With INDIE INTERVIEWS, I talk to the game developers hanging here on Cohost to learn more about new games you might love.
Today, a chat with @ManaBrent about shopkeeping games, using RPG Maker, and the line between capitalist mechanics being fun and frustrating.
You can find Final Profit: A Shop RPG on Steam and itch.io
Introduce yourself for everyone here on Cohost! Who are you?
Ahoy! I'm Brent Arnold, the creator of Final Profit. I was also the cinematographer on Necrobarista.
Is there a project you're working on currently? Tell us about it!
I'm still working on updates for Final Profit. Sometimes this gives people the wrong impression that the game is in early access but I don't see it that way, the development model is more akin to games like Minecraft, Terraria, and Stardew Valley that have a lot of support after launch. 1.2 just came out, and now I've begun work on 1.3 which will focus on Faeona, adding a new shop and expanding the petition system.
I think that the new shop is what most people are excited for, there's going to be some key differences compared to the two currently available. One of those will be how automation works. Because Odina can't get into Faeona we can't set up automation pillars like we have previously. Instead we'll have to hire locals to work the store and keep stock flowing.
Here's a gif of that system in action from my prototyping (the shop won't look this way and those aren't the customers or employees either). You can see that stock is brought in by an NPC to replenish the boxes at the back, and our staff can move items from there to the display table. And not only that! The table can hold multiple items at a time. Altogether this adds a lot to the simulation element of the game, and gives me a lot more levers to play with for upgrades, rewards, and customisation. I still want the Enterpriston store to be the main show so the goal with this Faeona shop will be to get it running efficiently on its own in the background, leaving us free to do other things.

Plans for the sequel are also on my mind, I've been leaving bread crumbs in Final Profit for things happening off screen that will inform the story going forward.
How did you find yourself first getting into game development?
My career ambitions have been all over the place throughout my life. As a kid I wanted to be an archaeologist for the longest time, eventually I became interested in 3D modelling and wanted to be a game designer, but it felt unattainable so I dropped it and considered medicine for a while, then as a blossoming queer decided I was going to be a fashion designer (made some cool things too). But I had a fantastic teacher that got me back into 3D and I expanded into animation, making award winning short films. Amongst that I got really into synths around the time I had to pick what I wanted to specialise in for uni, it was a toss up between animation and sound design, but I went for animation. From there I got the cinematographer job on Necrobarista through uni contacts (game dev is all nepotism, like most things).
And now I'm here making my own stuff. Work on Final Profit began near the start of the pandemic. I quickly realised that I needed to build a life where I could avoid situations where capitalism would force me to throw my health away, so I made efforts to work for myself and I'm so grateful that it's now able to sustain me. There was a through line I didn't mention above of making RPGs as a hobby from early on, I'd been dabbling in RPG Maker for almost 10 years before I started Final Profit and that experience led me to choose it for this project. And my eclectic creative background has given me a lot of varied skills that have been useful as a solo dev.
I'm curious, do you have a favorite shopkeeping game? Or favorite game that dabbles in shopkeeping mechanics?
I actually didn't like a lot of the shopkeeping games I tried before this. It was a desire for one that worked for me that drove me to make my own. I felt they often got caught up in minutia that wasn't fun for me, that's not to say they're not fun, there were just certain mechanics that didn't click for me. But my earliest inspiration, and one that I did enjoy was the shopkeeping minigame from Digimon World 1. And expanding beyond shopkeeping into other economic systems I really enjoyed the real estate system in Fable 2 and 3.
I'll just come out and say that I've been dying to ask you about RPG Maker specifically. I dabble in RPG Maker for my own passion projects and I think it's a pretty great, and approachable, tool. That said, it has this weird stigma among gamers that RPG Maker games are "low quality" or can only be good for telling stories, not for making original game mechanics. Was this a stigma that you were thinking about while working on Final Profit? At the end of the day, were you happy with working in RPG Maker?
Yes it was a concern. But this game wouldn't exist without RPG Maker, it allowed me to work so much faster than I would've in another engine. At a slower pace I would've run out of money years before the game was ready. The engine does have limitations, but I relish that restriction. It drove the creative thinking that led to many of the game's systems. If I could do it again the one thing I'd do differently would be using more custom sprites. The look is recognisable as an RPG Maker game and that's definitely holding awareness of the game back. Though I have put a lot of effort into the visuals and I think the game looks great, people who aren't aware of RPG Maker say they love the art so it's very much just that stigma. Similarly to what I said above, if I had made more custom sprites it would've added years to the project and it wouldn't have reached completion, so I'll add that in order to do it differently I would've needed a lot more money.
RPG Maker is known for having a pretty huge custom plugin scene. Did you use any custom plugins made by people in the community? Also, would you ever consider making plugins yourself for other people to use?
I use a huge list of plugins, there's a full list of them in the games credits accessible from the title screen, and they also are displayed in the end credits after beating the game. I've made edits to some, but I don't know JavaScript very well so writing my own is unlikely. Most of my more complex game systems are made entirely through event commands in the engine which don't require plugins.
This video explains some of the back end logic used to make the shop work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxxEXPl_vGo it's from 2022 so it's a much earlier version but the general concepts are present.
I've noticed that a lot of games, when they don't hinge on combat, use pure profit-motive as their means of structuring the player's progress. I'm thinking of Stardew Valley and Rollercoaster Tycoon and other such games. Seeing everything the game has to offer means making a ludicrous amount of cash. Obviously, Final Profit brings that to the forefront even in its story. Do you think "make more money" is a crutch that game developers are relying on as an in-game objective? Or do you think that it's fine to indulge the players who are hooked on "number goes up" gameplay?
That's a complicated topic, I'm going to indulge myself here. It can certainly be a crutch used as an indication of progression or a poorly thought out generic reward that piles up almost accidentally. But it's usually not the main goal. The biggest exception is in idle and incremental type games where there's always something else you want to buy, that's why I used them as inspiration for Final Profit's progression systems rather than what you might normally expect coming from something like a farming sim. But a key difference in Final Profit compared to those incremental types is that I put an upper cap on how much wealth you can gain (one billion). I strongly considered making the cap 1 short of that at 999,999,999 as a statement against the idea of billionaires existing, but being able to just reach that felt thematically more in line with our questionable path to the top. Also it means we get to say Bizillionaire which is just a load of fun.
Whether or not it's fine to indulge in any mechanic I think comes down to individual implementation, I use a lot of design elements that in other games of this era would probably be microtransactioned and monetised like crazy. And doing so would incentivise the designer to make those mechanics feel worse unless you pay. But those same mechanics can be fun as long as they're designed to be fun, instead of frustrating you until you pull out your wallet. Frustration is still a useful design tool, and I use it the same way that they do but with appropriately timed in-game solutions instead that makes the progression feel fantastic. I've been toying with the idea of using non-monetised gacha mechanics to upgrade customers in the sequel (or perhaps a side project) because I think there's a lot of potential to move forward with these game mechanics but the industry is holding itself back in service of profit.
The way 'number goes up' feels is also a symptom of our real world economic structure. We enjoy it because it's how we understand the world through capitalism, but that doesn't mean it is a universal truth that must always be so. We're just accustomed to it right now. I exploit that feeling in Final Profit, but attentive players will notice that through their actions as they are accumulating wealth they are causing a lot of harm to others.
I also think that combat is frequently just as much of a crutch. It's this default thing we do but it's often kinda boring or doesn't jive very well with the narrative. In earlier prototypes Final Profit had combat sections but the game is much better without them. I enjoy when combat is optional or something you only have to do when pushed into a corner. But 'kill hordes of creatures to get their resources' is another very capitalist perspective where we care more about profit than sustainability. The thrill of it in a gameplay sense is the risk of losing, when you think of it like that you can translate it into other mechanics pretty simply. Minecraft is a good example, the main goal (perhaps not so much anymore with recent developments) was usually to build a cool thing. And the threat of losing construction progress comes from Creepers blowing something up. There's also the threat of losing materials from creatures killing you, but that type of combat is very optional as you can just run or build or dig away. In Final Profit the threat of loss throughout the middle section of the game is from your loan accruing interest, and to a lesser extent keeping on top of taxes. The late game threat of loss is in Upkeep which I don't think works as well, that's an element I think I could do better.
Any advice for aspiring indie devs out there?
- Think critically about any generally applied design principles. Quite often we fall into the trap of doing something a certain way because that's how it's been done before.
- The best way to improve an experience is by watching how someone else interacts with it, and developing the analytical skill to understand why they're doing what they're doing.
- Nepotism. Sadly.
Lastly, are there any indie games out there you've been playing recently? Any favorites to shout-out?
Void Stranger! Oh it's so damn good, I love it, play it. It's one of those games where you should go in knowing nothing. But I will say the music slaps.
Lethal Company. They don't need my shout out, they're doing great. Combining horror with an economic mechanic is so very my jam. I look forward to seeing how it develops. I'd love to put my own spin on it.
Thanks so much for chatting, Brent! For everyone else, give him a follow over on @ManaBrent and check out Final Profit on Steam and itch.io!