Merchant vs Shop Heroes
Merchant
Merchant is a fun little idle game that's designed to be played on the side, while you're doing something else on the computer. In the game, you'll need to hire heroes who you will then send out on adventures to gather crafting materials. The materials obtained can then be turned into numerous types of armor and weapons, which you can in turn equip on your heroes or sell them off for a tidy profit. There are two main ways for you to sell your goods - you can either put it up for sale in your shop or you can fulfill the orders of passing merchants and heroes.Although the game starts out as pretty fun, the progression in this game gradually becomes rather grindy after a while - imagine: sending the same hero on the same quest will require the same amount of clicks as sending the hero on a new quest or even sending a new hero. Some automation would be great here, especially considering that the game's an idle game.
So, despite the fun concept and gameplay, its progression can truly kill your interest in the game. That being said, if you just want a simple game to play as you watch Netflix or YouTube on your computer, Merchant might just be the kind of game for you!
Shop Heroes
Shop Heroes is an incredibly fun and addictive, medieval/fantasy shop simulation that has some RPG elements. In this game, you play as a shopkeeper with a newly established shop that provides various types of RPG adventurers with their weapons, armor, and accessories. As opposed to only selling them, you will also need to hire crafters to craft the said items, and each crafter has their own sets of skills while each item will require certain sets of skills to craft. Thankfully, you can hire more than one crafter (eventually) and hence, you will be able to produce more than a few selected categories of items later down the road.These items can then be sold to the RPG adventurers who approach you at your shop. Selling to them, however, usually means that you'll be selling at market price, though you are given the option to lower your prices to earn Hearts or use Hearts to inflate your prices. Since most adventurers would want a very specific item to buy, which you may not have available, you can also use Hearts to change their minds. Naturally, trying to suggest a closer alternative to buy would cost you fewer Hearts.
The game also has RPG elements where you can recruit and send adventurers into various dungeons to earn special crafting materials that these dungeons only provide. There's PvP as well, where you can assemble a team of 5 to battle a randomly selected player's team of your bracket. Not to mention, you can even group up with other shopkeepers via guilds and work together on weekly challenges to win freebies, in addition to cooperatively building up the guild facilities so as to obtain a better guild-wide buff.
Shop Heroes is a game that is one of its kind because it not only managed to flawlessly merge both shop simulation and RPG into a fun and exciting package, but also to provide its game completely free. You can advance, albeit at a slower pace, in this game without spending a single cent if you like, but of course, if you enjoyed playing the game, you might want to spend some cash just to show your support.