Hey Fellow Brewers!
So the past week I was a bit sidetracked from what I planned to do. I started off working on the employee system and wanted to implement the skills system. During this development I was thinking heavily about gameplay. More specifically I was thinking about making things less graduated/binary and more nebulous. Its a bit weird to describe but I'll try my best.
The employees used to have a complaint system, if they weren't paid, it added a complaint, if they couldn't get out at the end of their shift, they would gain a complaint. Too many complaints and they would quit. Something similar was in the works for contracts too. It was more graduated in where each contract would gain a streak for fulfilling it. While this is simple in a sense, it did make it harder to know exactly why each issue was a problem for an employee or contract.
This is where I worked on a satisfaction system for both employees and contracts. It opened a world of possibilities for different game mechanics. Now each employee will have a satisfaction/happiness level that you can maintain by paying them more or less than their asking price. Some of the old factors will also apply to their happiness such as not paying or locking them in a room so they can't leave at the end of the day. This happiness also plays a roll in how much XP they gain and thus how much they will advance with skill points.
This system is now also in the contract system. Contracts have a satisfaction level in where it will increase for fulfilling and over achieving on a contract or decrease for failing. Contracts no longer have an expected flavor profile except for enlisted contracts, but instead have an expected taste level. You can exceed a taste level or event ABV and the satisfaction level will increase. Having a high satisfaction level will net you bonuses of popularity, money, and brewmaster points.
With this new system I started to rework the employee, contract, and even the end of day menus.
I want everything to be spelled out for the player. So things like the employees grievances will be on full display so you know what is bothering them.
I also worked on some smaller quality of life things. One of these I think players will really like. You can now assign packages to a specific contract for pickup. So no longer will a package be randomly picked up but rather any package that is assigned to a contract will be picked up first. You'll be able to have multiple packages for different contracts at a time in the loading zone.
That's it for last week. This week I'll be working on finishing up this new satisfaction system and then onto employee automation.
Happy Brewing!
-Vertnacular