Shark Mart has an extremely simple business plan: open a little underwater shop, make the locals trust you, and absolutely do not let them discover that the shopkeepers are sharks.
That is the joke at the heart of this co-op simulator from stre1itzia and Andryash, published by Polden Publishing. You and up to three friends disguise yourselves as friendly dolphins and run a shop for unsuspecting fish. Stock the shelves with seashells and seaweed, serve customers, keep everything clean, and generally behave like perfectly respectable members of the underwater community. Meanwhile, there is a rather less respectable operation happening downstairs.
The secret basement is where Shark Mart stops being an ordinary shop simulator. Customers can be kidnapped and turned into dishes, while whales have their own strange role in the operation: keeping them happy by washing and grooming them helps earn the trust of the wider ocean community. And, naturally, there is a Fish Police force that would very much like to know what is happening behind the scenes.
That contrast is what makes the official Shark Mart Discord server worth following. This is the community connected directly to the game and its developers, not a generic underwater-gaming server. The developers have used Discord to communicate news, development updates and answers to player questions, while playtests have given the community opportunities to try new versions and send feedback.
And Shark Mart is exactly the sort of co-op game where having other players around matters. One person can concentrate on the shop while another deals with other jobs, and the developers have been actively improving multiplayer systems such as item handling, construction placement, saving and allowing players to join a session late. The closed playtests have also been used to adjust visitors, income, product prices, whale washing and early progression based on player feedback.
So the Discord has a purpose beyond simply announcing when something happens. It is where players can follow the development of Shark Mart, talk about the latest playtest or demo, find people to play with, report problems, suggest improvements and see what the developers are working on next. The game’s community has already been involved in multiple rounds of testing, and the team has explicitly encouraged players to share what worked, what broke and what made them laugh.
There is also something fitting about having a community built around a game whose entire premise is keeping a ridiculous secret. In Shark Mart, you smile at the customers, polish the shop, wash the whales and pretend everything is normal.
Just don’t show anyone your teeth.
