Mega Mall Story Walkthrough

Mega Mall Story is a mall simulation game by Kairosoft for mobile devices. You have a little over fifteen years to create a five star shopping mall filled with an amazing variety of shops and services. Invest in advertising, land, and real estate development which lets you bring in customers, hire employees, as well as upgrade and stock your stores. Gamezebo’s Mega Mall Story quick start strategy guide will provide you with detailed images, tips, information, and hints on how to bring in the customers.

Game Introduction – Mega Mall Story

Quick Start Guide

Getting Started

Mega Mall Story is a paid application and can be found by clicking on the “Play Now!” button at the top of this page or by searching for it in the iTunes store.
Tap on “Menu” then “Settings” where you can change the game speed, adjust volume of music and game sounds, and change the currency type.
The game is not connected to Facebook, Twitter or any other social network at this time and does not send out any kind of push notifications so be sure to save the game and when you return you will find yourself at the exact moment you left the game.
There are two save slots available allowing you to save your game at various points.
You are given fifteen years and 3 months to take a tiny mall with a couple of stores and build it into a five star shopping mall.
Click on “Start” then enter a name for your mall up to 14 characters maximum. If you do not want to enter a name just leave the default name in place.

You will be greeted with a text window (which is the standard communication mode in the game) where you will meet the secretary. The secretary guides you in the game telling you the status of various projects. It is wise to follow her lead whenever possible.
Daily Maintenance Fees and Stocking – Each shop and facility has a maintenance cost attached to it. This will increase as the value of the property increases. Each day the cost of maintenance for each store and facility in the mall will be deducted as well as the restocking of all goods will occur. A message will appear at the bottom of the screen notifying you of this. Keep these costs in mind when building new shops.
Funds – You will start the game with $200,000 in seed money. Each time a customer spends money you will briefly see the amount shown over the store and then added to your grand total located in the upper right corner of the game screen.
Date – The date indicator is at the top left of the screen which will tell you the year, month and week you are currently in. The window will show pictures representing the current season.
Weather – The weather changes frequently from day to day. Sometimes weather can seriously effect your business. Especially if it is a rain or snow storm. It is important to upgrade your mall as soon as possible so weather is not a big issue in your bottom line sales.

How to maneuver around the game screen

There are a couple of ways to move around the game screen.
You can use your finger to drag the screen from left to right or you can tap on the arrow at the bottom left to expose the game controls and tap on the directional arrow to move around the scene.
You can also use the pinch method to zoom in and out of the scene.

Types of Customers

You have two types of customers in the game.

Basic Customers – These customers have one particular like and they must visit a store with a specific quality value to become a regular.

Regulars – A regular is someone that has taken a special liking to a store due to its quality score and will visit more stores showing up to three likes and they will pay out more money than basic customers. Note – Regulars are seen with gold stars next to them.
Try to get as many regulars as you can.
Hands in the Air – If a customer finds a store they like, they will throw their hands up in the air. If that store’s quality reaches a certain level (which is adjusted by you each time that shop levels up) they will become a regular of that particular store.

Build Menu

The game is focuses on building as many shops as possible so you will want to understand the build menu.

The build menu is divided into three categories;
Facilities – This includes, “restrooms, stairways, payphones, rest areas, lockers, hallways, and eventually elevators and escalators. You will also be able to look under this category to more or remove a shop from a location. Facilities are very important as they increase the reputation of all of the stores on the same floor. Try to place facilities on each floor of your mall.
Stores – Here you can find all of the stores that are available to be placed in your mall once you purchase them. Note the size is shown by each shop when you highlight the name. This is shown in the number of squares wide.
Special – Here you will find hard to come by special purchases such as a “Cinema” These items are always several hundred thousands of dollars and very large.
As you advance and invest in various properties and expansions more items will appear in this menu.
To get a new store you will need to buy plans for it using hearts. (See “Hearts” for more information) Once you purchase the plans with hearts it will appear in the build menu and you will have to purchase it with cash to build it into your mall.

Installing Facilities to help customers move around your mall faster

You can install facilities from the build menu once they are available to help your customers move around the mall faster.
This includes stairs, escalators, elevators and more.
You will likely have to expand the mall through investments before you can add these facilities.
Once they are in place you will notice a large increase in business as your customers can now get to stores faster.

How to install moving facilities – To install stairs, escalators or elevators purchase them from the build menu.
Next tap on the square you wish to place them in for the elevator. Note – Careful to tap on ly once. If you run your finger down several squares you will place an elevator on every floor and this can be expensive.
For stairways and escalators – Try to place these over a restroom, lockers, or rest area so you don’t block the view of the shops. Simply tap over until you see the blinking square once to lock it in.
Customers will walk up and down these facilities as soon as you add them.
Note – Make sure you have a way for customers to reach each floor. If you leave a floor with no access you may see a “No Path” message flashing on the shop. Be sure to fix this as soon as you can by placing a stairway, escalator or elevator.

Hearts

Hearts are a special type of currency that are used for a few very important purposes.
Buying Plans – You will need hearts to purchase plans to future shops. Once you purchase these plans the shop will appear in the build menu for you to purchase with cash.
Add New Service – Here you will be able to add items to your shops to make them more valuable and attractive to customers. You can do this in steps with the first couple only costing five hearts and the last few costing at least 25 hearts and which are very difficult to complete. (See “Adding New services to your shops” below for more information on this.)
Holding Sales – You can hold a sale at any store you wish and will need hearts to pay for this privilege.
How to get hearts – When customers use facilities such as restrooms, lockers, payphones, or rest areas they will leave hearts for you. They will also leave hearts when they interact with a staff member. Especially if you have hired one that is very thoughtful and helpful as they attract more hearts than some other employees. (You can determine this when you hire them)
Heart Indicator – Your heart indicator is located at the upper right corner of the game screen as well as at the top of any menu that requires you to use them for purchases.

Buying Plans

Before a shop is available for purchase in the build menu (with the exceptions of the ones gifted to you by certain regular customers) you will need to buy plans for that particular shop.
Tap on “Menu” then “Actions” and then “Buy Plans” to bring up the menu.

“Pumpkin Products” is the company that sells you plans and also sells you secret information as to which businesses can be placed side by side for combo benefits.(See “Combos” below)
At the top of the Pumpkin Products menu you will see how many hearts you have accumulated.
To the right is the cost in hearts for the plans to a particular shop.
Tap on the name twice to lock in the purchase.
Once completed the shop will appear in the build menu and you will need to go there and pay cash to complete the purchase.
As you progress in the game more shops will appear in the buy plans menu.
The best way to keep new shops in this menu is to invest regularly in various expansions and land explorations for the mall.
Note – Sometimes when a customer becomes a regular he or she will gift you new plans for a shop which will place it automatically in the build menu.

Placing Shops in your Mall

Your mall can expand vertically at first adding floors as you purchase the required upgrades. Over time you will eventually be able to purchase a horizontal expansion which will let you expand in the other direction.

When you are ready to add a shop to your mall do the following.
Tap on “Menu” at the bottom right of the screen.
Tap on “Build” at the top of the menu.
Tap on the name of the building you wish to purchase. (Plans for that building must be purchased first using hearts. See “Purchasing Plans for future shops” below for more information.)
When you highlight a business note that to the left you will see either “1sq, 2sq, 3sq or 4sq” this tells you how many squares wide the shop is.

A grid will highlight in green showing all the available squares you can place a shop in. make sure you have enough squares to fit your shop into.
If you do not have enough room you may be able to move things around. (See “Moving and deleting shops from your Mall” below)
Be sure to check for “Combos” before you place shops as well. If you place certain shops directly next to each other connecting on the same floor you will build a combo that will cause more customers to flock to those shops.

Store Placement Strategies

It is important to place stores in your mall strategically. Not only does this mean place them in combos, (See “Combos” below) but it also means you need to place stores with higher reputation points alongside those with weaker scores to pull them along and help them to level up and get stronger.
Tap on a store and look for “Rep” to see what its reputation is. It will either be “Good”, “Normal” or “Poor”
You never want to place all of one type of shop on the same floor. Be sure to spread them out well within the mall.
Be sure to read through the combo listings before you place any new shops in the mall.
Moving a shop is allowed but you must have room for it and it will cost 5,000 per store you move.
Removing a shop is free but you will lose all of your initial investment and potential profits so be sure you want to do this before you delete a shop.

Store Combos

A store combo is made when you put a certain combination of stores next to each other on the same floor and they increase the reputation of all of the stores on the floor, increase popularity of the stores, and give random bonuses from certain customers.
The stores must be on the same floor and touching without anything between them to qualify. When placed correctly the word “Combo” will briefly appear over each shop.
Combo Salesman – There is a combo salesman that appears at random times to sell you inside information about combos. If you agree to purchase this information a combo will be revealed to you and placed in the combo menu.
How to access the combo menu – Tap on “Menu” then on “Info” then on “Combos” Use the arrows along the top to scroll through these.
This menu is very helpful as it will tell you if you have these shops in your mall and how they need to be placed. Refer to this menu frequently especially right before you purchase a shop and place it.
Also, remember you can move buildings to new locations to make room for combos but it will cost you 5,000 to move each building. Removing a building is free but you will lose all your investment in that building and this is not recommended.

Holding Sales

You will need hearts in order to hold sales in your stores.
Holding a sale makes it more likely that a customer will visit a particular store.
Holding a sale is a great tool if you want to level up a shop faster or want to increase your national ranking.
Tap on “Menu” then “Actions” then “Hold Sale” Next a flashing square will appear over your mall and you will be asked, “Hold a sale where?”
Tap on the store you wish to hold a sale at.
It will cost you ten hearts for each store you hold a sale at and the sale will only last for one day so be sure to start the sale right at the start of the day or you will waste your hearts.
You can hold sales at multiple stores at once if you have enough hearts to pay for it.

Fever

A fever will begin once your mall reaches a popularity rating of 100.
During a fever which is announced and a “Fever” sign is shown flashing at the bottom right of the screen you will see customers crowding to your mall in a frenzy.
This will allow you to make a lot of sales so be sure you are fully stocked in all of your stores.
The best part about a fever is that every customer will give you a heart during a fever and allow you to gain a large amount of hearts for buying plans on large projects or hold future sales or upgrade the stock of different shops.

Making Investments

You will be able to make investments in outside real estate such as houses, apartment buildings, condominiums, office buildings and more.
Investing in these real estate ventures will cause more customers to shop at your mall.
Invest in your Mall – You can also at times invest in your mall to increase its size, expand horizontally, and research items such as elevators, escalators and more which will allow you to place them in your mall.
Tap on “Menu” then “Invest” Once you see the menu use the arrows along the top to scroll through the available investments. Once you find an investment you can afford tap on the area the finger is pointing to then tap on “Invest” Confirm this and wait a while until it is completed.
You can only invest in one project at time and must wait until it is announced as completed before you can start another investment.

Hiring Staff

There are two purposes to hiring staff members.
Staff members can hand out hearts – Certain staff members which you can tell at the point of hiring them are very kind and when they interact with customers cause the customers to give out more hearts.
Staff members can increase product quality in some stores – If you hire an employee for a certain shop you will increase the quality of the product in that shop attracting more regular customers.
As your mall gets more floors added to it you will be able to hire more employees to manage the floors.
Be sure to invest in your mall as much as possible to encourage employee hiring.

Levelling up a Store

Once a shop has a certain number of visitors (You can see this at any time by tapping on the store and looking at the stats at the bottom of the screen.) it will automatically send you a message saying it is ready to level up.
Tap on the store when you see the level up message on it or scrolling at the bottom of the game screen.
Wait for the “next” button to appear and tap on it.
Once you level up the sales prices and reputation will automatically increase.
You will also get bonus points that you will be allowed to allocate to either Quality of Stock.
It is up to you which you want to increase or you may want to divide it among both categories.
Quality increases attract regular customers
Stock increases keep you from running out and shutting your doors early.

Adding New Services to a Shop

Each store allows you to add a variety of services to it that will both increase its sales and reputation.
If you see a store lagging in business tap on it and follow these steps to add services.
Note – You should always add at least the first two services to every shop as soon as possible to keep business from lagging and add the more advanced services later.
Tap on the business
Tap on “New Service” at the bottom of the menu.
Tap on the first empty space in the list next to the “???”
You will pay in hearts only to add services. The first two will cost you five hearts and the first one will be a product and the second will increase your stock maximum for that product.
Once you do this it will increase your reputation by a tiny amount.
The more advanced services will cost at least 25 hearts each and you will only get them if the circumstances are right. It is a gamble to try this early on, so only do so once your mall is well established and you can afford to lose the hearts if unsuccessful.

Advertising Policy

Advertising is critical to your mall’s popularity level. (A mall must reach a popularity level of 100 for a fever to occur)
The state of the economy which is shown to you in a message at the beginning of each day can affect how well advertising works for you.
There are several modes of advertisement available and more unlock as you expand and grow your mall.
Tap on “Menu”, then on “Actions” and then “Advertise”
Once in the advertise menu you have the option to turn the feature on or off.
If you have a feature turned on you will be charged the rate listed each month.
The first advertisement method offered is “Pamplets” at 1,000 dollars per month.
Next there is “Online Ads” at 4,500 dollars per month and so on.
If you are running low on funds or going through a really bad economic time you can turn these off for a while to save money.
When things are going well it is critical you keep these advertisement methods turned on and working for you.

Mall Expansion

At first you will be allowed to expand your mall vertically by adding a few more floors then you will do another research and will be allowed to upgrade horizontally.
Click on “Menu” then “Invest” Scroll through the options until you find an option to research expansions.
Once you have completed these you will be able to start building on and adding to your expanded mall.

National Ranking

Periodically you will see a message that will tell you your mall is being ranked nationally. Each time this happens you will receive a large cash bonus of at least 100,000 dollars.
The higher up you rank and if you did better than your previous year the higher your cash reward will be.

Adding Stars to your Shopping Mall/Ranking Up

To become a five star shopping mall, you will have to complete qualifications one star at a time.
You will be notified of you requirements when you start the game for your first star.
You can see these at any time by tapping on “Menu” then “Actions” and then “Rank Up”
You will now see a menu with all of the requirements listed and whether or not you have met them.
Once you have met all of the requirements tap on “Apply” at the bottom of this menu.
If you are successful you will be rewarded with another star.
You can earn a maximum of five stars and will be known as a “Five Star shopping Mall”
You do not have to be a five star mall to finish the game. You may finish the game well before you finish the ranking process. This depends on how hard you work towards it.
Be sure to check the ranking up menu frequently to see what you need to do and follow it as if it were a quest list.

Each time you rank up your stores make more money, more customers come to your mall and your popularity rating increases for all shops and the mall overall.

Store Lists

The store list is a great feature to help you manage your shops especially when you have quite a few of them.
Tap on “Menu” then on “Info” and then “Store list”
This will show you each store, the floor it is located on, its level and what its maximum stock is.
You can see at a glance which stores need to be upgraded and need their stock maximum increased.
Be sure to use this useful tool frequently.

Transportation Facilities

As your mall expands you will be able to research transportation facilities to add around it.
These will bring much larger groups of customers to your mall and include things such as bus stops, airports, train stations.
It is important to make sure you are researching these areas and keeping people coming to your mall.

Finishing the Game

The game will end when you reach the last day of March after you complete fifteen years of running your mall.
Your funds and cleared points will be shown as your high score.
Even though you have finished the game you can continue to play as long as you like until you have all of the shops and investments completed.
You can start a new game right away and many of the items you have unlocked from your previous game will carry over which makes it much easier to get a better score the second time around.
Also, after you finish the game the first time you can go into settings and change the game speed if you would like.

Congratulations!

You have completed Gamezebo’s basic gameplay guide for Mega Mall Story! Be sure to check back often for game updates, staff and user reviews, user tips, forum comments and much more here at Gamezebo!