Ever dreamed of running your own gift shop? Well, now’s your time as Keep Me Gifted finally gives you that chance of stocking inventory, wrapping gifts, and keeping customers happy. Just don’t blame us when things get a little weird.
We’ve all tried our fair share of ‘simulation’ games over the years. Whether you’re living life as a taxi driver or powerwashing Shrek’s swamp, the genre has exploded in popularity with all sorts of experiences on offer – some authentic, some authentically wacky.
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Keep Me Gifted falls ever so elegantly between the two categorizations. On one hand, it offers an authentic sim experience as you manage your own gift store. On the other, it’s all a bit kooky as you deal with hilariously chaotic customers and their absurd requests. What if one oddball asks for an evil Valentine’s Day gift to curse their estranged partner?
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Complemented by a whimsical art style and glorious sound design, it never takes itself too seriously. Through all the cozy game stylings of bubble wrap and ribbons though, there’s a great deal to unpack about this game.
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What is Keep Me Gifted?
Your day starts like any other. You get to the newly opened gift store and take a deep breath. There’s a few hours before customers (hopefully) come flooding in. Before they do, it’s time for a stocktake.
Journals keep selling out, they’re a hot item you’ll want to order more of and maybe even consider raising the price on. Puzzles, however, they’re falling out of fashion. It’s worth thinking about a sale just to move the last few units.
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Now for a quick spin on the computer. Let’s take a look at some recent store reviews and see how we can make improvements. With just a few minutes to go before opening time, be sure to order that new shipment of journals and fulfil any online orders.
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Merlot GamesThere’s plenty of sim management fun to be had here.
With doors now open, it’s off to the races. The first customer is after something for their brother’s birthday. How about a football? Perfect. Let’s get that boxed and wrapped in nice blue paper so it stands out.
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Next, a quirky character wants an item to use as a prank on their boss. How about a whoopee cushion? Nah, too childish. They mean business. Let’s give them the terrifying Chucky doll. That’ll be sure to frighten them. We’ll wrap it in totally unassuming packaging so they think nothing of it before jumping out of their skin.
This is the loop of Keep Me Gifted, and it’s one you can enjoy endlessly as you grow from a humble little gift store to a renowned gift shop empire.
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Merlot GamesYou’ll meet all sorts of interesting characters while running the gift shop.
You control it all. From the items on the shelves, their prices, how they’re presented, even how much change you give to a customer paying with cash. You have a huge degree of autonomy to really make the gift shop your own.
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It may sound like a lot to process all at once, but with cartoony visuals and charming sound design, it’s very much intended as a cozy experience. There’s joy to be found in every exchange, whether it’s an amusing chat with a customer or a blissful moment wrapping a package in a new way, you’re supposed to simply ‘vibe out’ while playing.
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Making it all the more sweet, as we learned in speaking with the developers, there’s really no endpoint. While you will reach a certain milestone that essentially indicates you’ve reached the top of the ladder, you can keep on packing gifts forever if you so choose.
I, for one, can’t wait to enter the flow state and meet all of the eccentric characters in town. But there’s far more to it all than just that. Here’s what else we learned in speaking with Görkem Özbay from the dev team at Merlot Games.
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What the devs say about it
A very cozy beginning
“The game started off very differently, actually. It started as a side project. We were in pre-production stages on a few games, we were deciding on which to continue with. [This game] kind of looked like it could go somewhere.
“It started as a cozy gift-wrapping game. Turn off your brain, put on a TV show, and just wrap something. Then we kind of pivoted towards a bit of a simulation. It got too cozy. We were like, ‘let’s dial back the cozy a bit’ so we added a few challenges, the money, nothing too crazy.
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“We still kept the cozy vibe with the art, music, and the gameplay mechanics. It’s definitely not hard. I still believe it’s cozy, but as a Souls fan, everything is cozy to me.”
Merlot GamesThere’s a bit of added pressure, but devs are striving to strike that perfect balance of challenge without losing the cozy appeal.
Getting silly with it
“I wrote normal characters at first. ‘I want to get this gift for my boyfriend.’ But then I was like, ‘I’m sorry, this is so boring!’ so I started to create a few Easter Egg-type characters that were crazy. ‘I want to get something for my arch enemy, she slept with my husband.’ That kind of thing, people really started liking it.
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“Everything is randomized. We have around 30-40 regular characters. But the names, the items, the gift shop requests, the colours, the lines, it creates so many interactions.
“When the lines interchange, it creates some hilarious stuff. This is the chaos we want. It keeps things fresh too, you don’t see the same things over and over.
“Sometimes there’s an elderly woman coming in to get a gift for her best friend that just got a new tattoo.”
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Rick & Morty’s unintended influence
“For the game’s art style, I didn’t give [our artist] any references. I just said I wanted something goofy, not realistic.”
“The vibe I asked for was delivered exactly. Characters sort of blown out of proportion, poppy eyes, slender figures.”
“The Rick & Morty part was not a conscious decision, but subconsciously we both must have wanted it to look like that.”
Merlot GamesThere are countless hours of fun to be had already, and the game is only just starting its journey in Early Access.
Early Access is just the first milestone
“The game is basically ready. It’s a full experience. This could have been a full release, but we wanted to go for Early Access to get player feedback. What do they want to see?
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“For example, I thought of Valentine’s, Christmas, and Halloween. A player suggested Mother’s Day, so now we’re working on that. We want to tailor the game towards them.
“We’re also running small campaigns like name the NPC or give us item ideas. I’m tired of seeing snow globes at this point. One viewer asked to see a cursed Chucky doll, so now we have a cursed Chucky doll.”
Keep Me Gifted goes live on PC on June 18, 2025, in Early Access. The dev team hopes to bring it to further platforms, including mobile, in the months ahead.
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