Hi everyone!
This update has been in the works a bit longer than the others, so there's quite a lot
of changes. The main aim of this patch is to move franchises closer to where I want them to be for release. I think franchising is the last big system left in the game; once it's sorted, I anticipate the final push of development can focus on QoL, bug fixing and, of course, adding more dishes, cards and appliances!
Playtesters: this patch should come out for playtesters "shortly", but this is your pre-patch warning that this patch will not be restaurant-save compatible, so if you're midway through a run you should finish it off. Over the next few days I'll try and fix a few reported issues before the patch is released to playtesters.
Franchising
tl;dr: Getting to day 15 is easier, but building your franchises up is the aim.
Getting to your first franchise has been made easier, by dropping the base number of customers (day 15 in 0.15 is roughly day 12 in 0.14.1, ignoring the other buffs below). Franchise tier cards (for now there are only cards for tier 1 and 2) will now add increasing difficulty challenges. The first tier card now moves difficulty to slightly harder than 0.14.1 base. Going forward, I'm hoping to make it so that working up franchise tiers will be the primary challenge for experienced players; as you progress up a franchise you will add more cards, more tier-based challenges, but also have the option of designing your franchise through franchise buff cards. For now, there's only one franchise buff choice (which is the decoration buff, explained below), but I intend that the next patch will have a variety of these that let you build up characterful and different franchises each time
Shops and Days
tl;dr: "Decoration days" are now every 5 days, card days are still every 3 days. There's now a bar at the top of the screen that shows you what's coming up
Decoration days are now separated from card days. Card days are now every 3 days, and decoration days are every 5 days (day 15 is both). Day 5 is also special and is when you add a franchise boost. This should mean you have more money for decorations when they come up, and they'll come up less frequently so you get more normal shops (effectively there's now only two pre-franchise decoration days).
This also means you won't get a new challenge without also having the chance to buy new equipment. I've also tweaked how shops work, but to clarify the mechanics, this is the new version:
Decorations
tl;dr: You now pick a decoration theme and get decorations of that type. Decorations now apply restaurant-wide
Decorations have also been simplified. This was always the system that was hard to explain and lots of people were doing sensible things and getting no benefit, and not being told nothing was happening.
The key changes are:
This has lots of consequences; for instance, you can now "decorate" by buying lots of statues and putting them in a cupboard. I don't think this will be much of an advantage, but I might tweak this to prevent that if it becomes too dominant.
Going forward, decorations will also probably have theme-centric side benefits, so that each decoration has other benefits that might impact where you place it. There's a balance here between letting people decorate how they want their restaurant to look and adding gameplay consequences.
Desks
tl;dr: Two new desks, hopefully all so OP that you'll be pleased with whichever you get, but if not you can now change them via upgrading. Desks are also now manual.
After seeing how much everyone loved getting the discount desk, the blueprint desk has been removed. Wait, sorry, other way round.
The idea is that, instead of nerfing the upgrade desk, I've added two alternatives that should hopefully give the upgrade desk some stiff competition:
I hope that these should offer the chance for different playstyles that all feel very strong; the blueprint desk is probably still quite good, but the copying desk would be great if there was one particular appliance you wanted a lot of, for instance. The discount desk should also mean you can get high-value appliances easily, particularly with low-price dishes.
Sadly all things have downsides, and for desks, it's this: desks are now manual. You have to interact with the desk for a few seconds in order to cause it to act on one nearby cabinet. The main intention here is to make it so you have to have access to your office during the day. The duration might need tweaking, particularly in solo runs.
On the plus side if you can get them all, then the desks stack and you can have an infinite free blueprint printer, so it's not all bad. Cabinets now also have an indicator showing what type of desk they're affected by.
Booking Desk
tl;dr You can now post your PlateUp! any% times
One of the main problems I'm working on is how to balance the game between new/casual players and those of you who have played for more than a hundred hours (you know who you are!). It's really important to me that the game scales up and provides consistent challenge, but there's not much point in that if the game is too hard for people to get started. To help with this, the game is now easier (pre-franchise), and will probably continue to get easier as we approach release.
While franchises provide lots of difficulty increases, I don't want starting a new franchise to feel like a chore for experienced players. So, this patch introduces a new mechanic that lets you rush customers into your restaurant. For new players, you can entirely skip this mechanic and play as before. For players looking to jump into higher tiers, you now receive a (free) blueprint on day 1 for a booking desk. Interacting with the booking desk brings the next customer group into the restaurant instantly.
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Nothing too exciting, but lots of fixes! Thanks again to all of you for playtesting and reporting things -- if it wasn't for you all, each of these fixes would probably be a negative Steam review :tabsGiggle:
There's also some balance tweaks, mostly to curb super-long runs. I know some people enjoy taking runs to really long lengths, but hopefully we'll get to a nice balance
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Another minor patch here, with a few fixes people to problems people have found. This update has a lot of re-written code behind the scenes, so let me know if anything random has decided to break! Once the kinks are worked out, it should be easier to fix interaction-based bugs and franchise card sets should break a lot less!
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