Discounty Review

I don’t mind some of the cosy casual games that launch from time to time. Titles such as Stardew Valley and more recently Farm Together 2 just seem to scratch that itch when you just want to wind down. I call them podcast games personally, experiences that aren’t too taxing, and you can take in some chatter at the same time. Discounty has just launched on Xbox Series X|S, and after playing the demo a little while ago, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the full adventure.

Blomkest Has A Community

Without revealing too much, as I never like to spoil storylines, I’ll give a brief explanation of what’s occurring here in Discounty. You arrive in the town of Blomkest, and you’re there to help your Aunt with running and overseeing the Discounty supermarket. Not only are you responsible now for the retail management of the town’s only big shop, but you are also organising the business outside of opening hours

Whilst I’ve managed one playthrough, I’ve read that there are multiple endings, and this is all down to how you engage in conversations and quests with NPCs. What I enjoyed here was the narrative, and everyone seemed to have their own life and backstory. You build relationships with people, and you need to make specific choices about how you run your business. It’s surprisingly deep and perhaps the strongest part of the game for me.

Supermarket Simulator

The core gameplay loop outside of dealing with quests is working in the Discounty supermarket. You’re open from Monday to Saturday and each day commences at 6 am. The store opens at 9 a,m and how you spend the hours before opening time is totally up to you. I was ensuring that the shelves were fully stocked at the end of a day’s trading, but you may choose to do it in the morning; flexibility is your friend.

Between the hours of 9 am and 5 pm, you’re responsible for the day-to-day running of the business. This will include ordering your stock, taking and unpacking deliveries, stocking the shelves and managing your floor space to allow for your goods to be on display. You’ll also be working the checkout, which makes it feel a little like the popular supermarket simulator games out there. Punching in the prices and taking the money feels satisfying, and over time, you can upgrade to speed things up.

Visuals & Audio

Discounty is beautifully presented and adopts the pixel-art style that this genre is used to. The town of Blomkest is warm in colour with several points of interest, and through the character design, it feels lived in with a nice warm atmosphere. You can tell the development team has poured passion into this project. NPCs have their personalities, and some are downright hilarious. I especially loved the changes between day and night, and the lighting effects matched the time of day.

The audio matches the charm of the graphics, with the music being the strong point. I loved that the soundtrack in the supermarket was on par with something you’d hear in any supermarket, almost like the basic tones you’d hear when going to the top floor in a lift. Sound effects are generally as you’d expect and blend well with the rest of the great work that the art and sound design teams have carried out here.

Final Thoughts

If you’re a fan of the cosy simulation genre, then Discounty offers a 20+ hour experience that is fun to engage with. It’s charming, colourful and well designed. Nothing is ever too complex, and despite a few moments where controls are a little fiddly, on the whole it’s an excellent indie title. It takes a lot for this type of game to keep me invested all of the time, but Discounty hooked me from the start.