The Walking Trade: How I Built a Shop Simulator Without Ever Playing One

Built without playing a shop simulator

The creator grew up playing tycoon games in the early 2000s, especially RollerCoaster Tycoon and The Sims. Playing each without cheat codes gave him the feeling of starting from the bottom and building something from nothing, which he wanted The Walking Trade to recreate. He later built the shop simulator he wanted to play rather than playing the increasingly popular genre.

Years later, I watched shop simulators take off. Traditional tycoon games work at the macro scale, while shop simulators stay with the day-to-day: the shelf that needs restocking, the customer waiting to pay. That depth intrigued me. But they are, by design, incredibly chill experiences, and the game I wanted to play had risk and danger in it. So instead of playing them, I built the shop simulator I’d want to play.

A shop worth defending

The creator had not seen a shop simulator genuinely add combat, and he believed a post-apocalyptic world could unite store management with fighting. A shop full of supplies therefore became a location that needed defending.

In The Walking Trade, players lay out their store, decide which products occupy each shelf and set their prices. Periodic zombie hordes then arrive, forcing the player to defend the store with melee weapons, firearms or anything within reach. Once unlocked, a crafting station produces medicine, weapons, tools and shop upgrades, as well as defenses and traps for slowing the zombies. Survivors can be hired to serve customers, scavenge for supplies or stand guard, but they must remain equipped and motivated.

Trade is another player choice: the community can be helped, or customers can be price gouged or murdered for profit. The player’s reputation determines who comes knocking.

Robin and the road to release

The creator began work on The Walking Trade in October 2024. At the time, he was about to be laid off from a software developer role at an indie game publisher, while he and his wife had just learned that they were expecting their first child. Around 18 months later, the game was released on PC.

Robin’s real-life origin is tied to that period: Robin is also the creator’s son’s name. In the game, Robin runs to the player’s store while fleeing a zombie on the second day. He becomes the first staff member, and his arrival introduces both combat and team management. The creator later watched YouTube and Twitch players make efforts to keep Robin alive throughout their playthroughs, which he found touching because people genuinely cared about the character.

The Walking Trade launches on XBOX Series X|S today, inviting players to build a shop from nothing, decide what kind of shopkeeper to become and keep Robin alive.