Hey Fellow Brewers!
It's that time of the week again to talk about past, present, and future. So to start out with, update .12 is out. With this version, a lot of back-end code was reworked to allow the streamlining of future content. The release seems to have gone well with minimal bugs. Some have already been addressed in update .121 and more will be addressed soon. So let me know if anything comes up or seems odd.
On now to the upcoming week. I'll finally be able to start working on new content! First order of business is location editing. Currently you can move to a new location that offers more room and a larger loading area. This is an okay'ish mechanic but I think it can be improved. What I'd like to see is a system in where you start with your garage, from there you upgrade to a small box of a building. No moving, no selling of equipment and having to buy everything again. You keep the location and the placement of all your equipment. This small box of a building is larger than the garage but still tiny. You'll be able to expand left right or north of this building. Each expansion will be the same size and thus double your building with the first expansion. From there you can paint the walls and ground with different materials. Maybe a rustic brick? Or maybe futuristic stainless steal? I want players to be able to create themes with their breweries.
The next thing I would like to add is decor. This system will be purely visual at first but will have a function in the future when players will be able to create their own tap room. Just like the wall and floor materials having a theme, the decor will too. Matching decor will add to a aesthetic value of the tap room. This aesthetic will determine whether or not a patron will get another drink when visiting the tap room, thus boosting sales.
So now for long term goals. I've been thinking on how I'd like to proceed in the future and have been working on a road map. With each 0.X release, I want to touch upon a major feature. So Below is a rough idea I've been working on but is always subject to change.
0.2 Locations This will be everything doing with locations as described above.
0.3 Employees A complete overhaul of employees, new AI, skill trees, set tasks. All to make the employees more useful.
0.4 Machines A lot of the machines will get an overhaul making the code cleaner but also add in machine upgrades. The ability to upgrade cooking speed or make a pump work faster. This will add a new layer to the machine system instead of just buying a new better one when it become unlocked.
0.5 Stats/Analytics This will deal with monitoring your sales and costs. I might start adding Steam achievements at this point too. (Maybe language localization too...)
0.6 Tap Room A complete system for managing a tap room with a bar, patrons, and a bit of rework to the popularity system
0.7 UI/Graphics A bit of cleanup for the graphics and UI. I want to make everything easier to use. I'll be adding more character customization and more variation to things.
0.8 Recipes The current recipe system is nice and can calculate needed ingredients but I want to take it future and add support for cooking tables. This means it will tell you what temp you need to cook each ingredient for and how many flavor cycles. Also I'd like to add special recipes. This special recipes system will be predefined flavor amount and when unlocked, you will get a bonus of bmp, popularity, and money.
0.9 Player's Request During the development cycle, I'll be collecting the suggestions and request of the community and I'd like to make an update special tailored to the players that have supported me in early access. So this will be a wild card but should be fun.
1.0 Full Release/Mod Support This will be the final release for the core game. I should have all the code hardened at this point and any further releases will be bug fixes. But that won't be the end of new content. I want to open the back-end to mods and allow anyone to create their own content. I'll also create documentation on how to do that.
So this is the general road map for the future. And as it stands the future looks bright. Even in this initial soft launch, support has been great! But as soon as 0.2 update is released, I'd like to kick things up a bit and get the game into the hands of various public figures. So if you got some favorite YouTubers or gamers, let them know about Draught Kraft! I've also been thinking of doing some IRL stuff with local brewers. But more on that hopefully in the future.
I just want to thank everyone for the support! And If you like the game, drop a review on Steam!
Happy Brewing!
-Vertnacular