Greetings citizens and tourists!
September's update brings one of the biggest additions to Retroronto yet: Chores! Players can now take on a variety of everyday responsibilities around their home and the city, with completing them helping keep their rent under control. Two new interiors, Blahbos Grocery Store and the Laundromat, have opened their doors, providing new places to shop, complete chores, and spend some time while exploring the city.
Blahbos serves as the city's main grocery destination, offering more than thirty food items across fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy, and other ingredients. Players can use the store to restock an empty fridge, grab a quick bite at its small eatery, and prepare for future cooking features. Meanwhile, the new Laundromats provide a place to wash and dry bedsheets, with three locations scattered throughout the city for convenience.
The Laundromats also introduce Gardiner Grind, a new arcade minigame where players race down a busy highway while dodging incoming traffic and trying to survive as long as possible. It joins Tram Panic as part of a growing collection of arcade games that will offer players more ways to have fun around the city. Players can also access both games directly from the Main Menu.
This update also includes a huge collection of fixes and improvements gathered from the recent Canadian National Exhibition showcase. From gameplay bugs and visual issues to improvements across existing systems, this is one of the most substantial rounds of polish Retroronto has received so far. Many of these changes came directly from players who took the time to try the game at CNE and share their feedback.
Looking ahead, development will continue through the remainder of the year as the demo moves toward completion. Cooking is now the next major feature on the horizon, building upon the grocery and food systems introduced this month, while additional foundational work will prepare Retroronto for its eventual transition into Alpha development. As always, thank you to everyone who continues to play, wishlist, share, and provide feedback as the game gets closer to its next stage.
🕹️ Play the demo: https://starspray-studios.itch.io/retroronto
📰 Read the full devblog: https://www.starspraystudios.com/devblog/retroronto-report-22
📣 Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/KyCAE4YRaS
CHANGES/FIXES
- Fixed a bug where lights on upper parts of buildings wouldn't dynamically change at night
- Fixed a bug where the player's hands and items being held would not getting masked within interior scenes when beyond interior borders
- Fixed a bug where transitioning between rooms vertically sometimes didn't persist, spawning players above/below room perimeters
- Changed 6/9 interior to be smaller, to better reflect actual sizes of convenience stores
- Updated items sold in Buyers and 69, updated their shelves
- Replaced all exit doors in interiors with ones you can open when colliding with, and with areas outside bounds to exit to overworld
- Fixed a bug where the Sick task can't be completed if it starts from the player being nauseous
- Fixed a bug where you couldn't buy drinks at bars because confirmation was never asked for
- Fixed a bug where Wheelhouse had duplicate checkouts who's colliders conflicted and prevented the player from buying things
- Replaced Soda item at Bars with Wine
- Updated Staff NPCs in Wheelhouse, BOOS, and the Library to have 'i' icons above them
- Updated Hotels to better switch between Lobby and Hotel Room
- Made transitions fades going into interiors more persistent for loading interior scenes
- Adjusted several wall and door colliders in a majority of all interior environments
- Fixed a bug where the tent in the park encampment, and the bed in the Hotel room couldn't be used due to not being associated with Home
- Updated some backgrounds in interiors to fit doors better
- Updated Bank interior so players can enter and leave from the doors on the left, removing the top most door
- Fixed a bug where parks wouldn't change to their Winter versions due to changes in how backgrounds would be loaded on PC vs WebGL
- Updated Shelf colouring and orientation code to be more modular and easier to set up
- Updated several food items to increase or decrease health stat to reflect healthy/unhealthy eating
- Updated Textbook Smart stat gain from 1 to 5 when finishing reading
- Updated Benchpress Health stat gain from 1 to 5 when finishing a set
- Changed Sandwich sprite and sandwich-making station in Jimmies
- Fixed a bug where players could keep buying from sellers even when inventory was full (still there if another item in inventory isn't food like resume)
- Fixed bug where night lights on Skydome, Royal logo, and Dundas Square billboards wouldn't fully fill in
- Fixed a bug where npcs in park environments wouldn't be lit correctly during dawn/dusk and night
- Npcs in the clinic are now set to be all sick except for the doctor and receptionist
- Beds can now only be slept in once, will reset when you re-enter home
- Fixed a bug where players could buy any item other than a medicine item during the sick task to progress
- Fixed a bug where the sick task would use the wrong icons when completing the task
- Sleeping now reduces all stats by 1
- Fill actions uses (reading, benchpress) now use 'F/X' instead of SPACE/A to keep using them
- Raccoons in parks can only spawn at night now
- Changed the Map's place toggle for 'Libraries' to 'Services', which includes the new Laundromats
- Changed Clinic and Library interiors to have vending machines
- Changed Home Banner sprite
- Tasks will now be cleared and reset when the player sleeps
- Landlord now no longer just spawns in your home when you wake up on rent day, but will instead show up when you next enter home
- Landlord will now walk out of home after leasing and paying rent
- Fixed a bug where getting promoted never failed
- Fixed a bug where interacting with taxis and then exiting them without using them, would reposition them off the roads.
- Moved the Work minigame UI up overtop the base UI
ADDITIONS
- Added 'Blahbos' Grocery Store, an expansion retail store that sells every food item in the game. Includes a small eatery
- Added Laundromats, where players can do laundry chore tasks, talk to NPCs, play Gardiner Grind, and use vending machines
- Added Chore Tasks associated with Home Toilets, where players either have to Clean, Stock, or Repair with specific required items (gotten from Wheelhouse)
- Added Grocery Chore task associated with the Fridge, where players need to buy and store a food item from Blahbos in their fridge. Always activates when the fridge is empty
- Added Laundry Chore task, associated with the Bed, where players need to take dirty sheets to a Laundromat, wash/dry them, and return the clean sheets back to their bed
- Added Vending Machines, which you can find in Laundromats, Clinics and Libraries, all selling different variation of items. The vending machine in the gym is still 'out of order' for the sake of the task there
- Added Gardiner Grind Arcade game, which can be found and played at a Laundromat
- Added 3 Magazine items that increase a skill point when read, and placed them in 6/9, Buyers, Wheelhouse, and Blahbos
- Added 30+ food items for purchase and consumption
- Added additional trash variants of food items
- Added new UI elements for inventory for using items and swapping item slots
- Added new UI elements for map screen for switching between place sets and zooming in/out
- Players and NPCs can now 'sit' in chairs/benches/stools/couches in all interior locations
- After paying rent, Landlords will now either raise your rent or keep it as is based on the amount of chores you've done and how late the rent payment was
- You can choose between 'Tram Panic' and 'Gardiner Grind' in the Main Menu when selecting 'Arcade'
REMOVALS:
- Removed Exit UI above all interior exits
- Removed 2 versions of 6/9 that only sold different meat types in freezers
- Removed mouse scroll in map, replaced it using Z and X instead
- Removed basement apartment due to eviction issues and towards a roommate rework