Hello Shopkeepers,
I’m Dafu, the creator of Jiaozi & Shopkeeper. One night two years ago, my partner and I stopped at Xijiade for dumplings. It hit me out of nowhere: Good Pizza, Great Pizza is such a solid game – why not make a "delicious dumplings" version? I knew I could pull it off.
Now Jiaozi & Shopkeeper is here. We’ve poured our hearts into it, and we stand by every part of it with a clear conscience.
If you haven’t heard of Good Pizza, Great Pizza – great, go check it out first. It’s a fantastic game.
So how does our dumpling game stack up against the pizza classic?
✅ What Jiaozi & Shopkeeper does better:
Low grind, no paywalls: No in-app purchases, no premium currency. Zero pay-to-win mechanics, and we’ve worked hard to keep tedious repetitive grinding to a minimum.
Continuous narrative experience: Good Pizza, Great Pizza focuses heavily on shop decoration. Our game puts story front and center, with a core focus on collecting unique customers – there’s over 6 hours of uninterrupted new customer content to discover.
❌ Where Jiaozi & Shopkeeper falls short:
Polish gap in art & audio: We don’t have a professional full-time artist. Character portraits are AI-generated with manual refinements – they look polished, but lack a distinct, signature artistic style.
Smaller content pool: Good Pizza, Great Pizza has been built up over years. We cannot match its total content volume at launch.
Tiny development team: We’re limited by resources, which is a common struggle for most small indie games.
Lower brand visibility: We didn’t want to ride on the pizza game’s coattails early on. Now we feel we have our own audience, and we want to grow the cozy cooking sim genre together!!
Right now, the game’s reviews aren’t where we want them to be. The issue is a mismatch with the right audience (Broken Windows Effect + Spiral of Silence). And of course, it’s also on me for not writing this letter earlier. So…
🧐 Is this game right for you?
To help you figure out if we’re a match:
✅ It might be perfect for you if:
Cozy sim enthusiast: You enjoy the meditative cooking loop of Good Pizza, Great Pizza, and you adore the warm villager friendships in Animal Crossing.
Wholesome, low-stakes fun seeker: You want a simple, relaxing game with a cozy atmosphere – the kind that’s "too childish for kids, just right for college students."
Laid-back casual player: You take games at your own pace. Sometimes you’ll sink hours into a session, but mostly you just pick it up for short, chill breaks.
Completionist & collector: You love unlocking collectibles, having clear goals, and watching your progress grow steadily and satisfyingly.
❌ It’s probably not for you if:
Deep gameplay lover: You love the rich, layered mechanics and intricate gameplay of games like Feed the Cups (it’s awesome!).
Free-form exploration fan: You prefer life sims with wide-ranging, varied gameplay, and you dislike simple, repetitive loops.
Story connoisseur: You have high standards for writing. If you didn’t enjoy the story and dialogue in the demo, or if you’re not a fan of this letter, this game won’t land for you.
Audio-visual perfectionist: You care a lot about top-tier graphics and sound design. Our visuals won’t see a major overhaul anytime soon, and we’ll be adding more audio content in future updates.
Co-op hopeful: Jiaozi & Shopkeeper is strictly single-player right now. We may add asynchronous social features like friend lists down the line.
🌸 One last humble request
We truly need your feedback. If you have thoughts or issues, feel free to join our discord to chat. If groups aren’t your thing, we also have a feedback survey – it helps get your issues resolved more quickly.
Earning genuine positive reviews isn’t easy. But there’s no rush – Jiaozi & Shopkeeper is just getting started!!
Best regards,
Dafu