Sometimes it’s those indie games that have the most clever of mechanics, taking styles that we’re used to and turning them on their head. Moonlighter looks like a Zelda-inspired dungeon crawler at a glance, and that’s not an incorrect assessment. There is definitely an element of dungeon crawling in the classic Zelda style, that top-down view where you can see the walls of each room of the dungeons you enter. The surprise for Moonlighter comes when you get outside the dungeon.
The hero of Moonlighter is only moonlighting as a hero (hence the name). During the day, he’s a merchant, a shopkeeper that owns a store in town. The two jobs go hand in hand. As a hero, you’ll collect items that can be used to upgrade and craft new gear, or can be sold at your store to try and turn a profit. During your time at the store, you set the items out as well as setting the prices, which can either come across as too cheap or will turn your customers away as they find your products too expensive.
In my preview session at E3 2017 I had a chance to fight my way through a couple of dungeons and play around with the shop economics. It’s quite fun to set out various products and actively change the prices, seeking that sweet spot that isn’t so pricey that it leaves your customers sad, but isn’t so cheap that you are selling yourself short and losing out on profit you could be making. There’s a deep strategy to this system because you need ...