Cart Life

In Cart Life, players control one of three characters, each of whom has a different street vending job; Vinny sells bagels, Andrus runs a newspaper stand, and Melanie sells coffee from a cart. While at their stalls players interact with customers by selling them items and can manage their stall by selecting stock, setting prices, and buying new equipment. Players must also look after the character's day-to-day lives, including having adequate food, drink, and sleep. Each character has unique situations to address; Melanie, for example, is a single mother of a daughter. When she's not working, she yearns to bond more with her daughter, in the midst of her difficult busy life. She struggles to have time to walk her daughter to and from school each day, as she seeks custody on limited wages. == Development ==

Richard Hofmeier's inspiration for the game came from aspects of his own work-life experiences, as well as from playing other games like Little Computer People and River City Ransom. He drew inspiration from Han Hoogerbrugge's Modern Living, saying that he thought about it "almost every day" while developing Cart Life. Hofmeier credits his partner with supporting him throughout the game development. Cart Life is Hofmeier's first game, drawing upon his experience as an illustrator. He developed the game in his spare time using Adventure Game Studio while working what he describes as a "bunch of bad jobs". He wanted to make a game which had no high scores, points, or action, and originally envisaged it as a comedy. During development Hofmeier spoke to a number of street vendors to research their work who were enthusiastic about the creation of the game. In March 2014, with Hofmeier saying he was finished supporting the game, the game was removed from Steam while source code and game were made available for free (Freeware) on his website under the ''"CART LIFE'S FREE LICENSE"'', a public domain like license. Hofmeier's webpage later went offline due to the increased traffic but the game and source code was mirrored on GitHub. == Reception ==

Cart Life received "generally favorable reviews" according to the review aggregation website Metacritic Cart Life was a finalist for the 2012 Indiecade and won the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, Nuovo Award, and Excellence in Narrative award at the 2013 Independent Games Festival. ==See also==