much better. But I was just barely making it check to check.

My "strategy" more or less trial and error learning with way too many failures was this:

Little girls....suck. Sell to them between 110% and 115% and maybe you will get lucky.
Old man....is the man! I sell to them, fairly often 120-135%
regular man....135-150%
woman... 125-145%
my adventurers... 100-115% All I care about is getting them the beter gear :P

FUSION: This was something I have only played with towards the end of my run...but...man...I wish I did so sooner. Farming for fusion items was where the real money was at.
Items were 10k+

Boons: 260-270% I have never tried going higher but feel like I could have.

recession?(less value) 80% or less. I try to not sell...

also, I never used the other adventurers(tried only once). Personally, I found they were vastly out leveled and could not compete with my higher leveled and better geard seedy adventurer!

final notes: I suck at orders. hardly ever remember when they were...or have what they wanted....I think If I overstocked everything I would do a ton better as well. Might be a high upfront cost, but it would pay off.


I don't know if anyone has responded to this, but in the beginning of the game you do not want to sell that high. The beginning of the game should be about customer loyalty bs. Sell at around 103-105 maybe 108. That way your customers spending money will increase (If you try to sell an expensive object to a customer that doesn't have enough money they'll leave). You can also review orders when you talk to tear inside your shop.

Another thing to remember is when you do "near pin" meaning selling at what they're expecting to pay - you'll get a bonus. The higher your merch level goes up the more things unlock for you.

Hope this helped, and good luck.
Oh, near pin and just bonuses also make your reputation go up faster, I think. And reputation going up faster means faster reputation level increases, which means faster access to bigger budgets.
Kaptain_Kabul Oct 11, 2014 @ 7:01am 
Originally posted by Mr Moopsy:
Yeah....im screwed. I was wanting to beat game no restarts.
But im on the 200k day and have 80k. clearly the day is lost.

that aside. My hopes and dreams of being the sexiest and most badass item shop owner being crushed.

Has any1 beat the game no restarts?
Is the game designed so i fail at some point at least once?
My friend lost at the 80k mark, but now is breezing through having well over 80k at the 30k mark. leads me toi believe a death gives a big advantage second time around, but want to know what people think.

487K on the 500k last day, definitly possible because i screwed up a few times.
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Date Posted: Oct 8, 2014 @ 9:36pm
Posts: 29