Hi everyone!
Steam Next Fest is almost coming to an end. Thank you so much for trying our demo, playing with us, and sharing your feedback!
In this update, we are adding two new features to the demo.
New Feature: Hiring Staff
One of the biggest issues with the current demo is that the single-player experience can feel a little short and simple. More importantly, there was no automation, so players had to keep refilling bookshelves by themselves.
With this update, you can now hire staff to help run your bookstore!
You can hire librarians to stock books for you. They will take a small salary, but in return, they will help keep your bookstore running while you continue writing, decorating, or doing other things.
You can also choose which book each librarian should stock, and spend money to upgrade your staff over time.
There will be other types of staff in the future too, but they will be unlocked in the full game later.
New Feature: Simple Player Interactions
We also added a small multiplayer feature: simple player interactions.
When we joined public lobbies and played with other players, we often found ourselves wanting to say simple things, such as:
Saying hi when someone joins the room
Saying thanks when another player helps write your book
Saying congratulations when someone writes a legendary book
Saying goodbye before leaving the room
So we added a few simple interaction buttons to help players communicate with each other more easily.
Other Improvements
We also made a few smaller improvements in this update:
Added more tooltips in different places to help players understand the game better
Improved the tutorial for writing a book
We would love to hear what you think about the new staff system, the simple player interactions, and the overall demo experience. What feels fun? What feels confusing? What do you hope we can improve or add next?
Your feedback really helps us understand the game better from the player’s side, and it means a lot to our small team.
We hope you enjoy the new update, and we’ll see you in the bookstore!