Hi everyone,

Everything’s ready for the next official update. This time, we’ve prepared, amongst other things, the option to choose the difficulty level for a new game (which comes with some game balance changes) and the long-awaited achievements!

Achievements

Now available; some will unlock automatically when older save files are loaded, whilst others will unlock once the conditions are met again. This is the first set of achievements, and we plan to introduce more in the future.

Difficulties:

As for the difficulty levels, we have divided them into the following modes:

Relaxing—which most closely mirrors the only previous game mode; the pressure is low and progress is steady

Standard—which is the default difficulty level

Hard—intended to be a much riskier challenge; you can lose a lot more on the pallets, so it’s recommended to make thoughtful purchases; customers will also be more demanding

Mystery—a mode similar to Standard, but all pallets are replaced with mystery pallets! As a result, some perks are modified; they no longer unlock pallets of a specific category but instead cause that category to be requested by customers, whose numbers will continue to increase as you unlock these types of perks.

Currently, you can only set it when starting a new game! You can't change it later.

In the near future, we'll also add the option to customize the game's difficulty settings, but that feature isn't ready yet.

As a result, we’ve made some adjustments to the game’s balance, mainly across the different difficulty levels. Please let us know if you think these adjustments provide enough of a challenge—we can always tweak them further.

We’ve also revamped the product pricing interface; it now includes more useful information and special buttons that make it easier to quickly set a specific markup or discount. Price will now have a much greater impact on an item’s sales.

Another feature—this time designed to make gameplay more convenient—is the ability to cycle through the items you're holding and those in your basket, so you can choose which one to take out first.

This feature has also been added to the workshop, which means you can repair items one after another without leaving the workshop!

This is just the beginning of the improvements that we plan to add, but our to-do list is still long, so we can’t officially say when we’ll add the next ones. Most of them, of course, are based on your suggestions.

Let us know what you think about the current changes; we invite you to join an honest discussion about the difficulty levels, and we hope you'll help us find the right balance. As usual, a detailed list of changes is available below:

General balance:

• Lowered the chance of golden monster punch figurines appearing to counter their high prices

• Doubled the price of the legendary ghost dummy figurine

• Most expensive items in safes generate as "used" now

• Products inside pallets should be slightly more varied now

• Mystery pallets don't generate as purely "A" or "C" without the AC perk now

• Most expensive pallets have lower profit margins now, while the cheapest pallets provide slightly more gain

• Orders give 10% more base money now, except on "Hard" difficulty

• Increased the starting loan from $3000 to $4000

• Scanning undiscovered products rewards more experience points

• Storage terminal perk was moved from level 23 to level 20

• Damaged products with more than 3 components have a 50% chance of generating with only a single component left in them. This change isn't present in the "Relaxed" difficulty

• Changed the way clients decide if a product is on sale or if it's too expensive. Instead of a common threshold like before, the chance is calculated based on the product's price, shop rating, and difficulty setting

• Chances can be seen while setting the price on the product or in the stocktaking app

• If a product is too expensive, customers won't buy it and their review score will decrease based on the percentage (if a product is too expensive for 20% of customers, the review score will be less impacted compared to if it was too expensive for 80% of customers)

• If a product is considered on sale, a customer will try to take another one. This effect can't be stacked, so in the best-case scenario, customers will double the number of bought items

Gameplay improvements:

• Items inside the basket are now displayed on the icon

• Left / Right arrow keys can be used to swap items in hand, in basket

• A / D keys can be used to swap items on the workshop table

• When scrapping items on the workshop table, the next item will be placed automatically without needing to leave the table

• Items without components can also be placed on the table now, so that they can be scrapped before getting a shredder

• The cat will appear more often on higher levels now

• Text on storage boxes can be colored using the sampler tool

• Flashlight is now manual and has a keybind

• Trasport basket is no longer legendary. It is still protected from scrapping with the same setting, but it doesn't count toward legendary items in terms of collection / achievements

Fixes:

• Fixed the increased carry weight perk being refundable

• Fixed a loud sound when a worker fails to insert items into the storage terminal

• Fixed the controls display using an inconsistent order

• Fixed the cat still bringing items while in storage containers

• The secret ball position was moved so that it doesn't become unreachable right after purchasing the 1st floor upgrade

• Optimized models of figurines

• Optimized various technical aspects of products

• Optimized shelf tag culling

Build V0.97.3.

Thank you for your amazing patience and support while we work hard on expanding the game!