It has been about 3 weeks since our last post so we wanted to fill you in on how the time has been spent.
But first of all, a big thank you for playing our game. It means a lot to us that so many people enjoys playing it, and sees the potential of what the game can become. So please keep all your feedback with bugs, good ideas and plain thoughts coming. We take note of them all, and quite a few of them has already made it to our "To-do" list.
But what about the game?
Well, the city itself has been changed.
Instead of it being a city of a fixed size, wealth & fashion, it is now divided into several customer segments. This will, in future implementations, give a more dynamic city, as these populations can change over time.
For instance. A new university opens up nearby, increasing Teen population by 20.000. This also allowed a change to the flow of the city. Farmers might be early shoppers, where Techies instead comes primarily in the afternoon. And since you also need to obtain reputation with these groups, your decisions means a lot more for your sales.
Next up is staff talents. Instead of the passive, quite boring Skill Level System, we have introduced Staff Talents. Each staff still earns experience from the tasks they perform. But now as they become better, you can select individual perks for them. Every once in a while you will have to send them on a course to help their learning and unlock even better perks. The job interview will also receive an overhaul, changing a lot of it. Staff planning will as a result now require more attention. This also plays perfectly into one of the future upgrades with Personalities and Personality Traits.
Aaaaand... the marketing. The current version is a very sad part, as this was introduced just before the Early Access launch, making you able to do something about your reputation. You can now make Forum Posts for the low end reputations on your computer. Select your targets, define the parameters, and watch how many views and comments they receive. For the higher reputations it will be possible to build and manage a website. Build it up, attract a following, and let that following build you higher reputations and bigger effect on your advertisements.
Advertisements is in turn something you make at your office. Create your own flyers or magazines. Focus on an article to build up a hype, a customer group to temporarily increase population, or a category to increase the overall needs. The choice is yours.
Finally, customer interactions.
We have received a lot of feedback criticizing the way you interact with the customers, in which we agree. Instead the new system will be more decision based. Will you spend your time with one customer, going for the big sale, or a little with everyone to make them all happy. Will you approach them aggressively or more casual? The right decisions will improve your sales, while the wrong ones will make your customer leave in fury hurting your reputation. We also hope to make several sales scenarios based on how far the customer is in their shopping sequence.
So the above is already done, about to be done, or planned out. We will see if we get time for some more before the testing and bug hunting period begins. We aim to release this upgrade in middle/late May. Since we all have exam periods coming up, we VERY unwillingly also have to spend some time doing that.
So we hope you will find the changes interesting, and comments or ideas to the above are also very welcome.
- The King of Retail dev team -