Composing with leitmotifs is a really clever way to tie it all together thematically. It inspires me to see you so stoked on it. I've been in a funk about making music for years and seeing so much musical creativity from you and everyone in GBJAM is starting to dispel it.
I wanted to try out a UI idea for practice. I thought maybe the clock could pull double duty to communicate both current time and how long until closing time. Attached a GIF of a mockup. I think functionally it works pretty well, but I don't have an artist's touch for pixel art, and the colors of the UI are already so subtle and well done.
Right now the game is in an interesting emergent state where the random chemistry creates some fun and unexpected sequences. I have some feedback brewing about balance and gameplay, but I haven't fully digested the Game Feel and Length post. So the following is just about 1.2.0 as it currently stands.
One thing I really enjoyed from my first playthrough was that I felt pressure to hawk stolen goods because of the financial pressure of coming up short. I did another playthrough this morning and once you understand the system it's too easy to keep your nose clean. Maybe something that messes with / threatens your inventory, like nighttime burglary, requiring management of shop security or something, which could add a meaningful choice for the player, like pay for peace of mind, or take the risk because money is that tight. Some of the game jam incrementals I've played lately have started to really make me appreciate upgrades, and similarly from roguelites where they can have cost/benefit balances, I could see something here like pay to install bars on the windows to prevent smash and grabs, but it hugely debuffs hype. Start/End of day provide good slots for choices like this, like before opening you can decide on Flash Sale, Accepting Junk, and at closing time, informed by rumors you heard during the day, you can decide on security measures.
I came across the damaged mechanic today also, which is pretty cool, the idea being not to overhandle the merchandise? Until now, I hadn't been doing a lot of window shuffling, which is now incentivized by the immediate feedback you see as you re-arrange the display. Very good.
Additional agency is always a good idea, and I was thinking maybe some kinds of wildcard events could be cool. Maybe interference from the family, who provide the motivating scenario of the core premise, but it might be fun to have their presence and malevolence felt during the week. Maybe they need to "borrow" a valuable piece of displayed inventory. Or maybe as part of a burglary system, you can pay them per night of security.