Parents' Guide to Shop Titans: Craft & Build

This app offers a more nuanced experience than some sim games. In addition to solid graphics, Shop Titans: Craft & Build provides players with thorough instruction: Characters guide you through each new step, and you can find out more about a store item's intended use by clicking on the image that appears when shoppers make an offer to buy one. You can periodically send characters on quests to defeat creatures, wining prizes that will help revive them post-battle, utilize blueprints to make new goods, or obtain other advantages, which is another neat aspect of the game. And there's generally just plenty to do, which leaves little time to get bored when you're waiting for a store item to be finished so you can sell it. The shop holds a limited amount of items -- you can only craft a couple of things at once, without paying to make more -- and the time involved in creating things can differ, so players need to balance how many they make and what they're selling.

Having that kind of complexity makes the app a challenging experience; although it can also be a slightly overwhelming one. With so many elements to oversee -- such as tapping on items when they're finished to add them to the store, and investing in other businesses -- playing requires a lot of focus. A to-do list and achievement board outline various objectives, but it's not always clear where you should be focusing your time first. You can end up clicking around a lot to check the status of some of the elements, such as whether a warrior is rested enough to go on another quest. Players will need to stay focused and invest some serious playing time to master Shop Titans: Craft & Build, but if they do, they should walk away knowing more about retail work, collaboration, and other useful business concepts.