CHENNAI: I cannot resist a good business simulator game that considers itself to be a cozy, cute, Stardew Valley-type. My latest obsession is “Mineko’s Night Market”, which dropped a few weeks ago. Here, I play a young girl who moves into a village with her father. While her favourite activity involves saving cats and then petting them, she finds her true calling in a blossoming Saturday night market side-hustle.
Mineko’s little village runs by a very strict schedule. The seasons are divided into weeks, and each week ends with a blowout: the Saturday Night Market. In preparation for the market, Mineko must spend her days fetching raw materials to craft interesting goods for sale. The neighbours are chatty and are usually out and about in the mornings and afternoons, ready to drop helpful hints and tips on things that she can craft. It all started with Bob’s mom lending Mineko a crafting table to make elegant flower bouquets. Little did she know that the small investment snowballs into Mineko’s own business venture — where she creates a variety of items right in her bedroom. Pop-art posters, terracotta pots, origami cats, plush toys. You name it, Mineko is crafting it. As the seasons slide by, she turns her bedroom into a cash cow.
Obviously, her business does not skyrocket overnight. And here’s where the actual gameplay and overarching story segments make an entrance. In the first couple of weeks, Mineko takes baby steps, crafting a few flower bouquets based on basic recipes. Everyday, she prioritises collection of the raw materials, and must decide the places she can visit. She can travel by bus, a service that runs in the mornings and afternoons — and might begin with a visit to the gardens or the docks to scavenge raw material. The catch here is her energy gauge, limiting her collections for each day. The crafting and resource collection involve extremely simple mini-games, like hitting buttons at the right time. The first few weeks are mundane and grindy. Crafting recipes are on a tight leash, and the real growth comes from raking in those market sales. It ramps up quite drastically after that.
Fast forward a few seasons, we unlock a forest for some wood, a beach for treasure hunting, a “cat sanctuary” for furballs, and more. The expansion of the game’s map fits in quite nicely with the story’s progression too! A strange feature of Mineko’s village and the surrounding lands, are these suited guards. They seem to have found a liking to capturing cats and keeping them in cages. The suited squad is on a mysterious quest, and Mineko’s mission is clear — free the kitties by driving away the guards.
In many ways, Mineko’s Night Market feels like a distant, younger cousin of Stardew Valley. Sure, its art style is much more interesting. Where Stardew Valley has Community Centre deposits, and evil Joja Corp, Mineko has museums and the suited cat-haters. But is its gameplay really that much better after around eight years of development? It’s missing some of those complexities of its older relative. Combat, resource management, time-bound quests? Not here. Mineko’s Night Market feels more like a casual stroll in the genre of “management” games. The sequence of events is fairly predictable, and 10-minute-long fetch quests are as complex as it gets.
But maybe it doesn’t have to be that deep. The gradual uptick in Saturday Market sales provides just enough engagement, making the slow grind of collecting raw materials, liberating cats, and crafting a comforting routine. It’s not aiming for complexity; it simply wants to be the coziest player-friendly management game. All it needs to be is relaxed, and cute — just as promised.
Mineko’s Night Market is suitable for beginners and suggested for anyone wanting a gentle entry into a Stardew Valley vibe. The game is currently available for the PC, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation.