Hello Retailers!

I'm GunthorNC, Community Manager at Freaking Games, and Ive got some thrilling news to share! As many of you know, were hard at work on King of Retail 2, a complete overhaul of the original game with a brand-new engine and a slew of exciting features. The scope of this project is huge, and were eager to give you a sneak peek of whats in store:

Build Your Own Store Fixtures with Our New Display Designer!

Were excited to introduce a game-changing feature in King of Retail 2: our Custom Display Designer! This new tool empowers you to design and build your own store fixtures from the ground up, giving you unparalleled control over your stores layout and presentation. With the Display Designer, you can create and customize: Shelves: Choose the size, style, and arrangement to fit your product range and store layout perfectly. Podiums: Design display stands that highlight your best-selling or promotional items. Freezers and Refrigerators: Customize their appearance to seamlessly integrate with your stores aesthetic and overall design. Spears: Add specialized displays for hanging candy, accessories, and other items that need to be suspended. Clothing Racks: Design racks to showcase apparel, with options to adjust their size, style, and arrangement to fit your store's fashion needs.
Customize every aspect of your fixtures, including: Colors: Match your stores branding or create eye-catching contrasts. Heights and Widths: Adjust dimensions to suit different products and store layouts. Materials: Choose from a range of materials to achieve the perfect look and durability. Designs: Experiment with various designs and styles to reflect your stores unique character.
Whether you want to create a sleek, modern look or a more traditional setup, our Display Designer offers endless possibilities to suit your vision. Youll have the freedom to experiment with different configurations, ensuring that your store is both functional and visually appealing.

Design or Download Your Own Custom Maps!

Thats right! Say goodbye to just one static map. In King of Retail 2, you can create your own customized maps or download ones made by the community. And if you prefer, you can always use the diverse map that comes with the game right out of the box. Your stores location will impact your customer base and business costs, adding a whole new layer of strategy to your retail empire. Youll need to consider the various customer segments around your store location. These segments represent different categories of customers, such as high-income professionals or blue-collar workers, each with their own preferences and expectations. The demographics of these customer segments will influence the types of products your customers are looking for and the level of service they expect. You can choose to cater specifically to a niche customer base, tailoring your inventory and services to meet their precise needs. Alternatively, you might take a broader approach, aiming to appeal to a wider audience with a more diverse selection of products and services. Choosing the right location and understanding its demographics will be crucial in shaping your stores success and growing your retail empire. This feature ensures that every new map offers unique challenges and opportunities, whether youre customizing your own or exploring the games built-in options.

Explore the Surroundings Outside Your Store!

In King of Retail 2, your store is set in a fully realized environment. Opt for a beachfront location, and youll find your store right by the sea. Position your store across from a movie theater, and enjoy the bustling activity of a vibrant entertainment district. Each location is defined by its real-world context, providing a rich and immersive experience. Instead of a static environment, youll interact with a setting that reflects the actual surroundings of your store. These surroundings will influence your stores performance in various ways. For example, a location near office buildings might attract professionals who have higher expectations for goods and services, while a store near industrial areas might see more blue-collar workers who value practicality and value.

Real Animations Powered by Motion Tracking!

Were taking realism to a whole new level with our groundbreaking motion tracking technology! In the previous game, animations were a mix of pre-made and manual. In King of Retail 2, weve moved beyond those limitations by using advanced motion tracking technology, the same cutting-edge equipment found in AAA games and blockbuster films. In King of Retail 1, animations were created through traditional methods, which sometimes resulted in less fluid and less realistic body movementsor even clunky and silly-looking animations. With King of Retail 2, weve embraced motion capture to record every nuance of real human movement. This approach provides a significant upgrade in animation quality, delivering more lifelike and fluid character interactions that enhance your game-play experience.
You can see the difference in how characters move and interact, showcasing a new level of realism and immersion that sets King of Retail 2 apart from its predecessor.

Expanded Product Range From Tiny to Huge!

Not only will King of Retail 2 have more articles, They will be much better looking as well! Weve started out with supermarket articles, but thats just the beginning. Were introducing new systems designed to support all kinds of products, each with its own unique storage and display requirements. For example, frozen goods will need specialized freezers in your back room to keep them fresh, while large items like cars will require dedicated display areas that cant be managed on standard shelves. Our system is built to accommodate everything from small everyday items to sizable appliances, ensuring that each product type is handled appropriately. This new system adds significant depth and complexity to your store management, requiring you to carefully plan your layout and storage solutions to handle a diverse range of products effectively. Get ready to manage everything from tiny trinkets to massive appliances, each with its own distinct needs!

Overhauled Staff System Coming August 31st!!!

Were deep into reimagining our staff system, and its going to be a game-changer. Expect staff to be a richer and more engaging experience with features like:

Recruitment agencies

Task preferences

Employee benefits

Personality traits

Skills

Personal lives, hobbies, and relation's

Were excited to dive deeper into these features in the next update, so stay tuned! Thank you for your ongoing support and enthusiasm! Hundreds of players are already enjoying and testing out the game early in its current (unreleased) state, and their feedback is incredibly valuable in shaping the development of the game. If youre interested in joining them and contributing your own insights, then you should:
We also host monthly contests on our Discord where you can win exciting rewards! Join the community to participate, showcase your creativity, and have a chance to be one of our lucky winners. Check out our Discord to stay updated on whats coming next and find out how you can try out King of Retail 2 as well!, be sure to Wishlist the game on Steam. Were thrilled to have you with us on this journey and cant wait to share more exciting updates soon! Feel free to drop your questions, comments, and excitement below. Lets build the future of retail together! :crown::shopping_cart: Warm regards, GunthorNC Community Manager, Freaking Games

[ 2024-08-17 12:17:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers!

I know it has been silent from me for far too long. A lot has happened, and i deeply apologize for not keeping you in the loop about the world of King of Retail, and i can understand those of you who feel frustrated or left behind. I have written a long post explaining why here: Link to steam post

But other than that I am proud to announce:

Production has been ongoing for some time now, and the game is in an alpha state, which it will be for a while before it is ready to enter Early Access. But like it was with King of Retail, i would like production to also be community driven making many of the features in the game inspired by your wishes and desires. The community have already been the source of many implementations already now. Why will King of Retail 2 be different? The core foundation of King of Retail was built with the knowledge we had at the time when we started making the game, which was not much. Building on that foundation created many limitations down the road, making many implementations hard to do, or completely impossible without redoing major parts of the game. Furthermore the game was built using a outdated software, making many things impossible to modernize without huge, time consuming, changes as well. So starting a new game from scratch, allows for a much more solid and futureproof foundation. That means many of the things that were missing in the original game, can now be added and improved upon.

• Dynamic gameplay. Jump in and out of your stores whenever you want during the day. Better simulation will make the stores feel more alive when you are not in them, increasing the dynamics and interactions between your stores. That means more things can happen, allowing higher emphasis on the CEO aspect of the game as well.
• A whole new world. All buildings in the city are buyable, and have a different composition of customer segments. Place your stores EXACTLY where you want. A shortened year lets you watch the seasons pass, and will require you to adapt to the requirements and the various events. Even the weather will have an influence on how your day will be.
• Multi-level stores. You will be allowed to make stores with multiple floors. making them bigger than ever.
• More HQ options Your HQ will be the center of all your operations, letting you manage articles, orders, staff etc. in all stores from one location. Negotiate and earn reputation with your suppliers, unlocking exclusive deals and article lines to be sold at your store. You will have to design your HQ, place offices and different areas, hire managers and personnel for your managers so they can perform their jobs even better.
• More differentiation. You customers will be more unique. The Gray segment demands friendly service, but dont care about long queue times. The Blues puts less emphasis on cleanliness and service, as long as they can shop in a hurry. As your customers will be more unique, you will have to be more specific about who will be your main target group. Articles groups will also be more unique. A grocery store, will be about managing and selling many small items, meaning bigger emphasis on storage management, but less direct sales. Electronics is more about having the right sales personnel, to convince the customers. Clothes will be heavily affected by weather and seasons, and appliances will need a separate checkout for these bulky articles. Each category should provide a new challenge. Articles will also change in trends, meaning your star product today, is not necessarily your star product next week requiring you to follow along on what is selling, and what is not.
• Staff changes Staff will be more in depth, having more stats that influence their behavior. They can be organized in "teams", where their internal relationships affect their performance, learning and mood. Staff will age, and have life events happening to them. They will become more like persons, and less like robots working for you.
• More customization. Use the new display designer to create your own unique displays. In general there will be more possibilities and more options to customize your store.
• Better graphics. Using the new Unreal Engine, much better, and more realistic graphics will be possible. Better animations and better graphics will increase the immersion of the game.
• ...and many, many other things.

Here are some screenshots of the current game:




In short King of Retail 2 will be more detailed in many of the aspects that were missing in the original game, while still sticking to the roots that made it popular to begin with, mainly being a third person retail store simulator. If you are interested in following along, and maybe even getting access to the alpha, you can join the discord and the journey of making a new King of Retail here:
You can also preview and wishlist King of Retail 2
That was it for now. I hope you will join in on the development of King of Retail 2, so we can make it the best game it can become. Thanks for reading, and take care. Kind regards Daniel

[ 2024-02-13 15:12:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers! First of all, I will have to give all of you a very, very big apology for letting everything regarding King of Retail stay in the dark for so long. I know i have built up some expectations, and my intentions have always been to follow up on them, so i am truly sorry for the lack of engagement and communication over the last 1 year. I can fully understand those of you who have been greatly disappointed. So now it's time for me to give you all an explanation. Up until and after the release of King of Retail i was completely burned out. The process during this period was unfortunately far from optimal, and at the same time a lot of stuff happened on a personal level, leading me to an insane level of stress. For 4 months i slept at max 2 hours pr. night, and those were the good nights where i managed to get some actual sleep. After that, every time i tried to open Unreal (the progeam used to make the game), tried do some planning, heard a ping on Discord, etc. i within seconds felt my pulse increase drastically, and simply could not do anything, even though i felt a huge obligation to serve the community and the players. And i am truly, truly sorry for not responding to you for all this time. It took me a very long time before I was able to do things relatively normal again, and when i could i needed to make a decision. King of Retail was my first game, and my first experience of making a proper piece of software. It also had many other "firsts" along the way, and because of this the foundation of King of Retail is not as strong as i would like it to be, simply because it was built on the knowledge i had back then. This means that at the later stages, much time was spent on fixing this foundation to make it possible for new things to enter the game. And this problem will only intensify with continued work, as well as some things will be impossible to add. For instance, a simple thing like keeping multiple saves for a game is impossible without rebuilding everything. It is also made with an old version of Unreal Engine (v. 4.22, the latest UE4 version is 4.27, and they proceeded to UE5 being on version 5.3). Many of the external plugins used have not been updated to the newer versions, meaning bringing it up to date to use the latest features, would be an immenseamount of work. For me it was in the end more of a frustration to work with, because every little thing i wanted to make, required me to fix some of this foundation. However it would never be what i wanted it to be, unless i redid everything from scratch. I have spent a lot of time thinking about what to do instead. Many ideas and many scenarios has been played through in my head. Should i continue King of Retail? Should i try a different type of game? Do i even have the desire to make games? Can i again climb this huge mountain it is to make a game as an indie developer? After a lot of thinking and researching, i came to the conclusion that i still love my King of Retail, and that i can make something even better than i did before. I just need to adjust the way i did, and do things so i don't let it go to this unhealthy level of working. And therefore i can say i decided to make a sequel. I know many of you hoped for more content to be added to the original King of Retail after final release, and i can fully understand if you are angry or frustrated. Again i can only give you my biggest apologies, but i will not keep working on King of Retail. But by getting a fresh and proper start on a new game, i can apply all my current knowledge from the beginning, and do everything more consistently, as well as avoiding many of the bad decisions i learned along the way. This will allow a foundation that supports a much better flow of work, and will allow many of the things that I would have liked to add in the first game, and hopefully this will make for a much much better game for you to play. I know many will be pleased with the news, but i also know that a fair amount are disappointed or outright angry with it, which is why I dreaded making this post, and postponed it for too long. But anyway, i hope you will give a warm welcome to:
Production has been ongoing for some time now. The game is in an alpha state right now, and it will still be a while before it enters Early Access. But like it was with King of Retail, i would like production to also be community driven making many of the features in the game inspired by your wishes and desires. The community have already been the source of many implementations already now. Why will King of Retail 2 be different?

• Multi-level stores. You will be allowed to make stores with multiple floors. making them bigger than ever.
• Dynamic gameplay. Jump in and out of your stores whenever you want during the day. Better simulation will make the stores feel more alive when you are not in them, increasing dynamics and interactions between your stores.
• More HQ options Your HQ will be the center of all your operations, letting you manage articles, orders, staff etc. in all stores from one location. Negotiate and earn reputation with your suppliers, unlocking exclusive deals and article lines to be sold at your store. You will have to design your HQ, place offices and different areas, hire managers and personnel for your managers so they can perform their jobs even better.
• A whole new world. All buildings in the city are buyable, and have a different composition of customer segments. Place your stores EXACTLY where you want. A shortened year lets you watch the seasons pass, and will require you to adapt to the requirements and the various events. Even the weather will have an influence on how your day will be.
• More differentiation. You customers will be more unique. The Gray segment demands friendly service, but dont care about long queue times. The Blues puts less emphasis on cleanliness and service, as long as they can shop in a hurry. As your customers will be more unique, you will have to be more specific about who will be your main target group. Articles groups will also be more unique. A grocery store, will be about managing and selling many small items, meaning bigger emphasis on storage management, but less direct sales. Electronics is more about having the right sales personnel, to convince the customers. Clothes will be heavily affected by weather and seasons, and appliances will need a separate checkout for these bulky articles. Each category should provide a new challenge. Articles will also change in trends, meaning your star product today, is not necessarily your star product next week requiring you to follow along on what is selling, and what is not.
• Staff changes Staff will be more in depth, having more stats that influence their behavior. They can be organized in "teams", where their internal relationships affect their performance, learning and mood. Staff will age, and have life events happening to them. They will become more like persons, and less like robots working for you.
• More customization. Use the new display designer to create your own unique displays. In general there will be more possibilities and more options to customize your store.
• Better graphics. Using the new Unreal Engine, much better, and more realistic graphics will be possible. Better animations and better graphics will increase the immersion of the game.
• ...and many, many other things.

Here are some screenshots of the current game:




In short King of Retail 2 will be more detailed in many of the aspects that were missing in the original game, while still sticking to the roots that made it popular to begin with, mainly being a third person retail store simulator. If you are interested in following along, and maybe even getting access to the alpha, you can join the discord and the journey of making a new King of Retail here:
As well as previewing and even wishlisting King of Retail 2 here:
That was it for now. I hope you will join in on the development of King of Retail 2, so we can make it the best game it can become. Thanks for reading, and take care. Kind regards Daniel

[ 2024-02-13 10:54:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

Spring into savings with the King of Retail Spring Sale!

A new season means new beginnings, take this chance to conquer the virtual retail world. Don't miss out on this limited-time offer!

And while you are at it, join our Discord community today!

[ 2023-03-16 17:10:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers, It's cold outside, a few scant leaves remain on the trees, desperately holding out against the inevitable. The perfect time to stay inside and try to play through your ever-increasing backlog of games... or add to it. If you've ever worked in retail, you know that the holidays are a pain. Thankfully they're much easier to survive when you're the one running the store and making big ! From now until December 12th, you can pick up King of Retail at 33% off! And if you're looking for more, you can get a ton of amazing Iceberg Interactive titles at up to 90% off!

[ 2022-12-06 09:12:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

To all budding retailers out there! Get your sweaters and hot drinks ready for the season! As the leaves are falling, so are the prices on our hottest games! -- that's right, it's fall, and that means the Steam Autumn Sale is here! From November 22 - 29, King of Retail will be available at a 33% discount. Now's a great time to open your own store and achieve your retail dreams! https://store.steampowered.com/app/968250/King_of_Retail/

[ 2022-11-22 18:00:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retaiers So two weeks has gone after release, and unfortunately some pesky bugs managed to slip into the latest version, so my time has been spent on tracking them down, and fixing them. A hotfix was uploaded the day after release to address two major issues, however that was not announced here, and if you had wait for these I am sorry for keeping you waiting. However the following has been fixed:

• Issue where you lost huge amounts of money in campaign mode when hiring a daily manager
• Issue where articles crossed over from one type of concept to another
• Not being able to leave the office whiteboard when pressing ESC after using the computer
• Collission to several displays that made customers run to close to them
• Lamps were not selectable when loaded into a game.
• Some items could not be placed on shelved even thoug shelf was added to fit the item
• Bug regarding "Back to school" achievement
• Issue with not being able to select applications at office after tutorial
• Issue with game pausing after reading tutorial at advertisement table
• Tutorial from menu could spawn several times
• Lightning issue at Airport level making everything extrmeely dark at night
• Increased overall lightning at End of Day office
• Increased pricing limit on articles
• Fixed box location on delivery guy
• Saved orders were not properly loaded into game
• Added community translated italian language that is work in progress thanks to the help of a very kind player

I will still be monitoring which bugs you submit, so I can get even more fixed. Other than this, I will go back to add more content for you, to make your store even more exciting. For instance a pack of article displays is close to being ready, and should be with you for the next update! Feedback and reports are as always very welcome. and you are more than welcome in the game's Discord. Until next time Have a great sale! Cheers Daniel

[ 2022-09-30 13:12:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

THE GRAND OPENING IS UPON US! KING OF RETAIL IS NOW FULLY LAUNCHED, OUT OF EARLY ACCESS! Dear Retailers, The day I've waited so long for has finally arrived. The full release of King of Retail! It has been a long an interesting journey, lasting more than 4 years. From starting development on an empty screen, trying to figure out how do we do this??? To the magic push of a button that launched the game into Early Access, where an amazing five people bought the game! To the first creator video with over 1 million views on YouTube. I have never stopped being surprised and gratified. It has been a huge pleasure to interact with this community. I have been overwhelmed with your ideas and offers to help with the game in various ways. I can honestly say that this game would not be what it is today, without all of your feedback. Many bugs have been discovered by you, many ideas have been added directly from your suggestions, even full languages were added solely thanks to your help. I am very very thankful for all of this. I am sorry for not having been so active lately, but planning for release, making new content, handle community management, getting COVID, and having other types of pressure from my personal life has been a lot for me to handle, and at some points I have needed a little break to clear my head and refocus again. However! I am so pleased that our 1.0 release is here at last! I really hope you will enjoy the changes we've made, and continue to enjoy King of Retail. To celebrate, here's a brand new gameplay trailer: [previewyoutube=jlaYtF4ht-U;full][/previewyoutube] (This also means that the price increase is taking effect immediately, to 24.99/$24.99.) https://store.steampowered.com/app/968250/King_of_Retail So! let's get on to discuss the new changes and updates:

What's New in 1.0

Environments

Before, your store was always located in the same city environment. But on the city map it shows a lot of interesting areas, and the game should of course reflect that. So we have added lots of new environments for you to set your store in, and they also look much better than the old ones! You can now open a store so know it hopefully gives a completely different feel to the game, whether you are at the farm, at the mall, or downtown.

World Lighting

To improve the feel of the game, the general lighting has been updated to give you better day and night cycle, so your store REALLY can stand out in those twilight hours, and get extra effect from store signs, logos, lamps and so on.

Achievements & Trading Cards

You made something -- be proud of it! Now you can show off your successes with Steam achievements! We also made trading cards, so you can attempt to unlock the epic King of Retail Master Card. Happy hunting!

New Staff Uniforms

Dress your staff to impress! With new patterns and colors for staff uniforms, you now have even more customization options for how you present your store tp customers.

New Store Fronts

Reinvent your store, over and over again, with new store design options! If something's not bringing in foot traffic, try, try again!

Cheats???

The game also got some new cheats, which can be activated in the mail system. Write to the following contacts with the accompanying subject line, to get the desired effects!

• Morten Mousepad - Gimme money (Gives you money)
• Craner Security - Stop the thieves (Disables thieves)
• Terry Coaching - New employee (Hires a high skilled employee)
• Tommy's Solutions - Super sales (Always give sales the highest effects)
• Michelle's Marketing - Full reputation (Gives you instant full reputations)
• Susan's Yoga - New energy (Refreshes your staff completely)

New Languages

In addition to updating the German, French, Dutch, Russian, and Danish to full localization in 1.0, we've also added two new languages: Simplified Chinese and Spanish.

And More!

• New ceiling types
• New displays
• Improved article management
• Improved minimal storage system
• Improved UI for displays
• Money transferring from store to corporation

You can learn more about new 1.0 features from our previous two posts: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/968250/view/3288212769333541131 https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/968250/view/3325366907281860603 It doesn't end here of course! Work on the game will still continue, with more content being added in time. I hope you have a great time with the game. And until next time: Have a great sale! Best regards from Daniel

[ 2022-09-14 14:58:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers, We are one week away from the 1.0 launch! Today, we want to talk about upcoming quality of life and feature improvements that you've been requesting. In short: some aspects of running your store were unclear (especially to new players) or needlessly tedious. The quality of life features in the launch update will greatly improve your efficiency in running your store. If you enjoy optimizing your store, this one's for you.
Managing your articles could be a bit of a hassle sometimes, especially in bigger stores with lots of different sales going on at once. We've spent quite a bit of time improving on the existing systems in King of Retail. Let's start with ordering articles.

IDs, Tags, and Notes

A good retail manager is always on top of what comes in, what goes out, and at what price. To make specific articles more searchable, every article now has a unique ID that you can use to search for it. Those of you who have worked in retail will probably be familiar with the concept.
IDs are for when you really want a specific article, but a more customizable option is the new tag system. You can add a custom tag to any item by simply typing it in. Afterwards, you can type in your tag in the search bar, and find all the tagged products. This is a great way to group articles by color, aesthetic, or any other metric you can think of. Also, tags are saved per manager, so you won't have to re-type them if you start a new store!
Lastly, you can add notes to articles. Maybe an article sold particularly well during a certain event in town? That's worth adding a note for, in case the event happens again! Or maybe you want to remind yourself when the item was last on sale to plan your strategy?

Article Screen

You may have already spotted some improvements in the screenshots above to the article screen itself. With this new screen, you will have all the information you need at your disposal, like how well the article is selling amongst different demographics, allowing you to further optimize your store.
Another improvement is that you will be able to see these details anywhere! No longer do you need to visit the office to see specific metrics, but you can pull those stats up during a workday as well. This also means you can more easily plan sales on the fly. Simply press Q when selecting an article, and you can see its details and edit its price. Speaking of editing its price, this change also allows you to easily put specific articles on sale, rather than having to create discounts per display. That means you can now quickly adjust prices on the fly, adapting to your customer's need more efficiently.

Mirroring

A small but often-requested QoL feature is that you'll be able to mirror inventory! In the case of registers, that means you can control whether people will enter the queue from the left or right side. A lot of you were quite particular about this, so here it is!

Loans at the Bank

And for the campaign players, one commonly requested feature was to take out loans (curiously, no one ever requested being able to pay those loans back). The new bank area will allow you to do just that, provided you have some capital.

Graphics Optimization

The last QoL change we wanted to mention in this blog is that we've put a lot of time into optimizing King of Retail's textures and meshes. This can result in up to 30% more FPS than in previous versions! There's more improvements in 1.0, like security perks for staff and lots of bug fixes, but we'll save those for next week see you then!

[ 2022-09-07 14:12:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers, It has been a while since our last update, and for a good reason. We are very excited to announce that King of Retail is leaving Early Access on September 14th! It has been quite the ride over the last three years, and the game has gotten better and better thanks to your feedback.
One important note is that the game's price will increase once we leave Early Access on the 14th, to 24.99/$24.99. If you want to benefit from the Early Access price, make sure to pick it up before 1.0 launches! https://store.steampowered.com/app/968250/King_of_Retail/

What's new in 1.0?

The 1.0 launch will of course come with all sorts of new features and improvements. We won't give everything away just yet, but here are some exciting things you can expect from King of Retail 1.0.

Store locations

No longer are you bound to a single city street when creating your store! Instead, you can choose from multiple locations to keep your retail experience fresh. From fancy malls to an airport, there is an ideal location for everyone!

Lighting

Give your store the ambience it deserves with lamps! Not the boring ones, but fully customizable colors to add that final bit of flair.

Twitch Integration

We loved watching all the King of Retail Twitch streams over the last couple of years. That's why we're giving back with the new Twitch integration! By connecting to Twitch, you can let your viewers vote on random events that can help or hinder your store.
There are of course more things to discover in 1.0, but we'll save those for a later date. We hope you're as excited as we are for September 14th!

[ 2022-09-01 14:57:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello again, retail kings and customers! We know it's been a while since you heard from us, so we wanted to give you an update on what's been going on in the back of the shop! We've been busily preparing King of Retail for its full release from Early Access and ...

The grand opening is planned for Q3 2022!

As part of our final preparations, we'll be taking a step back from the regular content updates so that we can put some very important things into place for the full launch. So you might not hear from us for a little bit, but fear not, Retail Regents! We'll soon have more to share about what's to come to your very own storefronts.

[ 2022-04-12 14:55:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

- There was a bug where you couldn't buy property you have rented. This should now be fixed. - A few displays have had their visuals updated - Thieves should not notify you of stolen articles when you captured them

[ 2022-03-03 14:24:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers So after a christmas, new years and a bit of time off, we are now back with a new update for you. Let's have a look of what it contains. --- Thieves --- First of all, a new feature that many of you have requested for quite along time has been added. Thieves will enter your stores and take your stuff.
Thieves will look very suspicious when taking articles. So if you see a thief hurry to them and kick them out of your store. You can also assign the new "Security" role to your staff, and they will also try and catch thieves. You can also buy various security alarms to help you catching the thieves.
--- Competitors --- In campaign mode, competitors will now also arrive to the city, and try to earn money by taking customers away from you. They will open up stores in various areas, and if you are selling the same articles, the battle is on. Can you survive their impact and run them out of business, or will you be the one suffering too many losses?
These competitors can do marketing campaigns to try and push you even further. But fortunately you can also now do marketing. You can bring attention to your own stores, or directly attack the competitors to push them even further, and try and run their stores out of business.
--- General improvements of campaign mode --- - Added tutorials to the HQ The HQ is a very confusing place for new players, and not much help was given in finding your way around it. Now info markers are placed everywhere, so you have a better idea of what possibilities you have in the various areas.
- Various guides Also many of the actions were kind of hard to set up correctly for a new player, and involved many actions in various areas that allowed for various mistakes. Some of these has now been changed, such that creating a concept, as well as aquiring a new store has been made simpler.
- More careers You can also now start a career in a different direction. So instead of joining Armina, you now also go with Electronic Bee and sell electronics instead,
- Other minor improvements Many other minor improvements has been added to the campaign mode, so it's easier and more intuitive to find your way around. That is all for this update. I hope you will enjoy the update and the new changes to the game. Reports of bugs and general feedback are most welcome, so don't hesitate to post. You are also very welcome to join the community at our discord channel.
Until next time, have a happy sale. //Daniel

[ 2022-02-05 12:06:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers! It is time for yet another update to King of Retail. During this past year I have been blessed with having the assistance of my graphics artist who has added and upgraded a lot of things in the game, which have given a great lift to the overall visuals, as well as allowing me to focus more on programming and implementing new features. But as the game gets bigger and bigger, much time goes into managing things that doesn't directly impact the game features themselves. Playtesting, balancing, bug hunting, translation management and so on. And now I am very pleased to say that another person has joined the team, making it a grand total of 3 people working directly on King of Retail. She will be assisting me in doing many of these tasks, as well as adding new stuff to the game as she also is quite capable with Photoshop. So I am looking much forward to this, and I hope we will be able to make King of Retail even more enjoyable for you to play. But on to the actual changes. For a long time we have been preparing and designing new characters to bring a much more diverse looking population to the game, instead of having all residents in the city looking all the same. Let us have a look of what have been added.

--- New faces ---

Instead of having 2 faces to choose from, we changed it into a slider system, where you can adjust the facial traits with more detail. You can also freely select hair color, as well as select between more, better looking hair styles.

--- New Outfits ---

Before this update, all customers in your store wore the same clothes. But that is over now, as they have received unique clothings that better fit their individual segment.

--- Staff Uniforms ---

It is also now possible to design your own uniforms for your various stores and concepts. Should your staff have a simple, or an exclusive look. Tailor the outfit to match the look of the rest of your store.

--- Bugs & Small conveniences ---

- Minimum storage system

Many of you have also requested an easier use of the minimum storage system, so now it's possible to add directly to this when ordering an article, making it much easier to setup when starting a new store.

- Keybindings

Keybinds did not save between closing and opening the game, this should be fixed so you don't have to remap the keys every time.

- Color picker

It was time to look at an old and popular request which is a bit over due. But now the color picker has been updated such that you have complete control in selecting the exact color that you want.

--- Up next ---

- New environments

My graphics artist has been done for a while with these new characters as the last work is always implementing the actual things to the game. So she is already making good progress with the next big graphical update, which is new environments.
So soon you will finally have variety in the areas where you manage your stores, and they will better exemplify the area you are in, in the campaign mode. Plus, they look much nicer than the existing area that i could conjure up back in the day.

- Thieves

With the new characters and skills, it's about putting it a bit to use. A very popular request during all of the development period has been thieves in the stores. So i thought i would finally accomodate this request, and allow you to take on the battle with these persons that doesn't want to pay for your hard earned in game articles.

- New careers

When campaign mode was introduced, clothes was the only existing type of article in the game, which is why there only exist these career paths where you sell clothes. So to add to the diversity a bit, we will be working on adding more of these, so this starting phase can vary a bit from time to time. That was it for this update. As always, I am very interested in listening to new ideas, bug reports and what else you might have to tell. You are also more than welcome to join our Discord!
Until next time, have a great sale //Daniel

[ 2021-11-24 14:24:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers, Its that time of year when sales come at you fast, so heres another one! From now until October 25th, King of Retail is a part of the Iceberg Interactive Publisher Sale. You can grab a ton of great titles at up to 90% off.
King of Retail is available at 25% off for the duration of the publisher sale. If you were still on the fence about buying it, now is the time to jump in, especially with our latest major update! https://store.steampowered.com/app/968250/King_of_Retail/

[ 2021-10-18 17:09:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers! It has been quite some time since the last update, and I apologize for that. A lot has been changed, i have taken a vacation, and had eye surgery that I needed to recover from. So that is the reason behind the lack of updates in the last period. But now the update is ready, and there has also been made actual work that is ready for the next one, so we have not been sitting idle by. But let's move on to the actual changes of this update.

--- Staff Overhaul ---

The focus of this update has been on improving many areas of how your staff works. Many of the changes has largely been based on requests from all of you in the community.

- The role designer

Many of you have been annoyed with your staffs efficiency, where they would stand around if there was nothing more to do. This has been changed with a complete overhaul of their job system.
Now instead of them having one task to do, you can now customize their roles, and create as many as you want. This means that you can have one employee go and unpack articles, and after that task is done, to start selling to the customers in the store. Another employee can selling as the primary task, and refill the displays in the meantime. So the control of which tasks, and how they should prioritize them is entirely up to you.
On top of this, you can assign these on an hourly basis. So an employee can be a restocker from 9-12, and be a cashier from 12-17 if that is what you want. So full control of your staffs tasks in every hour of the day. And for those of you that don't want to go into this level of micromanagement, this system also has the same ease of use as the old one, as you can quicly assign a simple task for the entire day as well.

- The greeter

Thanks to the new system, it is now much easier for me to add new tasks to the game. So one of these additions is the new greeter task.
This finally allows for something many of you have dreamed of for a long, long time. More precisely for you to be able to send your employees outside the store to try and convince the customers to go into the store. So no more standing outside and doing endless conversations to get one more customer into the store.

- New skill system

The old talent system ensured that all staff eventually would be equally good at everything. This gave the feeling of the staff not really having any difference from each other. Instead this has been replaced by a new skill/perk system.
First of all, in this system all staff can do all tasks to begin with. So no more sending them on courses to make them able to stand at the cash register. Instead they have various skill points regarding the various tasks, and learn each skill at various speeds. Yes in time this also means that all staff can become equally good in the end, but it is highly individual when they will reach this point. And to ensure their individuality, various perks have been introduced. This means that each employee can have a set amount of favorite customer types, favorite article categories and specialized perks that makes this person more unique at a certain area. So now it can generate higher profits, if you think more about the scheduling and placement of your employees during the day.

- Staff motivation

During the day it has never really been possible to influence your staff directly during the day. Yes, you had the possibility to send them on a break, but nothing more than that. This has also changed.
Now you can go directly to each employee and conduct personal talks with them. Here you can give them an optimistic morale boost, as well as a stern reminder for them to pick up the pace. This will influence their mood and their new productivity stat they have received. Productivity, combined with familiarity, energy and skill determines how fast they will perform a given task. This will give you a top performance from a happy, productive, well rested worker that has been around for quite some time. So spending time managing your staff in depth can give you an edge which will generate higher profits. Although if this is not your thing, your store should still be able to run rather smooth still. On top of this you can also see the things that currently affect the mood an productivity of your staff, such that you can react on this.

- New courses

With these changes the old courses was obsolete, and frankly, you needed to send your staff on too many courses in general. So this system changed as well.
When your employee has reached a certain level, you can send the person on a course to gain a new set of perks, chosen by you. A different type of course, the Booster Course, has also been added. When an employee has been sent on a booster course, their learning is improved by a lot the following week.

--- Woman's Bottoms ---

For the last update a lot of work has gone into adding a women's clothing category. However it was not finished. Now the addition of a new set of items has been added.
This completes this category so far.

--- Bugs and ideas ---

As usual, bugs might be hiding around somewhere after a major update like this, and i will be ready to fix major issues quickly, so don't hesitate to report anything you might find, both here and on our Discord. Also feedback and ideas are as always very welcome.

--- Up next ---

As mentioned we have already prepared at bit for the next update. My graphics artist has been spending a lot of time on upgrading the characters in the game, so the future will bring much better and different characters, customizable uniforms, morphing system for heads, allowing you to customize the face of characters, improved hairstyles and more.
This will hopefully bring the game to a whole new level of graphics. After this it's time to take a look at the environments of the city, and add more of these, as well as adding more content to the corporation mode in general. That was it for now. I really hope you will enjoy the new changes to the game. Don't hesitate to join our Discord!
So until next time, happy sales. //Daniel

[ 2021-10-18 14:02:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers, I'm happy to announce that King of Retail is part of Gamescom 2021! This digital event showcases all sorts of amazing games with trailers and demos.

New Trailer!

First, the publisher and I have been working hard to create a new trailer for King of Retail! I think it's a good representation of what the game is like, with some funky music of course. [previewyoutube=WoAYQq--XjE;full][/previewyoutube]

Gamescom Demo

I've also created a short demo to give you a first taste of King of Retail if you haven't already. Do you know anyone who has been on the fence to give the game a shot? Well now they can, free of charge!
The demo is timed, meaning that you can play for 60 minutes. There is no limit to the amount of days you can play within that 60 minute time frame, so depending on your speed you can get a few days of selling under your belt! The demo will be available for the duration of Gamescom, which lasts until August 27th. If you know anyone who wanted to give King of Retail a try, let them know now. https://store.steampowered.com/app/968250/King_of_Retail/ I hope you'll enjoy the demo! Happy Sales //Daniel

[ 2021-08-24 15:36:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear retailers! The last update didn't go as smoothly as i had hoped for, which unfortunately meant that many of your savegames was affected by it. This resulted in multiple stores and corporations going bankrupt. For this i am terribly sorry, as it also means that a lot of playtime that has gone down the drain. But... i have spent these following days thinking about how i can make it up to you again, and i think i found a solution. I have uploaded a patch where you can send a mail to your old friend and ask for money. YES - this means that you can now use cheats to get money. For those of you with affected single store savegames, you can hopefully recover your stores financially, or if this is too late, build a new store that gets you up to speed. For those of you with corporation savegames, you can here get this money from the store, and transfer it back to your corporation. Also for quite a while, many of you has requested the possibility of a sandbox type of gameplay. Many of you enjoy a more relaxed game where you can focus on designing interesting stores, instead of having to sell stuff to customers and make sure you have enough money. So this should also allow you to enjoy the game more as you can focus more on what you enjoy doing. So hopefully this new possibility will make some kind af amends for this slip up. As this has been implemented and added to allow you to get back to the game in a very short time, this is currently the only cheat that is available, but more will of course follow in time. ------------------

How to access it

To access it, you need to do following: - Go to your computer at the end of the day. - Go to your mails, and then the new option "Write mail". - Here you should write your dear friend "Morten Mousepad" and ask "Gimme money". - Send the mail, and receive your money.

Again, terribly sorry for these problems the past few days, and I sincerely hope that this allows you to get on with your stores, and allow you to enjoy the game again. So until next time, happy Sales //Daniel

[ 2021-07-29 15:49:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers! After a lot of work, we can finally release the next big update, giving you even more stuff to do in the game. Without further ado, let's dive into what's new in this update!

--- Women's clothing ---

So first of all, the biggest change is the introduction of a completely new category. Women's clothing. For now this contains the two sub categories Tops and Shoes, which feature around 200 articles each, so plenty of new things to put into your stores.

These also contain some new types, such as dresses and boots, which can't fit on the regular clothing displays, which means a bunch of new displays have been made. However these work the other way around, so normal shoes also fit on these boots displays, meaning that your existing clothing stores also can use these new displays.

- New displays

The different types of clothing and shoes vary a bit in price range and luxury, meaning that there should be both fast and slow selling articles, which then require various amount of effort to sell.

--- Staff upgrades ---

We've also introduced some new tools for managing your staff.

- Staff zoning

First of all a new zoning system for your staff has been added. With this you can control each person at work, and tell them where they should be working. Maybe you want a team of salespersons close to the computers, and a team of stocking experts near the groceries? This is perfectly possible now. Decide whether your staff should roam free or stay fixed, depending on what makes most sense at your current store.

- Staff notes

It is also possible to write notes to yourself about your staff. Explain how you schedule, or other important stuff for you to remember next time you look at that the person.

--- General options ---

It was also about time to introduce some other general options to the game, as you have requested. First of all, it is now possible to bind some of the keys in the game. Many of you playing with AZERTY layouts have been complaining that the keys are unintuitive. So now you can set them to your liking. And an FOV slider has also been added for people playing in wider monitors, as well as a few various mouse settings have been added. I am very open for ideas to even more options you would like to see implemented.

--- Change of game fundamentals ---

The above are the updates that have made it into the game. And it might not seem as a lot given the time used for this update. However a lot of work has been made to change the base structure of the game. Many of these structures were made when we first started building the game, which also was a time where we didn't know much about building, preparing and managing a project of this size. This means these foundations were not optimal, but instead of dedicating time to change it, new features were built on top instead. But this became more and more of a problem, and some things that are planned in the future would simply not be possible with this, so now it needed to change. To be specific, is was how all data for articles and staff was setup and handled. So this means that everywhere in the game where the manager, an article or staff was used needed to be changed. And as you can guess this is almost everywhere in the game, so it meant quite a lot to change. But now it's finally done, and it should mean it will be easier to add new features to the game.

--- Whats next ---

So what will we start working on. Well, my amazing graphics artist has already begun production of bottoms for the women's wear, so that will most likely be ready for the next large update of the game. I will be adding more flexibility to managing your staff. One of these is to allow you to custom tailor their work, so they can prioritize multiple tasks. - Should a person fill displays, and then go to the cash register if there is not more to fill? - Should a person unpack deliveries, and then go outside and pull customers in? This should allow your staff to be more versatile, as well as minimizing down time where they do nothing.

--- Bugs ---

This version has been through a quite lengthy beta period, so hopefully most of the bugs from all of this have been found, but we all know there's bound to be a couple sneaking around out there. So please keep on reporting these, as it is very helpful for me to track them down and remove them. I will be on standby for the next days to remove major ones that might be uncovered. That was it for this update. Our Discord is becoming very big with lots of active people on there, and it is very nice to see how helpful you are to each other. It is very appreciated. You can join it at:
I will head back and create some more content for you to use. Happy sales //Daniel

[ 2021-07-27 12:41:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers I thought it was time for a little update. A lot has been changed internally in the game, so an early beta has been released, which this newsletter will focus on.

--- Beta Release ---

- Bug search -

I have been working on changing several core elements of the game. Mainly Staff and Articles, as this was needed to allow for much better mechanincs in the future. So even though it is not visible in game, a lot has changed under the helmet, as articles and staff make up the majority of the game. But changes might mean bugs. So the current beta has been released early so many of these bugs with your help can be found, and give for a good and reliable experience. It can be simple and in unexpected areas so please report everything that behaves in an unusual way. There will be a separate channel for this on the discord.

- Updates and changelog -

Since there is some work to go before a new update, this beta will be out for an extended period. This means it will be updated regularly, and i will keep a changelog on Discord you you can follow what has been changed between each version.

--- New features in the beta ---

- Work Zones -

Before the big change, a much requested feature was added. Mainly that your staff can be assigned different areas to work.
Assign this directly from your hud.

- New Options -

There have been requested several options to solve various things. So mouse sensitivity, inverted mouse axis, and FoV change for people with wide screens,

- Keybinds -

Players with AZERTY keyboards also had difficulties playing. So keybinding is also now possible to do.

--- Not added ---

I have explained that we are making womans clothing to be added. These are still being prepared. Many articles has been created, but we are still adding more. So a bit of work and setup still needs to be done before they can be fully added to the game. But i can still share some images of what have been done so far.


So this was a little update for now. I would like to thank you in advance for all the help in finding these bugs. It is much appreciated, and make my job much easier in trying to give you a good game. Feel free to join our discord at: Our official King of Retail Discord Until next time, happy sales //Daniel

[ 2021-06-23 09:13:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers! It is time for yet another update to King of Retail. The primary focus has been on easing the onboarding for new players, and to better explain many of the game's mechanics to those that want to go deep into the micromanagement aspect of the game. So lets get to it.

--- Tutorials ---

Many of you have reported difficulties when starting the game and learning some of the terms and mechanics that exist in the game. Also the existing ones were in much need of an upgrade, as they were outdated. So much has been changed, and replaced with a new system that makes it easier for me to maintain and add new stuff when the need for it arises.

- Business School

At the main menu as well as at the university in campaign mode you can access the business school. Here you find the more explanatory tutorials presented as small courses you can take on various subjects.

- Campaign

Getting into the campaign mode has been a bit confusing for many to find their way around it all, given that the only vague explanations are at the City Hall. These are still there, but now you also have a more bullet point type of tutorial that will assist you along the road, which hopefully will make this experience a lot easier and more understandable.

- In store

The in store tutorial looks almost the same, but it has more tasks now that will bring you more around the store, giving you a better chance to understand what is possible at the store.

- Office

The office tutorial was the last remaining part with looks from the old UI. This has been changed to look like the rest of the game.

--- New Articles ---

Focus in this patch has not been so much on adding content, but we have still managed to add a new pack of shoes to the game. This was a bit underrepresented compared to the rest of the categories in clothing, which is why we decided to complete this category.

--- Logos ---

To the ones that haven't experimented with their own logos, there is now a much bigger selection to choose from when designing your stores, compared to the previous four to select from. Hopefully it will bring some variation to your stores and corporations.

--- Quality of Life ---

As you can see there has not been work on one massive feature alone, but development has been diversified a bit. A part of this was adding many minor changes to existing features and screens,

- Article overlay

This has been updated so you have much more information available when looking at the article. As many has requested it also shows if the article is present at the store, making it easier to find any articles that are only taking up space in storage.

- Set task for all days

You can now set an employee to do one task all week with one button, instead of having to do it individually for each day.

- Options at office

When you press "Escape" at the office, you now have access to the regular menu. Here you can also revisit the office tutorial if that is your desire.

- Minor UI changes

Other than the above many screens have in general received small tweaks here and there. Nothing big and noticeable, but small details that should improve the overall usage. During the next period work on improving existing screens will still continue.

- Bugs

Also some minor bugs have been fixed, and I am very appreciative of bugs you find and report. Even though they are not fixed immediately they all go to my list of things I need to look at, so please continue to report stuff you might find in game.

--- New Art---

With all of these in-game changes, I couldn't leave the game's art behind. We've worked hard with an artist to create this brand new cover art for King of Retail!

--- Whats next? ---

Those were the major changes for this version. And we are already preparing for the next one. It is not fully planned how much it will contain, but I can at least tell some of the things we intend to do.

- Women's clothing

The reason we haven't got that many new articles in this update is because we also have been working on a new category. My super fantastic graphics artist has been spending many hours on making various women's shoes and clothes. There is still work to do on this, as the plan is that it can be playable with a large selection of articles from the next update.

- Options

It might also be the time to expand the in-game options apart from graphics and sound settings. So this will also be added in the next update, and ideas for stuff to add to a "General Options" screen is more then welcome. That was it for this update. As always, feedback, bug reports and ideas are always very welcome. Both here and on the Discord, which you can join here:
I am off to work on the next update. Until next time, happy sales. Cheers Daniel

[ 2021-05-25 13:16:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear retailers, We're excited to announce the four winners of our store design contest. This was a very difficult contest to judge -- we honestly didn't expect all of the entries to be this good. After careful consideration and lots of trying to convince each other of our favorite picks, we finally have a list of winners.

Category winners

Below are our favorite stores in the Clothing, Electornics, and Supermarket categories.

Clothing - Kathy's

Our first winning store is Kathy's by Discord user Kathy. We see a lot of stores filled to the brim with articles and posters, but this one favors a clean and simple design. It's reminiscent of those fancy clothing stores that offer quality over quantity in their catalog, making for large, minimalist, and open floor plans. We also particularly love the staff room, with its trendy wall design. (And yes, we are aware that the image has been touched up in post, but that had no influence over the vote!)

Electronics - C'tech

Our winner in the Electronics category is C'tech by Discord user El Caponey. Right away, we loved the attention to detail in creating a 'returns' section. Even though there are no returns in the game, it made the store feel even more alive and realistic. Second, the little 'alcoves' filled with different articles was a unique approach that we don't see every day. While the color scheme was a bit much on the eyes, the floor plan and article placement cemented this store as our favorite in the Electronics department. [previewyoutube=qDQt-XD8zZI;full][/previewyoutube]

Supermarket - Designer Drunk

And the final category winner is Designer Drunk by Discord user Lemongrass. While the name might imply that some alcoholic beverages were consumed in the making of this store, we didn't notice. The store wears its theme on its sleeve: retro and disco. From the lava lamp logo on the doors, to the somewhat trippy patterns on the floors and walls, Designer Drunk maintains a very consistent style. You can imagine inebriated customers coming in after a night of clubbing to pick up some more booze (or hamburgers?).

Grand Prize winner - All-in

Drum roll please... The grand prize winner, our #1 pick, is All-in by Discord user Gastong. Simply put, this store has everything. A consistent color scheme, lots of labeled article sections, tons of custom posters, and the "Please wear a mask" signs were a nice touch. Out of all the entries, this store was most likely to actually exist out there in the wild (well, apart from the poster behind the counter). [previewyoutube=IuUWEBHad7M;full][/previewyoutube] Thank you to everyone who participated! Again, this was a seriously difficult competition to judge, and every entry had a shot at winning. And to the winners, we'll be in touch soon regarding prizes! Happy Sales.

[ 2021-05-06 12:31:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers, As some of you may have noticed, our community has grown quite a bit recently. Weve been seeing a lot of entertaining Twitch streamers pick up the game and introduce their viewers to our little neck of the Steam store. Thats why were organizing a fun contest for you all to participate in!

Store design contest

The title says it all! Being good with numbers is one thing, but a great retail manager also has a keen eye for designing a store. Setting the right price doesnt matter if your store doesnt look good in the first place. A great store provides an atmosphere that almost makes it impossible for the customer not to enter the store and suddenly feel they need everything you sell.

Rules

• Three categories you can enter in: electronics, clothing, and supermarkets. You can enter one store per category.
• Store must be at least 15 blocks large.
• Must submit either screenshots or a video in the #store-design-contest channel on Discord (videos are preferred!)
• You are allowed (and honestly, encouraged) to use the beta branch cheat menu. This way, everyone can be on equal footing.
• You are allowed to make your own custom logos and posters.
• You have until Friday April 23rd to submit your store(s)!

To switch to the beta branch: [olist]

Right-click King of Retail in your Steam library

Click 'Properties'

Click 'Betas'

In the drop-down menu, select 'beta'

Your game should now update to the beta branch. In game, press Z to bring up the cheat menu! [/olist] Note: your usual managers and stores won't be available on the beta branch. Your saves aren't gone, they're just on the regular branch, so don't panic!

What will I be judged on?

You will be judged on two main things: Design, meaning the overall look of the store. Consider things like:

• Do your colors and materials complement each other well?
• Are your displays consistently designed?
• Are your signs attention-grabbing without being annoying?

Floorplan, meaning does your store make sense?

• Is it sorted into minor departments that would make it easy for a customer to use?
• Does the layout make for a sensible way for the customers to move around?

Prizes

There will be four winners in total -- one for each category, and one best overall store. No matter how incredible your stores look, you can only win one prize. The managers of the best store in each of the three categories will:

• Receive three King of Retail Steam keys to give away to friends.
• Get to write a spam e-mail that will randomly appear in-game for other players! Are you a foreign prince looking for a loan, are you part of a pyramid scheme, or a cult? Express your creativity!

The manager of the best overall store will:

• Receive five King of Retail Steam keys to give away to friends.
• Get a piece of clothing with their own name/design in the game!

Note: we reserve the right to edit your e-mails or designs. No bigotry, misogyny, etc. -- keep things PG 13.

Tips!

• Use the beta branch (instructions above!) cheat menu so you won't have to worry about money!
• Want to create beautiful posters, but don't own Photoshop? Use free alternatives like Gimp or Photopea.
• Check out the tutorial below to truly master the poster maker!

[previewyoutube=4ayMB6DevbY;full][/previewyoutube] And that's it! We hope you're as excited as we are to see everyone's creations. Don't forget to have fun with it, and don't stress yourself out too much -- there's bound to be more contests in the future. Happy sales.

[ 2021-04-09 12:54:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear retailers! Time has come for a new update for King of Retail which will primarily focus on adding new articles as well as a few new features to the game.

--- Electronics ---

First of all my great graphics artist have been working on expanding the electronics category to a whole new level. This means that a lot of new articles have been added to the game, mostly computers and accessories. So now there are also laptops, monitors, keyboards and many other things that would go to a proper electronics store.
This is of course only a small selection, as the total number is over 150+ new articles, and even with some to be added later when certain implementations have been made.

--- Discounts ---

To top this off a much requested feature has been implemented. You can now discount each display individually, meaning it's possible to create sales and discount areas and so on. This also uses the poster system, so it's easy to see which displays are discounted, and which are not.
These can of course also be customized by posters of your own.

--- Parcel Companies ---

I am also beginning the steps of adding some more flesh to the campaign experience itself. Initially this is done by adding various parcel companies to the game. In the current build, all of your articles are delivered when your store opens. This will become more of a luxury after this patch, as each delivery company will have its pros and cons.
They can now be late, forget some of your articles, deliver at specific hours, carry different amounts and some might not allow extra deliveries. The better companies are more expensive to make a deal with, so find a solution that isn't too costly for your current business. You can find this inside your HQ. Those of you already playing campaign mode might want to negotiate thias as soon as possible, as it now contains limitations on the amount of articles that is delivered.

--- Negotiating system ---

To do this I decided for an improved negotiation system. This will also feature in some of the future implementations as well.

--- Minor Changes ---

- Article advertisements

Basically already added to the game, as it got uploaded in a hotfix. But it's now possible at your office to advertise specific articles in the magazine, creating a hype to try and boost the sales for that particular one.

- Talent speeds

Some mentioned that it was too easy to get highly talented staff in high population areas. So now this has been taken into account, making it require more actions from your staff to increase in level when populations are higher.

- Adding day when leaving game

There has also been a persisting bug that added an extra day if you left the game while in the store. This should also not be happening any more.

- Proper use of exits

The AI's should be better at using the proper entrance and exits now.

--- Community ---

The discord is becoming a more and more active place to be, with many contributing of various kind. It's very humbling to see all of this energy you are using to create various stuff. For instance we have this amazing tutorial on how to use the ingame poster system. Both in English [previewyoutube=4ayMB6DevbY;full][/previewyoutube] and in German [previewyoutube=vIoiUW4wWhM;full][/previewyoutube] I have also seen some interesting stores being made. Some of them even push the possibilities much further than I thought possible, so it's a true pleasure to see the love that have gone into them, and I thought I would share them with the rest of you :)




This image is from a player that has taken the employee management to the next level.
Also a very generous discord user has also taken up the challenge and translated the game into Italian as well, so this language will also be featured from now on. If you also want to join the Discord, you can do so here:
This was the news regarding this update. I can say that we are already preparing new shoes for the next one, as well as again planning new and exciting features for you to enjoy. Until next time, have a great sale. //Daniel

[ 2021-03-25 16:14:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers The last update arrived just before Christmas, and time sure does fly. It's already mid February! However we didn't have a long vacation, but have instead been working hard on bringing you a big update featuring a lot of improvements to the game. But let me go into the specifics of it.

--- Store fronts ---

Now that I have the assistance of a graphics artist the graphics of the game will get a lot more attention than before. One of the largest areas where this already came to show, is the rework of the store fronts.
So instead of having to deal with the simple facade, there is now a wide variety of store fronts to select from. All of them customizable in various ways, to allow you give your stores an even more unique look. In the future even more customizablility will most likely be added to these store fronts.

--- Showcasing ---

However these store fronts have been added for other reasons than just looking good. Almost every store uses the possibility of adding focus to various articles by showcasing them in their windows. This is also possible now, as each store front have several areas where you can showcase a specific article. This will add more hype to articles, making the customers want to buy them even more. In this way you can better influence the customers to buy what you want them to. But also remember to change your window once in a while, as the customers at some point will have seen and purchased that article making it less effective over time.

--- Build system ---

One of the first things that was added to the game, was the system that built the floors, walls and the store itself from various data. And that system has just been built on and built on until now. However as that system was built in the early phase, where I knew a lot less than I do now, that system had a lot of limitations. So to be able to do some things I wanted to add, this system needed to be completely rewritten, which has taken quite some time. But why was this actually done? Well first of all to support the new store fronts of varying sizes, which can also be moved around. But also to allow for something a lot of you has asked for, for some time now. That is placing walls wherever you would like. So now you can add walls and split up your sales areas in smaller compartments if you would like to.
And since the UI of that menu also needed an upgrade as many found it difficult to use, I gave it a complete overhaul also, making it lot easier to use.
This also now allows for you to change floors and walls in stores you can't expand, so you still have some possibilities in that regard.

--- Other graphics upgrades ---

Since the looks of the store recieved this upgrade, I decided to focus on upgraded more areas such that the looks of the store would change completely

--- New ceiling ---

First of all the ceiling of the store has been upgraded to a much better look, as well as allowing you to select its color.

--- New walls & floors ---

Also there has been a large addition to the selection of floors and walls you can select from to customize the looks of your store.

--- Smaller implementations ---

There have also been made some smaller changes to other areas of the game - Selection of floor plans in campaign mode The biggest flaw of the old build system, was that it didn't support transitions of floor plans in an easy way between being in and out of the store. With this fixed, you can now select between various floor plans before you buy or rent a store in the campaign mode.
- Single store category selections Before you start a single store game you are asked which categories you wish to sell. As having more articles requires more performance from your computer, I hope the possibility of selecting more articles will help those of you who have trouble running the Single Store mode.
- Outer materials As a minor preparation to give the areas your stores lie in various looks, the outer wall of the building you reside in will now have a random material, instead of only having the same dark gray color for all buildings.
There are plans of adding unique environments for all major areas in campaign mode, however this is quite a task, so it is held off for a bit. - Bigger area The new system required a change in the available area of the store, so this area has been made a bit bigger. Minor Changes - Audio settings now saves when changed - You can change the name of your store from your office in Single Store mode - You are now asked if you want to leave the store when using the HUD. - In some areas the currency was not used properly. - Adjusted collision on displays so they fit better against each other.

--- Save games ---

All of this comes with a bit of bad news. All of these changes weren't fully compatible with your save games. So when you load your stores the next time, you will notice a few changes. - First of all your walls and floors will be painted in the default materials, as these are reset to support the changes. - Some of your doors might have been moved. The new system couldn't easily figure out where a door was when loading an old store. So a door between your areas will be placed at random, which might lead to down packing of inventory, and areas that are hard to access. - In some of your campaign levels you have the possibility to expand your store even though you shouldn't be able to. I always try to make all of your saves compatible from update to update, and spend a large amount of time in doing so. Unfortunately these changes were too big, so I am sorry for this, and the inconvenience it causes.

--- Translations ---

The translations to the various languages are also improving at a steady rate.
Danish, Dutch and Russian are translated in house, so these languages will not be updated as frequently form the translate as the rest. To help with translations, go to https://translate.kingofretail.com.

--- Active users on discord ---

There have been a good amount of activity on the discord lately, and especially in regards to testing the beta. A lot of bugs have been found and great feedback have been given, making my work much easier. And in this regard there have been some users who provided an exceptional amount of help, so I would like to give these an extra appreciation. These are: wfa, CrspyChcknLickn, El Caponey, eclipsifuggs and exapsy. Thanks a lot for the help :-D Make sure you join us on Discord!
This was it for now. I hope you will enjoy the new changes and possibilities, and as always i am very interested in listening to your feedback, ideas and any bugs you encounter. I will head off again to start work on the next batch of improvements. So until next time, happy sales. //Daniel

[ 2021-02-18 13:55:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers A month into the new year, and it's time for an update about what the last month was all about. As I mentioned in the previous letter, I am now assisted by a new graphics artist who will help create a lot of new assets for the game. This should make the production faster than before, as I now can focus more on programming new and exciting features for the game. It is also nice to have someone else join on the development itself, so this is a much welcome addition. - Note - This stuff is not available for play yet, but will be when the next update arrives.

--- Store Fronts ---

She has also been thrown right in the middle of things from the beginning, and has already created lots of new stuff that will be added to the game. First of all, a whole new lot of store fronts for you to select and choose from, for customizing your stores even more.
They also look much better than the previous facade, so should bring a general lift to the overall look. The facades themselves can off course also be customized in various ways, by customizing colors, the sign and the store name.

--- Showcasing ---

Another new feature of the facades is the ability to showcase desired articles, such that you can influence your customers even more. Want to start a trend of selling a specific computer or sports jersey? Show it in your window and watch the sales of that article increase. But remember to change it once in a while, as the customers also will grow tired of watching the same article in your windows over and over again.
The window displays themselves are rather simple in looks, but will also be upgraded.

--- Floors & Walls ---

To accompany the general graphics improvements, the selection of floors and walls will also be expanded, and give you many new possibilities to design your stores.
I cant share an image of the new walls as they are being made right this moment, but they will definitely also be an improvement to the game.

--- New build system ---

Most of the above is graphics. So what have I actually been spending my time on? To allow for much of this, a pretty significant part of the game had to be recreated from scratch. The system that managed procedural building of your stores was one of the first things to be added to the game, and was created when i was still tumbling about, learning how to work properly, resulting in a system that was... less good. This will not in itself be that visible in game, as its core functionalities that have been changed. However it was changed for a reason which allows for new and interesting stuff. First of all the UI when building store was made more intuitive. I have had many reactions and questions on how to build the store, so hopefully a proper menu will make it much more straightforward.
This also allows for moving the facade to a different location, as well as a feature which many of you has requested for long. Free placed walls
This means that you can now separate your store up some more, and get rid of the "Big Room" look that always came along with running a big store. One of the major flaws of the system, was that the game didn't knew how the floor plan was arranged before the level itself was actually loaded, which made for lots of limitations. However with this new system it also make for possibilities in areas you might not think of. So now when opening a store in your corporation you will now be able to select from multiple floor plans when opening a store, making it less of a lottery on what you get. -
This also allow for some interesting feature possibilities when it's time to take a look at improving Campaign mode.

--- Next Up ---

So this is basically what one month of work has looked like. A few things still remain to be added to the next update. This will be the new walls, and an upgraded look for the ceiling, so it also will be upgraded with the rest of the store. When this is done a Beta will be released, so the bugs that I miss can be caught before the actual release of this version. So this was the info I had to share for now. Feedback, comments and ideas are always much welcome. Make sure you join us on Discord!
Until next time: Have a great sale Best regards: Daniel

[ 2021-01-25 14:01:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers! Two months have already gone by, time flies by fast. But these two months has not gone idly by. Again a lot of new updates and changes have made it into the game.

--- New Updates ---

--- Currency converter ---

Many of you have mentioned that prices are rather unrealistic in EUR or USD or other local currency. But in game currency has always been in DKK (Danish Krone) as that made it much easier for me to relate to that value, and when we started programming, we didn't give it much thought. However, this is now finally changed with the arrival of the currency converter.
With this you can select from some predefined currencies, or define your very own. So hopefully it will allow for a more relatable experience.

--- Poster System ---

A couple of updates ago posters were introduced to the game to lift the visuals of the stores. However as I have learned some new tricks since then, this have been upgraded even further. First of all you can now create your own posters in-game with the Poster Editor. Add and transform shapes, add various patterns and select their color. Add texts, add an image of an article, and so on. You can also upload your own images and use these as in-game posters.
These posters can be placed different places. First of all the displays all uses this system now, allowing for much more variety on these. But you can also buy frames and place these on the floor, on the wall and make them hang from the ceiling. You can also place them just outside your store, meaning you can decorate a bit on the outside too. Also now the posters actually influence the customers. As you can define if a poster advertises cheap articles or perhaps quality articles, you can influence your customers to buy articles in a specific direction. You can also advertise a specific article, and create hype for it.

--- UI updates ---

--- Main Menu ---

It was also time to change the main menu from its late 90's look to something a bit more modern. Also since some languages weren't supported by the font that was used it needed to change. So I gave it an overhaul in an attempt to make it look a bit more modern.
Whether i succeeded or not is for you to decide, but I think it's an acceptable look.

--- In Game Menu ---

But seeing the change of this, I wanted to bring a similar look to the in game menus itself. So each in game menu has also been given an overhaul Hopefully it will make the game look more unified, without having lots of different UI styles all over. There are some screens that are left behind, but this is because they will be completely redone in a later patch anyway.

- Ordering menu -

During the overhaul, it made sense to completely overhaul some of the menus instead. One of these was the ordering menu.
I have added a lot of the features that you have requested over time. First of all it has been organized better, which should make stuff more intuitive. Secondly there are options to how it counts the stock, as well as the price to display. Then you have various ways of ordering, as well as various possibilities for that ordering type. I hope this is more to your liking compared to the old version.

--- Catalogue Designer ---

This was also a screen that made more sense to change completely. So hopefully it is also now a bit more intuitive, as well as containing more explanations on what the various stuff do.

--- Minor additions ---

--- New language: Russian ---

Thanks to our publisher, the game is also now fully translated in Russian by one of the employees that actually speaks the language (compared to the Google Translating i use to fill out remaining words that haven't been translated in our community translator). So this is the current standing of the translations:
If you want to help out improving a language you can go to: https://translate.kingofretail.com/

--- Other changes ---

A lot of bugs has also been fixed, as well as other minor features has been changed or added. The main ones to mention is: - The color picker is now full screen, and doesn't take up UI space when not used. It will be improved with easier color selection in the future. - At your office the polaroids seemed to stack on top of each other. They shouldn't any more. - A bug where changing opening hours didn't update staff properly has been fixed. - Copy pasting colors can be done across both registers and displays - Shoes have been made a bit more expensive. Again, reports on bugs you encounter are more than welcome :-)

--- Other Information ---

--- Next up ---

Finally, after all of this time doing it myself, I now have a graphics artist helping me. And this should hopefully speed the work flow up a lot. In fact she is already preparing stuff for the next update, which will mostly focus on store fronts, store building and more decorations.

This is an early draft, but this and more is what you can expect in the future. More on what actually will be possible will be explained in later posts.

--- Boubers ---

I sometimes just look around the internet to see what is happening, and sometimes i even sumble across something interesting :P On youtube we found this channel, created by Boubers. Currently he is at his 236'th video of King of Retail. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmwoa9RPHu0&list=PLsplF0RK5hvtUVyLDf1iyuc79xwDvfiWT&index=234&ab_channel=Boubers That is quite a humbling dedication, so I wanted to pay my respects in return and share his channel with the rest of you. This is what I had to tell about this update. I hope you will enjoy the changes and the new features. Feedback, bug reports and great ideas are always welcome both here and on our discord. Feel free to join it here: Discord Until next time, have a great sale. Cheers Daniel

[ 2020-12-22 15:30:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers, Im happy to see that some of you have already started fiddling around with the poster maker, which is currently still in beta. Being in an early state, it doesnt have any stock poster backgrounds yet, meaning you still have to make your own from scratch. Thats a lot of work to do each time, and thats why Im launching a very exciting contest!

The Contest

The general gist of the contest is simple: design your own poster background! Whether youre creatively gifted or cant tell a brush from a paint bucket, Id urge everyone to participate!

The Rules

Of course, there are some specifics to hash out. To enter the contest, please follow these rules:

• You must deliver both a horizontal and vertical background, meaning 708x1000 pixels (landscape), and 1000x708 pixels (portrait).
• Alternatively you could create two banner poster backgrounds, which are 357x1000 pixels and 1000x357 pixels, respectively.
• You must use your background to make one poster in the in-game poster maker, as a proof of concept. To access the poster maker, right-click King of Retail in your Steam library > Click Properties > go to the Beta tab > switch to the Beta branch.
• You must upload your designs in the #submit channel on our official Discord server.
• You can create something new from scratch, or use royalty-free images, nothing under copyright.
• Nothing NSFW/Politics/Religion related.
• No transparency in your image, it messes with the poster maker!

Apart from those three mentioned above, you are free to go with whatever theme you like! Cute dogs? Sure. A majestic sunrise? Go for it.

The Prizes

Probably the coolest prize is that winning poster backgrounds will be implemented in the game! Thats right, you could see your poster appear in other peoples playthroughs. Adding to that, you can be further immortalized by having your gamertag appear in the game. How? you ask? Well, your gamertag will randomly show up on job applications! Note: I do not recommend putting your gamertag on actual job applications. And last but not least, winners will receive a Steam key for King of Retail to give out! It is the season of giving, after all.

Examples

Below are some examples!



I'm excited to see what you all come up with! Have a great sale.

[ 2020-12-08 15:01:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers! The 2020 Steam Awards have arrived! And while I think there are a few awards that fit well with King Of Retail, we are only eligible for one of them. That's fine, though, because I think this award fits the game best! And that is the Labor of Love category! There are many words that can describe my feelings regarding the development of King of Retail, but I think the main one would be: love. Having spent quite some time being a store manager in real life, trying to create a game that accurately represents that life is incredibly fulfilling and fun, and the reason why I put a lot of love into its development. As an extension of this, this game wouldn't be where it is without the love the game has received from the community. As I am the only one working on the game itself, all of your feedback, bug reports and great ideas is tremendously helpful, and keep my motivation to work on the game on a steady high. So if you feel the game deserves it. I would like to ask you to vote for King of Retail in the Labor of Love category in the 2020 Steam Awards!
If all goes well, there should be an easy way to vote for us at the top of this Steam announcement! Thank you in advance. And until next time, have a great sale.

[ 2020-11-27 13:35:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers! It has been 2 weeks since the release of the last update, and it is time to let you know a bit about what i have been working on, and tell you what you can expect in the next update.

--- Custom Currencies ---

Many of you have commented that prices are too hign in general, and that you would like to see them regulated. However it doesn't state anywhere in the game what the currency is, but from what i can tell, you mentally translate them into your local currencies, which in hindsight obviously makes sense. Americans mentions that it's an unrealistic amount in USD, and europeans, that it is an unrealistic amount in Euros. As i am from Denmark they are actually based in DKK (Danish Kroner), so when we started making the game, there wasn't given much thought to the perception of the currency, and we just made it easy on ourselves to so we could understand the prices within the game. However i can see the problem, and the loss of immersion when everything is percieved at unrealistic prices. So i have addressed this issue, and been working on a currency converter.
With this you can select a currency and then write how much your desired currency is compared to that, regulating all prices within the game. Hopefully it will allow you to see the prices at a more acceptable level.

--- Poster Designer ---

Many of you have also been wanting to add more stuf fto your stores, other than inventory and articles. To accomodate this, i have started working on in store decorations. The experience gained from the in-game logo designer in the previous release, has allowed me to think in different ways of allowing you to customize your stores. So based on this i created an in-game poster editor. With this you can select from a variety of shapes, fonts and patters, and change them in a number of ways to create your own unique posters. It will also, like the logo editor, allow you to upload your own images, which you can use as a poster on it's own, or as a background to work on with the rest of the editor.
I already look forward to see the creative posters i imagine you will come up with steamhappy

--- Store Posters ---

The posters should of course also be put to good use. So you will also be able to place the posters in your stores. There will be signs to place them on the floor, casings to put them on the wall, or you can even let them hang from the ceiling. You can add them in various shapes and sizes, and some of them can even be backlit, allowing you create a poster that lights up.
The signs will also influence your customers. As you can define what type of poster you have (Does it advertize for a certain category, for cheap articles, or perhaps the latest trends?) these posters will allow you to attract your customers and influence them into buying what you want them to. Although not implemented yet, but my next task is also to allow you to set up signs outside of your store, allowing you to make an inviting store front and giving you a new way to attract customers into the store. These posters will also replace the current system on all of the displays, giving you the same possibilities there. So this is what i have spent the last two weeks on, and it will probably take some more days to complete. However this is only a small part of the decorations upgrade, as other things will be added right after. So i hope it will be an exiting upgrade to the game. And as always, bug reports, ideas and feedback are most welcome, and don't hesitate to join our Discord. Until next time. Have a great sale.

[ 2020-11-07 18:56:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers, The latest version is now live! Initially, this update only included new tablets. However, along the way a bit more stuff has been added. This combined with the new partnership with Iceberg Interactive, the brand new publishers of the game, has resulted in a longer development period than originally intended. Lets have a look at the new content:

--- Tablets ---

As mentioned, tablets have been added to the game. More precisely, 60 of them. Tablets are part of the Mobile Devices category, which falls under the electronics departments. The new addition of tablets means that it should now be possible to run a specialized electronic store focusing mainly on Mobile Devices or Computers. The electronics department was lacking in content, so I am aiming to correct this with today's and future updates. Thats right, more articles will be added in the future. As a category, Tablets are priced in between Computers and Phones.

--- Logo designer ---

The system of importing your own logos to the game has always been a bit confusing and buggy if you used more than one. So instead of trying to fix this, it was much easier to make a completely new system! You can now import logos directly from the main menu, and let the system handle the files and the weird names they should be given. This system should make it a whole lot easier to customize your stores to your liking.
If it works as it should without unexpected issues, I plan to use the same system to customize posters and signs inside your stores in the future. So please do let me know your feedback!

--- New calendar ---

After adding all the days, weeks and months to the game, I found out that the calendar didnt support this system, and had a lot of bugs. So like the logo designer, it was easier to create a new system. The calendar now focuses on the week ahead, instead of an entire month, which is quite some time in-game and probably included too much information.

--- Applications ---

The applications were also an old remnant from a system created two years ago. So instead of pinned photos lying on your desk, it now has proper applications. From these applications, you might also learn something about the person before conducting the interview, allowing you to save time when looking for the right employee for your store.

--- Other bugs ---

I have also spent some time solving a whole lot of bugs. Of these, the most significant fixes are: -When you fired an employee, you were unable to move away from the board. -Renegotiating a wage made you unable to use the advertising table. -The lot info board in corporation mode now shows the correct amount of employees. -Fixed collision on some articles and freezers. -Some colors did not update correctly when designing your displays. -Staff wouldn't go to a specific register when placed too close to a wall. -Cancelling while adding/removing articles from the display actually cancels the display. -Tooltips added to various buttons. -Beverages can now be sorted by supplier when selecting those. -Updated translations from community translator and fixed a few typos

--- Translations ---

The translations are also, as always, making progress with each update. I cant thank you enough for helping me translate the game into your language. This is the current progress so far:
This is it for the current update! I hope you will enjoy the changes. If you encounter any bugs please dont hesitate to let me know so that they can be fixed. Feel free to join our Discord at: https://discord.gg/fckN6bE And if you want to help translating the game, go to: https://translate.kingofretail.com/ Until next time, have a great sale. Daniel

[ 2020-10-22 21:06:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers! There is exciting news for King of Retail. Over the last months, I have been talking to the Iceberg Interactive team. This is a company specializing in game publishing, and they loved King of Retail enough to want to partner up.
So what does this actually mean. First of all this brings some professionalism into the project. Up until now the game, and everything regarding it, has been done as I see fit and believed was right in that moment, but since this is the first game I have been working on, everything has been learned by trial and error. This means that I have learned a lot, but also that lot of time has been spent focusing on some wrong aspects of the game. In this regard its nice to team up with a team of experienced publishers, who behind the scenes already have helped me a lot in improving the way I work, as well as helping me in optimizing the project structure of the game itself. They will also assist in lots of various tasks that takes up a lot of my time and I hardly know anything about, which prevent me spending time on the stuff that I actually want to do, which is working on and improving the game itself, making your King of Retail experience even better. What it DOESNT mean is that King of Retail will become a totally different game. I am still the person behind the game, and I will still be the one working on it on a daily basis. Instead they will assist in providing feedback and testing, as well as helping me finding resources to assist me in the development where this is needed. Again, helping me to divert my workload to work on improving the game. And if I have a question or a problem, I now have access to an army of kind and competent people, which is in high contrast to having to find a solution to everything myself.
This allows for possibilities that I didnt dare dream of when I started working on the game, and the daily work already now feels larger as compared to working alone day in and day out. So I am as motivated as ever to work on the game and I cant wait to see the future of King of Retail. And look! They even helped me with this new and cool logo for my company.
Check out their exciting array of games, which King of Retail also now is a part of. https://www.iceberg-games.com/ I hope you approve of the new changes, and I know you can expect a lot of interesting stuff to happen in the future. Until next time - happy sales. Cheers Daniel

[ 2020-10-20 13:04:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear retailers! It's been over a month since the last update came out, so it's about time you get some information about what the time has been spent on.

----- Tablets -----

As promised, electronics need to be expanded further. So some of the time has been spent making tablets, which is an item to be sold along with the mobile devices, so there is a little more content in this category. My goal is for these items to be available next week.

----- Bug fixes -----

I have also fixed a few bugs and will probably fix a few more before I release the next update. Selling your lot in corporation games actually sells your property. There was a problem that when you sold your property it was not removed, but it still gave you the money from the sale. Basically, it could give you infinite money, but I'm sorry to say that is no longer possible. Calendar corrections The calendar had to be completely redone due to several things. It was created for the original system without weeks and months, so all months were therefore 31 days in the calendar, which caused the calendar to show wrong things occasionally. It also did not support switching to a new year, so year 2 showed no events or anything in the calendar.

----- Holidays & new surroundings -----

Unfortunately, I can not lie to you, I also take time off from time to time. So I have taken 2 weeks holiday from everything that has to do with working at King of Retail. It has been nice just to clear my head, and it also means that i get new thoughts and ideas, and that I have been able to return to the game with fresh motivation. In addition, I have also moved to a new office. Up until now, I have been sitting at home when working on the game, and the challenge of working from home is that one can often be distracted by other exciting things. So to give me +1 in surroundings and professionalism, I chose to move out of my home. In addition, it is also very nice to see other people during the working day :-D

----- ????? -----

I know that over the last month, information has been a bit sparse. And there is a good reason. Most of the time last month is spent on something completely different. Something I have not dared to talk about before that I was sure it happened. It now has, but I can not yet say what it actually is. It will be announced later this month. But I can say for me it's big, it's exciting, and that the future of King of Retail looks promising.
That was all for now. So keep an eye out for a new update which (hopefully) arrives next week, and look out for the announcement. Remember that you can still help translate the game at translate.kingofretail.com, and also feel free to join our Discord server at https://discord.gg/fckN6bE. So until next time then, happy sales.

[ 2020-10-09 15:35:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers Another update is ready for you! As Electronics are receiving some much needed attention, the articles will be added in packs as they are being completed. This makes for shorter development periods, but also lesser content in each update.

--- Category changes ---

First of all a new subcategory has been added. Mobile Devices is a new entry under the Electronics segment. This will in future contain items such as phones, tablet as well as other smartunits and various accessories. This is what will be fleshed out with new articles over the next few patches, such that Electronics in general will contain a lot more and be as comprehensive as the other categories. Peripherals has for a long time only contained a few amount of mice and nothing else. This was not enough to sustain a high level category on its own fits better as a part of under Computers. So from now on these articles will feature here instead. For corporation players, this means that articles from Peripherals now are affected by your Computer reputation. Mobile Devices have then in turn replaced the Peripherals, so those of you who have gotten a great reputation with Peripherals will now be able to sell a lot of Mobile Devices immediately.

--- Phones ---

For starters the new category will contain a total of 60 phones from the 3 suppliers PearEasy, LED-D and Firestorm.
These are priced quite a bit below computers but are still the second most expensive category in the game. So compared to Peripherals, it already now contains more articles, as well as it should be easier to run a store / concept only selling these items.

--- Other minor changes ---

- Enlarged images

To be able to distinguish between articles, an enlarged image will now show up each time you cursor is above an article within the menus. This being ordering, placing, statistics and every other menu containing an article.

- Article spacing

The articles in the Computer category now needs a little more space between them on the displays. It looked kind of wrong having 6 highend computers crammed up against each other. This space will present them better, but you will of course not be able to have as many on display simultaneously. This is also done to balance Computers out a bit, since they generate far too much income compared to the other categories.

- Complimentary sales

Moving these categories around caused an issue to the customers article calculations. Usually, when a customer takes an article, they receive a penalty for that category, which reduces their desire to pick an article again. But now where the expensive computers, and the much lower priced mice are at the same category, it made for a system where you would actually earn less when also selling mice on top of computers. So now complimentary types is introduces. So when buying a computer, the desire to buy a mouse is barely changed and vice versa. This should hopefully increase sales for articles that support each other. At the moment there aren't really any other articles who are considered complimentary, but when accessory types arrives for the various categories this will allow for more dynamic play and interesting choices. This was it for this update. I will head back and create some more articles. Also, join the discord server at: https://discord.gg/fckN6bE Until next time. Happy sales

[ 2020-08-20 15:57:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers! A month has gone by since the last release, but now a new update is finally available.

--- Beverages ---

Since the entry of the groceries, i promised to add various drinks to the game. So this month has been about designing bottles, bottles and more bottles. This has resulted in over 170 new articles that will enter the game.
They are spread out in 4 types. Wine, Beer, Soda and Liquor. All of them are in the low luxury, however wine and liquor are quite high compared to the other grocery articles as well as being priced a bit higher. This makes for some articles in the "Groceries" category that allows for a higher income, compared to the existing ones. Feedback indicated that it was relatively hard to make a "Groceries" department survive in the long run, so hopefully this will help making it easier to run a supermarket.

--- Displays ---

The new articles also comes with a few new displays. 3 in total.
Two of them are specific, made only for adding bottles to them, while the larger one is a general type display, which can also be used for other items.

--- Bugfixes & Balancing ---

General programming has not been in focus for this update. However there has still been some issues which has been fixed. - Staff not meeting for work. There were issues where staff wouldn't show up for work. Apparently when assigning their schedule, if you clicked to the left of the opening hours this hour would be recorded as the meeting hour. But since this was before the store opened, they would never meet for work. They should now meet as desired. - Problems of proceeding past tutorial. When opening a new store, there is the basic tutorial of what to buy. If you hide the UI by menu or TAB, this screen was no longer focusable by the mouse, and made it impossible to end the day. This has also been fixed as well as making the "End Day" button available, so it will also be possible to skip this entirely. - Register speed. The speed at the registers have been adjusted again. Some articles were processed way to fast (some as quick as 0.1 seconds), making it possible to clear giant queues in no time. So this has been adjusted back a bit, and in general making it take a bit longer to process a customer.

--- Translations ---

Translations are also making slow and steady progress. To help with translating, go to: https://translate.kingofretail.com/

--- Up next ---

Now it is time for... more articles. Electronics was added a long time ago, however it has been left alone and with far too few articles. The reason for this was the sizes of general electronic products made it difficult to come up with articles and categories that would fit together. But with the introduction of shelf and autofitting displays this is no longer a problem. So now it is time to fill up this category with lots of new items. What items that will be specifically i do not know yet. But i promise it will be a welcome and interesting addition. I will also aim to add these articles in smaller intervals so when a pack is ready, it will be uploaded as soon as possible. This was it for now. Feedback is as always welcome. Also, join our discord at: https://discord.gg/fckN6bE Until next time. Happy sales.

[ 2020-08-01 14:50:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers! It's time for a little newsletter :)

--- Since the last patch ---

It's been roughly two weeks since the latest larger patch was released and it has been well received. However ss programming is like a giant spider web, where pulling in one string affects another string somewhere else, i always get extremely nervous around each update, since there is always bound to be some bugs slipping through. For instance, adding indivdual days for each store, influenced what wage the HQ managers require, as well as what mood the staff has however only in loaded games. So even though i test a lot together with the beta testers, there is always bound to be some bugs that slip through in each release. So i try to fix all incoming bug reports as soon as possible, meaning several smaller patches has already follwed fixing various bugs. Unfortunately a few save games were affected by some of the initial bugs, which in turn affected the mood of the staff, as well at the managers at the HQ. However these games can still be saved by nursing your staff back into good mood. I apologize for any inconveniences these bugs might have caused, and I am off course very interested in knowing about bugs that still exist, so we can get rid of these too.

--- On the way ---

As promised, the next two patches will focus on adding more articles, and this one adding drinks to the Groceries. And these are the articles made so far.
There will also be added sodas, liquor, milk, juice, water, and yes, also BEER. (Many of our german players have been rather vocal about wanting this also) Then a few displays to the new articles off, then some balancing, and it should be good to go. There should hopefully be around 120 ~150 new articles who will enter this category.

--- A new artist ---

I can also proudly say that i have received an extra pair of hands to help making the game. Two times a week, a friend of mine will stop by. He han an interest in 2D and 3D graphics, but never really got started on it, so this is a perfect way go get going. As he is learning everything from scratch, he will start with some simpler tasks such as adding some much needed new logos to the game, before hopefully being able to assist with making new articles for the game.

--- Translations---

Various translations are also making good progress.
It is a tremendous help, and a big thanks to all of you who take your time to translate all of these sentences. To help out, go to: https://translate.kingofretail.com/ Also feel free to request a language that is not on the list, if you would like it to be available in your local language. Do that here on Steam, or join the game's discord at: https://discord.gg/fckN6bE That's it for this newsletter, i will head back and make some more articles. Happy sales :-)

[ 2020-07-06 12:34:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers A few bugs unfortunately slipped through the last update. - When loading a game HQ managers start with 0 optimism. They will now load as usual. Unfortunately already affected managers continue with their last saved value. - Customers whislte and leave, when a register is closed which they are not in queue for. They will now behave as usual, and go to another register if the one they were heading to is closed. - Staff will not require large wages when returning to a store after a lot of days. Already affected staff will keep their wages, however will most likely not ask for a raise for a long time. - Pressing ESC when editing a schedule caused the HUD to lock schedule. It should now work as requested. - An issue switcing your managers name for a customers should no longer be possible. I am sorry for the inconveniences these bugs might have caused to your game experience. Thank you for the reports, and if other issues arrive, let me know and i will try and fix it as quiskly as possible.

[ 2020-06-23 14:27:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers The next version is finally out and ready for you to play. First of all i will apoligize for the elongated development time of this update, but i moved to a new location last month and had to work a lot to make it a liveable home. However on the good side, i will from next week be getting some extra help making the game from a friend who wants to learn how to make graphics. His job will be to add content in various areas, and in general help with the time consuming tasks, such that i can better focus on the programming itself. So hopefully it will be a good addition, allowing to add new and interesting things to the game. The Admin team has also been expanded on the discord with two new members who have been so kind to help out answering your questions, and keep a great atmosphere, and they are doing a great job at it. But now to the update.

--- The week ---

The main focus of this update has been to introduce the week, meaning that we now have days and months instead of just a simple day counter. And this brings a lot of new interesting things to the game.

--- Staff scheduling ---

You can now set the schedule of each staff for the individual days of the week including assigning days off and different roles on each day. So it possible to tailor a complete schedule that will make the store run smoothly from day to day.

-- Customer flows

The week also allows for different customer flows for each day. So farmers might prefer to shop on a monday, where the techies goes shopping on thursdays instead. And in the weekends everyone has a completely different shopping pattern compared to the workdays. So it's up to you to learn the different patterns and set up the store accordingly.

-- Opening hours

Because of the different customer flows you might also want to keep different opening hours for your store so this is also possible now.

--- New Hud ---

The main HUD in the store has also received an overhaul, to make it a bit more modern looking compared to the old one. This new hud also allows for some new features which you have requested.

--- First Person View ---

It is now possible to play the game from a first person view. Feedback on how this mode han be improved is very welcome.

--- Hiding the HUD ---

It is also now possible to hide the hud, for those of you who want to take better screenshots of your stores.

--- General Overhaul ---

The remaining screens has now been converted to the new style, and a few of them has received an overhaul.

--- Stats ---

The stats system has also changed. The previous one caused lagging in longer games because of some bad code structure. So while doing this overhaul, some new features have been added.


The customers will now give you feedback of their experience while shopping at your store through customer reports. It is also now possible to see what each segment perfers in a more understandable way. Finally you can also see the shopping stats for the segments on each day. So hopefully these tools will make it easier to make decisions on what to do. All of this can be found on your computer in your office.

--- Minor Updates ---

Besides this, other features have also been added.

--- Minimum Storage Sytem on articles ---

You can now adjust the desired amount of articles used by the Minimum Storage Info directly on the articles using the Edit Article menu

--- Customers Queuing ---

There have been lots of complaints regarding the queuing of the customers. They should now be more intelligent, and spread out to the various registers.

--- ABC locations ---

Have you got some articles you want to get rid of, or want more sales of that high earning item? Then make the customers see this as the first thing when they enter your store. You can now add focus on various articles in your store. The closer a display is to the store front, the more interesting it will be for the customer to look at.

--- Register speed by article ---

There were some balancing issues regarding selling groceries. As these are low priced items, the customers will now take more of each. However this then added longer queues at the registers. To combat this, the amount of time it takes to process an article now also depends on the luxury of that item. So selling a food item at the register, will now be faster than selling a computer. In future more will be added to balance out various categories.

--- Corp Applications ---

The applications you receive will now be based of your HQ level. So when obtaining a bigger HQ, you will most likely get better applicants.

--- Bugs ---

As always lots of bugs have been corrected, and a lot new has most likely entered. Thanks to all of you who have beta tested the game, and provided feedback.

--- Menu centering ---

There were some issues with ingame menus having weird offsets on other resolutions than the standard 1920 x 1080. This should have been corrected, and menus should now appear on top of their respective inventory.

--- LMB missing once in a while ---

There have been a longstanding issue with LMB suddently not registering when placing items. I can't get this to happen myself, so can't track it down. However i have tried to fix some of the areas that might cause this, but if it continues to happen i am very interested in hearing about it.

--- What's next? ---

So with this update out, what are the upcoming plans?

-- The stand by period ---

As always after a large update, there is a "Stand By" period, meaning i don't do larger changes for a week or so, but instead stand ready to fix bugs that might arrive, such that a fix can be made and uploaded quickly. So a few minor patches might arrive during the upcoming week.

--- More articles (And this time it's true) ---

It was the meaning that more articles should have been added this patch. However a lot of feedback indicated that it was a huge task managing the staff each day on larger stores. Therefore the only solution to this was to add a complete week such that you could add fixed days off for your staff, so that it would be more automated. But with this out of the way, it is time to add articles as promised. There will first be added various drinks, to round off the groceries category, and after that all attention will go to expand electronics. This will probably happen over two several patches, but work on this will start tomorrow. This was the info regarding this update. Please do let me know of bugs, balancing issues, thoughts or great ideas. Also feel free to join our discord at: https://discord.gg/fckN6bE

[ 2020-06-21 17:53:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers! It has been some time since the latest newsletter, and the even the world has changed since then. WIth all of this happening as well as some other stuff, i decided to take a few weeks off, with minimal work on the game to get everything sorted again. This is also why the newsletter hasn't been out for an extended period. However there has still been work, and lots of new things to tell about :-)

--- V 0.9.4 ---

A few minor updates has been released, mainly focusing on removing bugs, and making a few optimizations. Primarily there was a bug affecting the bigger stores, where staff preferred filling articles over unpacking, resulting in them not unpacking at large stores where there are always something to fill. This has been changed around, so that they prefer to unpack over adding. At some point the job / task system will be reworked completele, as it doesn't allow for complete control of your staff which should be possible. The latest update also added some new articles to the Groceries category, making it possible to sell various cleaning items.

--- Up Next ---

Since then work has revolved around one of the community's greatest requests, the implementation of a "week", and this brings on a whole new set of features. Note that this is still work in progress, and not a part of the official game yet.

--- Staff Planning ---

First of all, it will be possible to plan the entire workweek for all of your staff. This includes individual day schedule, days off, and various roles for the specific day.

--- Opening Hours, and variying customer flows ---

To accompany this it is also now possible to make various opening hours for each day. However this would not add anything if all days are similar. So now there will also be a different amount of customers for each day, with some days busier than others, which affect how much staff you need for a given day as well as when to do your promotions. The days will also have a varying flow of customers, so at Mondays the rich people might shop late in the morning, and on fridays closer to the evening instead.
The plan is also to add some more statistics to the computer to help you analyse these new things.

--- Updated HUD ---

To do this, the HUD needed to be able to also contain weekdays. And since it... could look better, i decided to give it an overall upgrade.
It also contains some new features.

--- Keybindings ---

There will now be keybindings to control simple things like the speed.

--- Hide UI ---

There will be a button to hide the UI, for those who want to take better screenshots. This can also be toggled with tab.

--- First Person Mode ---

It will be possible to view the game from your characters point of view.

--- Other UI updates ---

In general lot of the menus have been updated to the new look, which is done for two reasons. 1. The old UI looked from it was made in the late 90's (The new isn't perfect but hopefully it looks more modern) 2. Much of it was made from the beginning of the game, where lots of errors and bad practices where used due to our lack of knowledge, so it has also been to upgrade this which allows for much easier changes in the future. There will probably still be some remnants left of the old UI, but will also be changed. And at some point the entire Main Menu will receive a likewise overhaul, as this also could be improved a lot.

---------- So this is what has happened since the last update. The next articles that will enter the game, is various drinks, and after that the electronics will receive some much needed attention. Until next time, happy sales.

[ 2020-04-30 08:01:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers A minor update is released :)

Mac realeased

We finally got the Mac version up and running, meaning you also have access to the latest major update. We still haven't fully solved the issue with exporting to Mac, meaning that updates may be a few days delayed. We will still work on this issue, and hopefully be able to bring updates simultaneously. -----------------------

Minor UI update

We have also received feedback that the new UI is a bit too overwhelming, and that some of the functionalities aren't too obvious, and that you miss some of the old functionalities. So we have made some changes that should improve this in the most essential areas. - You can select colors on the inventory before buying. - On displays you have the option to edit all locations at the same time (like before), or to micromanage them individually. - You are again shown how many items remains to be unpacked from the storage. Feel free to tell us what and how you think the UI can be improved further, as the next period will be dedicated to adjust various things according to the feedback you give us regarding the latest update. -----------------------

Customer entry update

Customers did also not enter the store at random, making the start of a store even harder. This has also been corrected. Due to what is mentioned above, this update will be published within the next days for Mac also.

[ 2020-03-26 18:46:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers The latest update is finally out, bringing a lot of new features into the game. First of all a HUGE thank you, to all of you who have participated in the beta testing of this version. A lot of bugs have been found, as well as several features have been implemented and changed thanks to you. It has been extremely helpful, and have saved lots of time and frustrations, and hopefully it will bring a better experience to all of those going to play it.

-- Groceries --

The biggest feature is the new category "Groceries" which has been what this update is revolving around. It includes a whole new set of articles to sell in your stores. These are various canned and packaged foods, food for refrigeration, fruits and vegetables. Over the next updates even more articles will be added.

-- Displays --

- Complete rework -

For making this category work, the display system needed a complete overhaul. The old system only allowed for items of the same size. This system has been the main problem when we wanted to add new categories and articles. The new system allows for categories to "share" displays while still being able to maintain some unique ones for that category only. They also allow articles of various sizes, and will automatically fit that. So a table might have 4 computers, but 8 mice. So this will make it much easier to add new articles to the game in the future. The new system also allow you to place a specific article at a specific location, which the staff will now respect. So you can now create a shoe wall featuring only unique shoes,if that is what you desire.

- Shelf types -

A new type of display has also come to the game, the shelf display. This allow you to add shelves, and adjust these to the type of article you expect to show on it.

- Signs -

All displays also now has the possibility to be equipped with a billboard you can customize with various texts, colors and patterns.

- Colors -

We have also disposed of the old "Material Sphere" system. With this system, it was hard to make all interactables to be compatible with these generic materials, and also didn't allow for each display to receive a unique look. Now, the displays has received a unique look which you can colorize. The visuals for the displays will be further improved over the next updates.

- Color picker -

As this brings a lot of emphasis on colors, the color picker has also been upgraded and you can now save colors across stores.

-- UI --

For all of this to happen, the UI for all of these things needed an upgrade. So we have tried with a new look, and new functionalities that supports the future of many categories and articles better than the old one.

-- Registers --

- New types -

We have also upgraded the looks and functionality off all the registers, as well as adding new ones to the game. The queues have also been changed, so in general they will occupy less space, than their old counterparts. They are all also now equpped with a status light, showing if they are open, closed for new customers or completely closed.

- New functionality -

The registers have also been changed to allow for various amounts of customers. So the small and cheap ones only allow for few customers, while the large and more expensive ones allows for more and also occupy more space.

-- Staff UI --

We have added a menu to the hud showing all of your staff who are currently at work. From here you can assign them new tasks, or send them on break.

-- Day Progress --

- Closed for unlimited time -

If you decide to close the store for an entire day, you will now have all the time in the world to redecorate your store.

- Extra delivery -

In the HUD, a new button has also been added under "Articles". With this you can request an extra article delivery for a fee. So you can during the day order extra articles if you run out of space or if you forgot to order.

-- Save Game Issues --

Unfortunately, the new display system made the old ones obsolete to a point where they were incompatible with each other. So as a consequence, all displays have been removed from the stores. However we have compensated for this, by refunding the displays. The articles placed on them, have been added to be delivered the next day. You have received a compensation for each article that is going to be redelivered. Finally you have also received money for the rent of a missing day. We therefore recommend to close the store for a day to rebuild it, and you can request articles again and again during this day due to the new features. We are terribly sorry for the inconveniences of this, but hopefully these compensations will ake it up to you.

-- Languages --

- Player Translations -

Our community translator also came into action during this patch. We weren't sure how it would turn out, but much to our suprise it has been widely used. We are very humbled that so many has taken their time to translate sentence after sentence. Thank you A LOT to all of you who have been assisting with this. This should have improved the existing languages, but we also tried adding new languages to the game. And even more to our suprise, some of you have taken their time to translate the game to an entire new language. So a very special thank you to the following users: Lucas (Translated the entire game into French) WensElf (Translated the entire game into Dutch) sztilo07 (Has translated over half the game into Hungarian) iTzAlexandre (Has translated a quarter of the game into Portuguese)

- Back to english -

Due to how these translations is made, some words might be incorrect, understood in the wrong context, extending a bounding box or missing, as the translators havent been able to test out their translations while translating, but could only see them in game when the beta was updated. Since the game automatically detects your language, you might start out your game in your local language. If you are, and you find any of the above annoying, you always have the possibility to swich back to English language.

- Want to help translating -

If you want to help with the translations, go to: https://translate.kingofretail.com/

-- Mac Issue --

Finally, Mac users will have to wait a bit extra for this update. We are making the game for windows, which allows for exporting to various platforms. However MacOS is not included in this. For building to Mac, Apple requires it to be done on a n Apple device. We are currently experiencing some issues getting Unreal Engine (which is the program we create the game in) to run on Mac. We are trying to solve this, but we don't want to hold back the update for windows. So we are very very sorry that we can't offer you the update right away, but as soon as we are able to, we will provide it for you also. ------------------------------------------------------ This rounds of the news of this update. We are very interested in receiving feedback, ideas and hearing about bug or issues you may encounter. You can do that here at Steam or at our discord: https://discord.gg/fckN6bE We hope you will enjoy the changes, and happy retailing out there :)

[ 2020-03-24 15:24:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers We have released the beta a beta version for the upcoming release. If you want to try it out before everyone else, and help ud find bugs, and just give us feedback on what you think feel free to try it out.

-- What's new --

A quick rundown on what it contains: - Groceries, the new category of items. - New interaction system, that removes some of the UI from the screen. - New display system, allowing you to colorize your display and adding billboards to it. - New displays, allowing you to manage shelfs and individual spots for items. - New Daily Staff Management UI. Control your employees directly from the HUD. - Special deliveries. Get a second delivery of articles during the day. - Closing for a day now gives you unlimited time to rebuild your store. - Several new languages. We are very grateful for all of you who have taken your time to use our community translator and translated the game. It has been a major help to us, and we appreciate it very much. A special thank you goes out to these contributers for taking care of translating the game into an entirely new language on their own. - Lucas (French) - WensElf (Dutch) - sztilo07 (Hungarian - halfway there)

-- How to access and play beta --

For this beta version you also get access to the developer menu. By pressing tab you open up a special menu granting you access to various things. You will not be able to play your regular save games, as we don't want any harm to come to those while testing out the beta. This Beta is only available for Windows, and for players who already own the game. For instructions on how to access it, go to: -> The discussion forums here at Steam -> Beta Feedback -> Guide for Beta Players

-- How to give us feedback --

We are very interested in everyting you may encounter while playing it, both old and new bugs, annoyances, ideas and impovements. Please deliver your feedback of this particlur version at the Beta Feedback forum here on Steam, or the Beta forum on our Discord. If you are not yet a member you can join at. https://discord.gg/fckN6bE We will update this version regularly until we will release it as a public version. Thank you in advance for helping out :)

[ 2020-03-16 10:02:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers. it is time for a new letter, and we have made quite some progress since the last one.

--- Groceries ---

Since the last letter, our main focus has been on creating content for the groceries category, and this means adding lots of articles. We have started out with two subcategories Canned Foood and Fresh Food. All articles are sold from the 3 companies,

• Tasty Dreams - The cheap solution
• Organix - Fashion foods of a medium quality
• Diamond Standard - Focuses on high quality foods.

Canned Food contains those items that can be placed on a regular shelf. Currently these are the aritcles that will be sold fom this category for now.
Fresh Food will need some sort of refrigeration unit to keep these cold. These are the articles made so far, however over the next couple of days, many more will be added to this category.
In addition to the articles, several display units have also been made, to complement these items. So a miniature supermarket could look like this:
In addition to this we will probably also add a Fruit/Vegetables category such that you can create such a department too. Some has also asked for beverages, however we don't yet know if there is time enought to add that also. However we are structuring the categories in a new way, so adding new types of articles should be way more easy for us in the future, than it has currently been, making room for drinks beeing added shortly after if we doesn't get around to it this time.
This is how we are going to structure it from now on, adding a third layer to the categiroes, so you will be able to sort it better. For instance, "Shirts" could have "Shirts", "T-shirts", "Sports" and "Long Sleeved". Like this we can add a lot more articles to a category, without it being overwhelming to look through.

--- Community Translator ---

In the last letter we had just released the community translator. Primarily to improve current languages, but we also added some new languages to see if there were any interest in these also. Much to our surprise there have been persons kind enough to translate some in both categories. We are very happy to see it being used, and also extremely grateful that you have taken your time to make these translations. steamhappy steamhappy Because of this, we have opened for new languages to enter the game in the future. These are:

• French
• Spanish
• Italian
• Russian

Depending on how much is translated for a given language, we might feature it as soon as the next update. Since untranslated sentences will be shown in english, you will then have the opportunity to play the game partly in your language, partly in english, and if it is too annoying, you can always go back to full english. If you want to help us translating, go to: https://translate.kingofretail.com/

--- Other features ---

We have also been working on other things that will improve the gaming experience. Since the new display units for the groceries cateogry, are colorable and have billboards, we have converted the existing displays to this system also. This means that you can design them by colors of your choice, and design their billboard.
To help with this system, it is also now possible to save and load colors when working with the color picker.
Finally we have also made the access to your staff easier. So the HUD when in store, will now show all employees currently at work, as well as having the possibility to change tjeir task directly from the menu.
This is all for now. We aim to release a beta to test out this version, as it helped us quite a lot in the last update. Feedback is very welcome, and a lot of you have joined our discord making it a fun place to be, along with providing with lots of ideas for us to work with. If you haven't already, you can join at: https://discord.gg/fckN6bE Until next time :-)

[ 2020-03-05 18:44:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers It is time for our next letter, explaining what we have been up to.

- Translation System -

Yay, our translation system is finally up and running! Over the time a lot of you has offered help with translating the game, both in existing languages, but also into new ones we haven't supported. And while we would love your help, setting up and handling the logistics was one of the main reasons why we have turned down the help. In December we finally set the time aside to create a system, where you can assist in translating as little or as much as you want to, and last week we were able to set it public. To help out with translations go to: https://translate.kingofretail.com/ As the system is completely new, feedback is also very welcome :)

- Displays -

In our last letter we were preparing for groceries, and by that changing the displays to allow various sixed items. Most of the time has been spent on progression with these systems. They are finally at a place where we feel they are as we want them to be. However some of the systems as you know them as changed. Some displays will be as you know them. Shirt displys will have the same amount of shirts as previous. However tables will carry as many as can fit in the width. So a table can maybe carry 4 computers but 6 mice, removing a lot of the wasted space on the smaller items. The new shelf type, allows you to add shelves, and move them up and down so that it fits a lot ot articles without wasting too much space.
Displays will now be colored by your choice, rather than using the "Material orb" system. The orbs allowed for various materials, but the downside to this is that you cant make the various displays look up to their best, as they all have to fit these "generic" looks also. Instead you will now be able to select which colors your displays should be, allowing for a more customizable look for your store. In future this will also allow that you can get more than one "skin" for each display. These skins are made specific for each display allowing them to look much more detailed than previsously. This also means that we have some work to do changing the existing displays, but hopefully it will bring an inprovement to overall graphics. As an added bonus, all displays will allow for the option of adding a billboard to them. These borads can also be customized in various vays. This time it will go out as a test, but in the future this can be expanded so you will be able to hang these boards down from the ceiling, and also add your own graphics to it.

- Groceries -

With the displays in order, we have just started yesterday adding articles to the groceries category, with the very first items being Cereal Boxes, with the two companies Tasty Foods and Organix fighting for the market.
Over the next weeks this category will of course be expanded with a lot of interesting articles, such that you can create your own supermarket. Until next time Oh.. and don't hesitate to join our discord at: https://discord.gg/fckN6bE Happy sales

[ 2020-02-18 15:19:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers It has been a little over a week since our latest release, and it seems you enjoy playing it. This allows us to look at the next update, instead of focusing on ironing out this one. So what do we have planned?

--- New category: Groceries ---

At our discord we had a vote on what you wanted the most. And the answer was without a doubt a new grocery category. So we started doing just that.
We are still in the warly planning stages, so we have not decided what to put into it. We will probably start by making foods in various forms. Fruits, meats, vegetables and bread both in packed form (Boxes, bags and cans) and in fresher forms, such that these articles also fit to various types of customers. (Hint: So now is the best time for letting us know which articles you would like in these categories :) )

--- New Display Types ---

One of our issues with adding categories like this, was the various sizes of the different items. This is currently shown with computers and mice, where the mice has an extraordinary large amount of space on these displays. Furthermore the category grouping would have to be based on their sizes and not their types. So a category for foods might be "Canned Goods" and "Boxed Goods", because the displays would fit these sizes. This is a big limitation, and has been one of the major reason on why we have held back on adding various articles.
So now we have changed the display system entirely, and allowed for some more general displays. These displays fit automatically fit to the size of the item displayed. As you see at the image the computers and mice fit on the same display, but with various amounts shown. It also allows for mice and computers to be shown on the same shelf, and still keeping individual sizes for it's spot. So now we can tag items to the types of displays that can carry them. For instance shoes can be tagged "Shoes" and "General". This allows for the creation of specific displays, while also allowing for multi-article displays.

--- New Interaction & Display UI ---

These display types require a new method of handling, and this allowed us to kill two birds with one stone. We would like to clean up the UI and make it take up less space on screen. We would also like to make the UI just a bit more modern that the current '90's look it has. So the UI when interacting with things in-store will receive an overhaul. The original system was one of the first things we made when starting building the game, and therefore suffered from our general lack of knowledge on structuring a game.
The new system will allow for even more control of a display. Now you can manage each individual spot, instead of only an area, which for instance allows for a shoe wall with a different shoe on each spot and correct refilling by the staff. These are the main features we will focus on during this update, and we look forward to continue working on them and telling you aboutthe updates. Comments are as always appreciated, and feel free to join our Discord at: https://discord.gg/fckN6bE Until next time :)

[ 2020-02-08 12:12:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers! The latest update is finally out. It has focused heavily in improving the corporate experience, by improving your HQ and all of its functionalities. We have also balanced out some of the gameplay, and changed smaller inconveniences. We hope you will enjoy it steamhappy

--- The new HQ ---

New design

The initial HQ was very barebones, so it has now been completely overhauled. It consists of several floors to run your corporation. The ground floor is for corporation control, and where you manage your new lots, as well as the hiring of managers. Each concept then has its own unique floor. Here you administer talents, design, as well as interacting with the concept managers.

New managers

You can now hire managers for various jobs. Both for the corporation in general, but also for the individual concepts. So will you spend money on an Area Manager that improves stores run by the Daily Manager, or a Sales Manager that affects the customers in the store you are currently at. But they also require a wage, so think about when it is time to expand. It takes time for these managers to learn their skill, and become familiar with their new role. They are also influenced by various events happening in the game, so you will need to manage these, and make sure the perfect manager doesn't join another company. You can also promote a manager from one of your stores to the HQ, and that person will gain a bonus as the employee already has experience with working at your corporation.

Company awards

At your HQ you can also boast of the achievements earned with your corporation. Show off the Employer of the month, or the Customer Satisfaction Award in your trophy cabinets.

No City Hall

To allow for this, there will no longer be an office at the CIty Hall, as it will be at the City Map instead.

--- Balancing and improvements ---

[Corporate Fees/h3] You can now set a corporate fee for each concept, giving some of the store profits back to the HQ, such that it runs more smooth, and you don't need to jump back and transfer funds all the time.

Price Adjustments

It seemed that is was too easy to earn money from computers. So their purchase, and sales prices have been altered to have a smaller profit margin. So in existing games, you might want to adjust the prices.

Customer AI's

Customers now also act differently based on their segment type. The richer persons will demand a higher level of service, and by that ask for help more. Their tendency to ask, is now also based of the article they look at. So they will in general require more help when looking a computers, as compared to clothes.

Selling to customers

The speed of selling to customers has been improved, by shortening the animation time on the conversations. Also a quick sale button has been added, to quickly go through the sales interaction, with varied results off course.

Deliveries

The mailman will now arrive faster at your store, giving you a bit more time to handle articles before you open the store.

--- Bug Fixes ---

First of all, we are terribly sorry for these inconveniences, and of any annoyance they have caused.

Unloadable Save Games

Some of you reported that you could not load some of your entrepreneur save games. This has been corrected, and these games are playable again.

Summary Screen

Some bad design caused this screen to have extremely high loading time in long games, possibly causing a crash, but at best long waiting times when updating the screen. This has been fixed, such that it now updates much faster.

Loan Bug

An issue caused loans to double each time you entered a store, causing then p be unpayable and requiring insane payment amounts. This has been corrected, and loans work again. Also, stores affected by this will be corrected when you enter the store for the first time, reducing the amount of loans to a normal level. We hope that you will enjoy these new features, and we would like to hear any comments you might have. You can also join our discord at: https://discord.gg/fckN6bE

[ 2020-01-30 19:47:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers A lot have happened in the short time since our last letter, so it's time to fill you in again :)

Getting close to the next update.

We are sooo close to bering done with this version. The last week han been focused on finalizing smaller things, polishing a bit, playtesting and bugfixing. Managers are fully implemented into the game, and influence various areas of running your stores. Likewise does different events influence your managers, so you will need to keep at good atmosphere at your HQ. A few convenience features have been added. You can set a corporation fee, which are deducted from the profits of your stores, such that you wont have to remember to go back and withdraw funds from your stores. Also, the mailman now arrives earlier than before, giving you a precious 20 mins extra to unpack your articles. The finance board, has received an upgrade, showing more info overall, and at the end of the day, you see all your final paymensts, thus finally making all payments along the day known to you.

Beta-testers for the new features.

We try to learn of our previous mistakes, and would therefore like those of you who are interested to test it out, such that we get bugs out of the way, and get your feedback on the new features. The beta-version will run until the version is released, however in this version we will open up for the coveted "Developer menu" giving you money and instant reputations, such that you can test the game however you like. We hope that you will try it out, and help us outin the never ending quest for bugs. This will only be available for players already owning the game. Check out our Steam-forum "Beta Feedback" for more info on how to activate it, backup your saves, and provide us with feedback.

Our very own Discord

To get closer to our community, we have setup a Discord server of our own. Join in to chat, see new features, share ideas, show off your store, and other things. We hope you will join us. It can be done through the following link: https://discord.gg/fckN6bE

[ 2020-01-23 14:31:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers We have made some progress during the last week, although a bit slowed, as Tympanix (One of the two devs) has been focusing on his final project at the university. He is also the one working on the translation system we told about in our last letter.

The Translation Issue

It is no secret that a large portion of the players are German-speaking. This is why this was our test-language (along with Danish which are our native language) to see how difficult it is to manage multiple languages. We found out that programming and implementing a language was relatively easy (after some cleanup in the code), however all the logistics surrounding it was tough to deal with. First of all currently the game contains rougly 10.000 words that needs to be translated, which in itself takes quite some time even if you are fluent in the language. Secondly, the game continually evolves. This means that between each patch, some words are removed, some are changed and new words are added, meaning that after a couple of weeks a new revision would be needed. Third of all, the text needs to be understood correctly. So when all these texts are exported, they show up as the pure text only, and nothing more. So the translator might have to translate "Rent" properly. But does this mean the price you pay to rent something, or performing the action of wanting to rent it, which in danish is two very different things. Having to manage these things for each patch is very time consuming, and is why we in the later patches have resorted to Google Translate. Many of you have very kindly offered your help in assisting with the translations in various languages which we are very grateful of. However we didn't know how to organize this in a way that makes it easy and efficient. The thought of handling several translators via mail or facebook, having to merge translations into the same document and so on seemed like an excessive workload, which would redice the time spent on developing a lot. But we still wanted to allow for several languages, so what to do?

The Community Translation System

We evaluated several options online that could assist with this, however they required a (for us) hefty monthly fee. So in december we decided to make our own instead, and this is what Tympanix has been spending his time on (along with university) since then. The bonus of this program should then be that every player can contribute to the translation of the game. Firstly by a webpage that you can log in to using your Steam-account, and secondly within the game itself. Here you can search for existing sentences, mark them as wrong, submit your own translation, or vote for an already submitted one. We can then review these translations make the necessary changes and upload them to the game. This also allows for translations in event more languages. Hopefully this makes for better translation without it taking up to much time.
We expect to have the webpage-solution ready near the end of the month :)

Progress since last letter

I have then been working on the game itself, making progress with the HQ. I am also happy to say that almost everything has been implemented, with a few things missing. You now control each concept on each individual floor, on several whiteboards, making it easier to quickly see how it goes. At the ground floor you manage the unassigned buildings, and at the reception you can request the building of an additional floor. As the floors now serve as the concept limit, the allowed number of floors in an area tells how many concepts you can have. This also means that the first office you rent at the City Hall has been removed. As this also seemed it was a too hard to find, it seemed better to make accessing all HQ's similar and as such they are now all at the city map. It has also been connected to the flow of the game, such that applications to the HQ comes and goes, negotiation and renegotiating is possible, as well as swapping managers, and promoting staff from the stores to the HQ.
The only thing left, is to make optimism changes of your managers, based off the events in your corporation, such that you actively need to manage the personnel at your HQ.

The bug list

This week also made us aware of some new bugs. The loan system is relatively new, and we know there are somme issues with games having been created at a time of the old system, and is played in the new one. However this concealed another issue, doubling loans each time a store is loaded, making the game contain more loans than the 3 there are showed, eventually requiring an insane amount of repayment funds. These should be taken care of in the update, along with fixing the savegames themselves. We have also fixed an issue of stores not being sold correctly, and other issues reported to us here at steam. Please let us know of other bugs you might find, as the period leading up to the release of the next update will focus on playtesting and bug removal. Happy sales out there :) //Dohlar

[ 2020-01-14 14:30:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers We would like to wish you a happy new year, thank you for a great 2019. Since our last update in December we decided to slow it down a bit, as December is always a busy month. But now we have reached January, and daily life is back to normal, but with a whole new set of ideas to try out, this being one of them. We have always wanted to keep you informed of what is happening at our side of the screens, but we have not been consistent in doing so. Therefore we will start making a regular newsletter here on Steam to tell you what we are working on, along with other things of interest, and let you know that the game hasn't gone quiet. This will also allow you to give feedback to our ideas, and perhape make them even better even before we are finished making them. So as always, don't hold back with any comments you might have :)

Since the last update

Although we have had a busy december, we haven't been idle at all. We have 2 projects we are working on simultaneously.

HQ improvements

Since we released the Corporation Mode, we have been focusing on making this a more stable experience by removing bugs, and unintuitive implementations. As the bug reports went down, it was time to carry on with the improvements. We know that the bugs are still out there, so please, PLEASE let us know of the ones you find :-) At the release of the Corporation Mode, your HQ only had the bare necesseties for playing the game. As we want this to be a more focal part of running your corporation, we wanted to improve this area. The main floor is dedicated for control of the corporation itself, with each of your concepts occupying an entire floor of it's own. This will allow for more control and more possibilities, as these areas gets filled out with content. So hopefully it will make more sense to why you must expand your HQ to allow for more concepts.
The first thing we have started out with, was implementing various corporate managers. So each concept now has space for 3 managers. An Area Manager, which affect the stores that are run by daily managers. A Sales Manager, which affects your staff, your customers, and new stores. A Marketing Manager, which affects the traffic into your store. Then the corporation itself will have 2 managers. A Financial Manager, which affects rents, loans and owned property handling. A Corporation Manager, which affects all of the above mentioned managers. This should mimic the structure of a larger corporation with a hieracy of leadership.
For aquiring these managers, there will be an interview process like when hiring staff, where you can interview the person for a certain role. You can then appoint an interviewed person for that role, or move one of your other managers. It will also be possible to have one of your staff in your stores to send an application to your HQ. In this way it will be possible to take your rookie employee all the way to the top, to become manager for the entire Corporation. Each manager has to familiarize themself with your corporation, and with their role before they can use their abilitiesto the fullest. So this erquires you to make a decision. - Hire a person from the outside, who has to spend more time familiarizing. - Take another manager, who only need to learn the new role, but leaves another role unmanned. - Promote one from your store, who might need a replacement, but is very familiar with the ways of the corporation. All of the will be handled from your manager's office in the ground floor. To interact with the managers themselves, you will need to go to their office and do your business. That being spend their talent points, offering them a raise, or taking the dreaded talk of letting them go.
All of the above is already implemented into the game. The next thing to do is to influence their optimism, such that you also need to keep them satisfied, and to implement their actual skills into the game. After that CorpManagers v 1.0 is ready, and the next update will be released. In our next letter we will tell about our other project, which is the community translator tool, with which you can help improve, or create new translations in the game. Until next time :-)

[ 2020-01-06 13:52:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

Yet another patch has been released, to fix a bunch of bugs. - The Mininimum storage system, had a minor bug where it could get stuck in a loop. - Summary screen. It has finally been remade and works properly again. - Adding categories to concept had a bug where it didn't affect already existing stores. This should be fixed, such that all stores in a concept always carries the most recent articles. - The box containing articles if the storage is full had turned invisible. Now it is possible to see it again. - Customers will wait longer for a sale if staff are heading towards them. - Sellers in general have a better chance of making a positive sale to customers - Resolution changes now requires a confirmation, as many of you have had problems with reverting to the original resolution - Buying / Renting a lot now has a new screen, as many of you were confused on what the daily payments contained. Thank you for all of your reports. We are following the forum closely, and try to resolve all issues you find. So don't hesitate to keep them coming. Our focus is currently on making regular patches at shorter intervals to remove bugs. and to make the corporation mode more user friendly.

[ 2019-12-06 14:39:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers The latest update is ready for you.

Bug fixes and adjustments

Corporation Mode has been received well, which we are incredibly happy about. But as it gets some playtime, more bugs emerge that we have not been aware of. So this update has focused on eradicating a lot of them. The biggest problem has been withdeliveries where an error changed some floor assignments from storage to store. It should be fixed, but in saved games it may still be an issue. If there is a problem, try moving around the storage units such that they again are in a allowed location. Loans also work properly again. In addition, loans, rents and wages are paid at the end of the day instead of various times dring the day. Please tell us if anything else should show up. We will continue to focus on removing errors and sending out small updates.

Own Logos

It is now possible to add your own logos. Follow our guide here on Steam on how to create your own. Logos from old games will probably have changed. However, it is now also possible to change logos in the game. In Entrepreneur games, they can be changed inside the office, and in Corporation games you can change them through your concepts.

New Sales Interaction

We have updated the sales system to be clearer and more intuitive, which hopefully allows for better sales and more money.

New Storage System

Your office computer has a new system. Here you can choose how many items you want in stock. On the order screen, the system can then order up to this number. Nice and easy. Tell us what you think needs to be updated and changed. Many of these things comes out of players' wishes, so don't hold back. Happy sales out there!

[ 2019-11-30 13:36:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

We received notifications of several issues with the game, to which we have released a hotfix. Thank you a lot :-) Mainly: - You can transfer funds when your corporation is in negative - The unlimited concepts / store HQ actually allows for unlimited. - You can buy a store you have rented. - Buying a store only cost money if you actually get it. and some other issues. We are aware that loans are currently not deducted properly, but coudn't get it in for this update. We will focus the next period on clearing bugs, and update as needed. So please let us know if you find more.

[ 2019-11-18 15:54:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers We are very exited to finally announce that update 0.7.0 is here! And it features two new large improvements to the game.

---- New languages ----

First of all, the game is now playable in two new languages: German and Danish. This is for testing out, and if the feedback is positive, we might expand to more languages in the future.

---- Corporation Mode ----

We have been working very hard to bring the complete new game mode to you: The Corporation Mode, but what did it end up with? Well, here you start off with no money, and must create the largest corporation in the city. And to do that, it will require a lot of hard work:

Contract Work:

To earn your first money, you must work for some of the other retailers in the city. Earn reputation with these companies, and land more lucrative deals.

PopUp Stores:

Some companies opens PopUp stores in the city. A store that is open for 10 days. The sales from these stores are saved, so see if you can beat your on record when the chance arrives the next time around. When you have enough money, it is time for you to start your own company.

City Hall:

To do this, you must go to the city hall. Set up your company, and get your first office space. In the City Hall you can also get advice on how to deal with starting a new company.

HQ:

Your small cubicle will probably be your first HQ for your company. In time you will be able to buy your own building, and establish a larger headquarter. Your HQ decides how many stores and concepts you can have. (Currently the HQ is very basic, but it will be expanded in future patches, and have more functionalities)

Concepts:

In your HQ you can setup your various concepts. Concepts are the brands that your stores will belong to. So one concept might be of fashion clothing, and another of electronics. A good concept takes time to build. You can assign multiple stores to one concept, and build several chains of stores. The stores then work together, improving your concept faster.

Daily Managers:

If you are a success, and get to own several stores, you will need help. As you can't run all stores yourself, you will need to promote one from your team to be the Daily Manager who then runs your store in your absence. However that persons skills decide how much it will sell. So will you hire a cheap manager and save the wage cost, or go all out and hire the best there is? (In future patches this will expand with the possibility of having various concept managers also, such as an Area Manager, Sales Manager and so on, which will have various effects) So can you balance out all of these things and become the King of Retail?

---- Other New Stuff ----

Staff Wages:

Your staff will now require new wage negotiations if their skills doesn't match the wage, or if they have been working for you for some time. To assist with this, we improved the negotiation flow to make it a bit more intuitive.

Staff Requests:

Other than wages, the staff will also let you know of other requests they have, such as the desire for taking a new course, or having a day off. How you respond is up to you, but don't promise something that you can't keep. We also added some other events for you to react to.

Staff Personalities:

You staff also have various personality traits. So the sales person you need, loses energy faster, but is very light-hearted. Will you hire this person, or find another. We would very much like to hear comments and feedback regarding all of these new things here on the forums. Also feedback regarding bugs, and things you think should be balanced are also more than welcome. We hope you enjoy the expansion :)

[ 2019-11-16 14:33:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers It is time to give you some info on what will be by far the largest update from us so far.

So what is corporation mode?

In corporation mode you start off in a new city with no money in your pocket, and no reputation at all.

The Career Part

To get some money you will have to sign contracts with other companies to run their stores. These contracts will give you a daily wage, and also a bonus when completing the task at hand. As you complete more jobs, your personal reputation with these companies will increase, allowing you to take contracts in better locations for higher wages.

Starting your corporation

When you have enough money, you can head to the city hall, and start your corporation.
Your corporation will be the center of it all. This is the "master" company which holds it all together. A corporation will also need it's headquarters, but being completely new you might have to settle for renting an office space in the city hall.

...and make your first concept.

With your headquarters ready, you can make your first concept. A concept is a unique brand, with it's own identity and targeting specific markets. So the concept is what your customers will see, and eventually come to know. However each concept starts small. You will need to develop it over time, to gradually expand it's reputation to the customers. Will you focus on becoming the expert in one category, or becoming adequate in several.
Depending on your HQ, your corporation can own lots of concepts. As each concept gets larger, it will require more management. So each concept will need various managers in the HQ to reach it's full potential. This being a sales managers, purchasing managers, and area managers among others.

Putting the concepts to use

Your concepts will of course need stores to be of use. So you have to find the lots you wish to place stores on. They will vary greatly in population and segment composition. So the celebrities might be nearer the stores at the beach, and the farmers near the rural areas. Off course the more attractive locations cost more. You can both rent and buy the lots around the city, with buying off course being the more expensive choice. However buying a lot allows you to build on it, expanding the store, whereas with a rental you will have to make do with what is. When you have decided on a lot, you assign a concept to the store which is going to be built there, invest some of your hard earned money in it and then start playing.
When playing inside the store, the game works at you know it. However customers also now look at the reputations of your concept when deciding if they want to shop at your store.

Multi-store owner

When you have the money to expand, it is time to prepare for your next store. Before leaving, it is best that you hire a daily manager to your current store. This person will take care of your store while you are away at another. While at a store, the other stores will still earn (or cost) you money, and contribute to your concepts. From time to time you will have to check in at the store, to make sure that everything is running smoothly, or extend your stay to improve it further.

Big spender

When everything is on track, you will need to expand you HQ to allow for more concepts, and more stores. And hopefully you will get the big skyscraper, crush the competing stores and dominate the city.

Some notes on the develpoment

It has taken some time

We wanted to explaing why you havent received any updates from us in a while. As we are only two persons making this game, and this being our first, things take time, and we still have a lot of learning to do. So making an update of this size by basically creating a new game on top of the existing is quite a mountainclimb for us, both in planning and executing. As we have learned on the way we are also beginnig to see that some of our earlier practices could have been done in a much better way. But as these practices has been used on the foundations of the game, we also have to spend some time "untangling" and improving this, to allow us to be faster and more efficient in the future. So these are the main reasons of why this takes some time. But rest assured, we are and have been working hard every week to bring the content to you.

Why such a big update now

When we decided to make this, we weren't quite sure of how long it would take. However we felt that this was necessary to improve your experience. Lots of you had already maxed out the game, and requested bigger stores. Increasing the sizes would only fix it for a small amount of time, as this would just be "more of the same". This also meant that our time was used making these hotfixes instead of progressing the game to where we plan it to go. And since you always would use up this content before we could add something new, we decided to go another direction. So this is to give you a new experience, and a new challenge that went beyond of "just getting a big store", which hopefully will keep you entertained for longer. And when this is done, we will go back to improve the core game and adding more articles.

How long left

All of the core elements has been made, and we are now beginning to merge them together. When this is done, we start on adding some more content. The city map only consist of the small area, which will have to be expanded. The career part only contain the "mandatory" stores, and needs some more possibilities. The HQ can not be expanded to unlock more concepts. The city hall allows you to talk to NPC's, which work as a part of the tutorial, which also needs some work. Upon adding this, a bugfixing and balancing period starts, and when that is done, we are ready to release it to you. So a very rough, and unpromised, estimate is 3-4 weeks of time. We hope that this answers some of the questions you might have, ans you are as aways more than welcome to comment and bring ideas to the game :)

[ 2019-10-18 10:34:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

We have received several messages from you asking about how far the updates are coming. And it has been quite some time since our last post, so here comes :-) We are still working on a larger change to the game, allowing you to expand your business into opening several stores. We have almost gotten the basics to work, and after that we need to add some content giving it some playability. When this is done, it is about testing, bugfixing and balancing. It will most likely not be fully complete for the update, but will be accessible as a beta-version alowing you to play and give feedback on what you think of it. So what have we made so far?

City Map

First of all, there is the City Map. This will show the available lots for rent, for purchase, or contract offers allowing you to earn some money working for other companies. The image shown is the only area at the moment, but will be expanded to a larger map of different population compositions and densities. Since these areas differ in customers, it will require you to pay more attention to which articles you purchase, and how you manage the area. This means you also can't afford the best of locations immediately, but you will have to earn money the lower populated areas before being able to open a store in the midtown.

New Areas

There will also be other areas to explore, and people to interact with.
For instance the University which in time will contain much improved tutorials, and tips on how to play the game.
Or the city hall, where you must apply for new companies, or buying lots to build on. These areas are only very basic at the moment, but will also improve in the future, along with new ones.

Personalities

Your staff now has received different personality traits. This means that they now have two positives and two negatives to them, meaning that you also need to take this into consideration when managing and hiring.

Wages & Negotiation

The staff are also now aware about being better at working at your store. So they will demand higher wages as time goes by. This also means that you can call up your staff for renegotiations, and even promotions to become the manager when you are away. So this is what we have been up to for the last month. We don't know yet when it will be available for playing, but hopefully we have cleared the worst parts of the work. If this gives you any fun ideas on what could be possible to do in the game, please let us know about it. Happy Retailing //The Devs

[ 2019-09-26 12:52:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

It is time for a little notification telling you what we are working on steamhappy

Multiple Languages

(We don't know if the above actually makes sense to a german speaking person yet as it hasn't been validated)steamhappy We have for long had a wish to translate the game to different languages. And after lot of battling with the engine, we might finally have found the solution on how to work with it. This means we are beginning to translate the game into various languages. Since this is uncharted territory for us we still have much to learn on how to work with this, and this is the reason we start off slowly by introducing 2 new languages. The first will be German as this is the language spoken by the majority of our players. The second is Danish as this is our country of origin. If everything goes well, and we can manage the extra workload, we will expand to more languages over time. It should hopefully be ready already in the next update :)

City mode

We have also taken the baby steps in building City mode. This will be a quite big mode, and will in time probably replace the current modes. This will give you the opportunity to open chains of stores in different areas, allowing yout to build a huge empire. We don't know yet if some of it will be available in the next patch, but we still wanted to show you that it is taking form.

Articles

The game still needs more articles. Although we havent made any yet, modern shoes will probably be added, expanding this category further.

More events

We are developing the event system, such that you are able to respond to some of the mails. This allows for more direct interaction with your employees and the world, as each answer has different consequenses and opportunities. Other things might enter as we havent decided everything for the next update, so let us know what you would like to feature in game. We are also of course still interested in knowing about bugs you might encounter during your playing experience, and we have added some subforums for bugreporting only. Cheers The devs

[ 2019-09-04 10:19:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers A month has gone by since our last release, and we have now finished work on this one. So what does it contain?

New Articles

- Some of the shirts have been updated to better looking models. - Several shoes has been added, and some replaced (There will be added more shoes over time, also replacing older models). - A new category "Pants" has been added, containing a lot of these to sell.

Close for a day

It is now possible to keep closed for an entire day, allowing you to do whatever you feel like for an entire day. In the next patch there will also be an opportunity to request special deliveries, allowing you to order articles on this day also to give what you might need.

Better ordering

Ordering has received some upgrades. You can browse your previous orders, and also reorder what has been sold the same day. This should make it easier to manage the stock.

New storage items

The storage has received several units to choose from. Both to store your articles, and to receive deliveries on. This unfortunately means that the old units has been removed, impacting save games. However these will be refunded, and you will not lose any articles that was saved on thee units.

Balancing

It was getting too easy earning lots of money from day 1, so we have adjusted the game in several areas. Reputation gains: It didn't take many days to receive full reputation in all areas. So the gains have been downscaled a bit for categories, and quite a lot for customer segments. So now you have to fight more in the beginnings to get customers into the store, using catalogues, forum posts and fetching them from the streets. Reputation losses: The penalty for having customers leaving the store was basically so small that it didn't have any effect. This penalty has been increased such that these customers has an influence. So try and keep them all happy :) Article saturations: It was possible to keep selling the same few articles over and over again each day. This is still possible, but now the customers will be less willing to buy these articles. So for maximum sale, it is needed to keep a large variety of articles, or to change out the assortment once in a while.

Other minor features

- Staff on registers going on break. It was quite annoying when staff went to break, if they manned the only register. Now, if they are the only one on register, they will allow the register open and just go on break. If there are others with an open register, they will finish their queue, and then head for break. - Staff are better at restocking Staff didn't always fill out a display if a location wasn't completely empty. This has also been adjusted, and they should now be better at restocking. - Staff can help with cleanup of boxes If there are boxes with articles on the ground, the staff can now also help unpack those, if they have unlocked the talent for it off course. - Improvement of space requirements All inventory have had their space requirements updated, so there should not be any more annoying overlappings "cheating" you of valuable space. - Even better AI movement The AI movement have been adjusted further, and should allow for even better moving among each other.

Bugs and bugs

As always many bugs has been removed, and new ones has most certainly entered. So we still need all of your help and feedback in spotting more of these when you encounter them :-) And we are still very interested in listening to anything you might have to say of what is good, what can be better, and all your great ideas. We are especially interested in listening to what you feel the game need work on, if it's more articles, new features, balancing or something else. We hope you enjoy our work \\ The Devs

[ 2019-08-22 15:21:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

Fellow retailers! We wanted to show you a little more of what we have been working on :-)

More articles

Our previous post mentioned the addition of pants. We decided to not stop at that as we have also updated a few of the old (and ugly) shirts, to newer models. Finally we have created a new bunch of shoes ready for sale, as this also needed some attention. More shoes will also be added in the future.

Closing the store for an entire day

Many of you have requested the opportunity to close the store for an entire day to reorganize or whatever you feel like. So this has been added, along wing a quick button to give all your staff a day off if you want do to it by yourself. This will also replace the clocks, as this seems like a better solution.

Easier ordering

Some of you mentioned that ist is easy to forget to save an order just made. So from now on you will be able to see your 10 last orders from the ordering menu. It will also be possible to add all sold articles from the current day.

More storage items

We have noticed that many of you has huge storage rooms. This has also been a neglegted area since the startof the development. So we have added some more storage and delivery units which can carry extra items, at an increased cost of course.
With these changes we don't plan to add much more to this update, and will hopefully be able to bring it to you soon.

[ 2019-08-16 20:47:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear retailers! We have been busy since last update with vacations and school projects. But now that we are back and ready, we wanted to let you know what we are working on.

Pants

Our focus is on expanding the amount of articles even further. A lot of you desired that clothings should be finished up, before adding different categories. That makes sense, so we are almost done with adding a lot of pants as a new category.

Redesigning store

A lot of you have also requested the possibiility to keep the store closed for an entire day, to be able to remodel without being interrupted by customers. So this will also be possible in the next update. Also your staff can now help by unpacking boxes of articles standing around the store.

Thank you for the reports

Since we last checked and collected, which probably is 1 month or so, we have received 700 reports via the in game reporting system. It contains a lot of good ideas, and things we need to look over. So thank you very much for letting us know what you think of the game :)

Bugs and improvements

Even though some bugs will still remain, as they require a larger time investment to fix, we have also removed a lot of bugs, as well as improved some minor things here and there. We hope we are ready to upload the next update in a week's time. All the best :-) The developers

[ 2019-08-06 16:27:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers

We have released a new update.

Building

This update has been focusing primarily on fixing the Rebuild Store bug that could cause the game to crash. When we were add it, we also added a "Remove Lot" field, so you also can decrease you store in size. Also added a few lots to the area, allowing for building a bigger store.

Peripherals

We have written about a new category that would fit well in a computer store. Since it has only been a week since last update, we have only managed to add Mice to this. We decided to open up for it, allowing you to take a look. At the moment they use the same displays as the computers, but this category will be expanded upon off course.

Clothes

Since we also plan to expand the clothing category in near future, we thought we might clean up the old one first. So we have updated the looks of several shirts, and the remaining will also get an overhaul soon. And since there were not too many of the more "fashionable" shirts, we also added a Polo-shirt pack. We hope you enjoy the updates.

[ 2019-07-20 10:16:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Retailers We are receiving lots of requests on more articles. So we would open up about what we are planning to add. At the moment we have our 2 major categories. Clothes and Electronics.

Electronics

To allow for a more varied assortment for electronics shops, we are adding the Subcategory "Peripherals". This will feature various equipment for computers. Currently mice has been made, but more stuff as joystics, printers, routers and other suff will follow into that category.
At some point electronics will also be expanded with tv's, phones, tablets and monitors.

Clothing

Clothing, which currentky contains shirts and shoes, will also be expanded. There will be added more shoes, pants and accessories such as belts, caps, hats and articles of that sort. After this, we will change this to Men's Wear, and add a new Category Women's Wear, which should feature just as much.

Next ones

When this has been added it is time to plan the next major categories. On our minds we currently have white goods, groceries, furniture, jewelry, music instruments, and much more. Hope this clears up what we think the game should contain. This plan does of course allow for changes along the way. We are as always interested in your opinions, and are open ideas of things to sell.

[ 2019-07-16 18:11:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear retailers: Update 0.5.0 is out.

New category: Computers

We listen to what you want - More items to sell. The addition of computers seemed like a straightforward thing to do. So this is a new category, with corresponding new new displays. These articles are more expensive, both when buying and selling and are of a higher luxury. This means that the customers are pickier, and needs an overall better sales efforts before they purchase.

Events, calendar and mails

The city has to be more dynamic. So various events will occur once in a while. For instance a discount from a certain supplier or an increase in a population segment. You can see various events on your new Calendar. This is accessible through the HUD menu in store, or from the newly placed calendar near the door in your office. When an event occurs, you are notified via mail on your computer. Your staff now also mails you about various events like sickness or resignations. This system is just finished, so you can expect lots of events to be added in the future.

Bankruptcy

Yes. Due to the arrival of the event system, it is now possible to go bankrupt. So no more owing the bank millions of (insert currency here), but instead you have a certain amount of days to fix the situation before the store gets closed.

Improved AI movement

The AI had a tendency to clump and walk in the way of each other, causing some undesirable behavior and following frustration. This has been adjusted allowing for a much better flow even when crowded. In crowded situations they still "wiggle" about, but manage to pass each other and reach their destination. We hope this will improve the experience in bigger stores.

News

We wanted to be able to communicate with the players more directly, so a news feed has been implemented at the main menu screen. Here we will post about what is coming, tips to things we see players struggle with and other notifications.

More bugs

We are receiving a lot of bug reports, and thank you very much for those. We have removed a fair share of them (but others are bound to have arrived). Please continue to post any difficulties or bad experiences you might have, and we will try to solve them.

Up next

It is summer and 50 % of the team is going for a well earned vacation, and the other half of the team (me) will stay home and continue working.

Currency selector

We see people get confused about the prices, which makes perfectly sense. At the moment the game uses an unspecified currency, with values based on the unknown Danish Krone which makes no sense to 99.9 of the earths population. So we will make a currency designer where you can select various currencies, or create your own. This should make the game more familiar to all of you.

User Preferences

There has also been requests for various minor implementations. So we will create an overdue preferences menu for you to customize your experience. This will off course grow over time, so feel free to let us know what you think this screen should contain.

Next Category

Since we have the clothes / shoes pair. It should also be possible to sell minor computer accessories. So we will begin making monitors, keyboards, mice and what else we might think off.

Languages

There has been an increasing demand to translate the game into different languages, and we will therefore begin working on this. However as this is totally new to us we don't know how long this will take to do.

City mode

We have a dream of making a 3D city overview that contains the game instead of menus. This should contain entrepreneur and career mode combined, along with opening chains of stores that work together. This city view should also contain a corporate HQ, supplier expos, tutorial school and what else we might put in there. This should make for a more complete gaming experience, making it feel like building an empire, and creating a more diverse and challenging gameplay. So this will be our next major project that we will begin working on.

We hope you enjoy the changes and, as always, if you have ideas, found bugs, or any other feedback don't hesitate to let us know.

[ 2019-07-10 16:28:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

PearEasy, the latest supplier to arrive at the city. They focus on building a designer's computer which will fit perfectly into any modern office or home.
We are also close to finishing the displays they will be presented at. So it won't be long before you are all able to open your own computer store :)

[ 2019-07-01 12:25:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

After Firestorm, the manufacturer of high end gaming computers opened up in town, it was expected more would follow. That came true with LED-D, a company focusing on cheaper office computers has also joined.
It is also believed that a third supplier will join in, before the release of all the articles into the public. So stay tuned for the last one to show up :-)

[ 2019-06-21 22:37:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

We are of course already working on the next update to King of Retail. So we thought we would fill you in on what that is. First of all, in the near future we will make smaller, but more frequent updates.

New category

The biggest request you have come with is more articles to sell. So we approaced the mayor of the city, who put out some advertisements. And rumour has it, that a manufacturer of high end computers has set up shop in the city, preparing to take orders as soon as possible. And with the arravial of them, other companies are bound to follow steamhappy
This means that the articles will expand to include a new category "Computers". And we will in general put some more focus into increasing the amount and variation of articles.

Email system

At the office, you will be able to receive mails (and in the future possibly send them too). This allows for the possibility of making various events happen, where your response will affect the outcome, and impact the game.

The eternal bug hunt

We will also focus on taking down them bugs, and will as always need your help in discovering them. ------------------------------------- So that is what we have come up with for now. Our aim is to finish this patch within a couple of weeks. There might be time for adding more than the above within this period, but that will be decided later on. So stay tuned, and happy retailing :-)

[ 2019-06-13 17:27:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

Finally, it's out steamhappy First of all, a GREAT thanks to all of you who are playing our game. We have been very overwhelmed of the interest it has received. The amount of playtime we see is more than what we could have hoped for. We also received the attention of several youtubers playing our game with, these 3 creating rougly 2 million views combined. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW2btbC-oro&t=11s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSelrrOMs1g&t=7s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3iBeWsoGjU&t=9s But after a long developing period to this patch has finally come to an end. We have managed to put a lot into it, including accomodating a few community requests. We are sorry we passed the promised deadline for all of you waiting for the update. We hope you can forgive us :-)

So what did it end up with?

City changes

As mentioned earlier, the way the city functions has changed. Customers are divided into segments, each having distinct traits. So you now also need to gain reputation with these segments, along with reputation for the categories that you sell.

Staff updates

As mentioned a big part was building talent trees for your staff. This means staff develop in the way you desire for them. They might be experienced in a role upon hiring, bringing additional bonuses to that task. They might be inexperienced in others meaning negative actions might occur while learning that part. Some they can not even perform before having taken the appropriate course to learn. Although not changed dramatically, a few changes has been made to the interviewing part to accomodate these changes, and in preparation for future features.

Customer interactions

There was a lot of feedback coming from you, indication the desire for a change to the way of interacting with customers. So we prioritized this. Instead of being a hit or miss system, you can now interact with the customers in a more direct way. Try to boost a need, or create a desire for a specific article. Quickly jump from customer to customer in a busy hour and help them all a bit, or spend your time with one, trying to build up the big sale. You decide completely. In the dull hours, you can stand outside, and pull in some of the pedestrians walking by the store.

Magazine designer

At the office it is now possible to create advertisment spreads to feature in the city's magazines. Select the magazine, the size, the featured ads and publish it. It will provide a boost to your reputation, along with a boost to certain customer segments walking by your store.

Forum posts

You can also build reputation by creating posts at the community forums. Choose the parameters of the post, and watch it gain momentum with views and comments. This feature is still in the early stages, as we would like to gain inputs from you on how to proceed with this feature. So it will be improved upon in the future.

Others

A lot of bugs has been fixed (and others most likely arrived). The time of performing various actions has been adjusted, along with customer waiting times. Customers are now a bit more expressive during their shopping experience. While we have had no focus on adding graphics content, the main menu world have been changed along with other minor graphical changes.

Saves

Due to the previous setup your saves will be deleted from the game. We are sorry for this inconvenience of losing all of your magnificent store out there, however we have been cought a bit off guard on managins several versions (As this is our first game, we are still learning a lot all the time). We will try and restructure things in the future to accomodate different version compatibility, but will not yet promise that it won't happen again in the future, due to this restructuring. We know it sucks, but we might as well be up front about it.

What's next

More content

Since the majority of the feedback requested more items, we will spend a fair amount of time from now on adding more content into the game. This means, among other things, that we will focus on adding more articles, more inventory, more categories, more career mode possibilities, and more of other forms content we can create.

Shorter development periods

Due to the duration of this patch, the next couple of patches will be aimed to have a considerably shorter development time. So along with the adding content, we will try not to make so many big implementations at the same time.

Feedback is VERY welcome

Due to the changes of this patch, there are bound to be bugs we have missed. We are also, as always, interested in your opinions, ideas, experiences and cool stories you might have regarding the game. We are interested to know if there are any balancing issues, so we can get it adjusted. So please, PLEASE, feel free to let us know about it. We encourage you to use the discussion board here on Steam as we regularly check in to see what you have written, and are very interested to talk about what direction the game should take.

Roadmap

As of now we have not decided 100 % on what the next patch should contain, other than the addition of content. So regarding the topic above, you can have a great influence on what will come next. We off course have a million ideas on things we want to do, so our task is to organize the next part of the development. And with that, we will try to make a road map, so all of you can see what our thought on the game is, and what you might expect in the future. That escalated to a lot of reading steamhappy We hope you enjoy the new additions, and again we are very interested in antyhing you might have to say about them. Kind regards The King of Retail dev team.

[ 2019-06-09 16:31:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

Time for a little update again :-) We are close to finishing the content of this update, and will begin bugfixing and balancing. But what have we been up to?

The population]

The city demographics has changed. So from being a city made of two values (wealth, and fashion sense) it now consist of various population groups, each with their own desires. Each segment have their own population and shopping patterns, so changing your opening hours might change the type of customers that enters the store. This also mean that you will need to gain reputation with each segment.

Customer interaction

Speaking of customers. A lot of feedback have indicated the desire for a new customer interaction system. So we have made just that. Increase a customers need for a specific category, or try to create a desire for a certain article. Play the long game and spend a lot of time with one customer who then might go shopping crazy, or try and reach them all and increase the overall average sale. If the store is completely empty, it is now also possible to go outside the store to try and convince people passing by to enter.

Staff talents

Away with the skills and in with talents. Your staff now need to learn how to perform various tasks. At first they are unsecure and make errors at new tasks, but will in time be very proficient and have special perks to their jobs. However they will ned to attend a course from time to time to unlock their true potential. So ask the right questions at the interview, or you might the the wrong employee, as they will not be able to perform all tasks from day one.

Marketing

Since there are a lot more reputation to uncover, you need some tools to do that. But fear not, the marketing functions has expanded. In the store, it is now possible to make forum posts at your computer. Target an audience, make some posts, and watch them grow with views and comments, as they generate reputation.

In your office you can plan out bigger campaigns with the catalogue designer. Select the size, the magazine, drag your desired ads onto the pages and customize your campaign to your needs. Attract more customers, increase the desire for categories, or become more known at a certain segment. Do one or do them all, the choice is yours.
So this is what you can expect in the next update, and we hope that it will be well received. And as always feedback as very welcome. Take care steamhappy

[ 2019-05-19 18:27:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

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 -

[ 2019-04-23 22:11:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

Fellow retailers, It's been a little more than a week since King of Retail launched on Early Access and what a week it was! We are overwhelmed by your interest, engagement and support for our game and we wish to thank you all. Your posts on the discussion boards and feedback from the in-game menu has helped us greatly in catching bugs and given us plenty of ideas for future content. It has definitely sparked our motivation to improve the game even further! We would also like to thank the YouTuber GrayStillPlays for making a very entertaining video about King of Retail and if you haven't seen his video/channel yet we can't recommend it enough! Now onto the patch contents! We decided to collect your very helpful bug reports/feedback and weed out all the bugs we could this week. So here's a change list:

v0.3.1 changes

• All audio settings will now be saved/loaded between game sessions
• Added separate channels for Ambience and Door Bell sounds in the Audio Settings
• Fixed the sound played when you win a level in career mode to be part of the Sound Effects group so it no longer causes increased heart rate and your ears to bleed
• The mailman will no longer get stuck and review his life choices while delivering articles
• Fixed an issue where the career offers would get duplicated in the main menu
• The career level where you have to break even in 5 days will now show a prompt when you fail the contract, despite the realism being stuck in a failing business
• AI's will no longer get stuck (behind the scenes) after spawning and affecting performance
• When loading a game the jukebox will now start playing again
• Reworked the animation system for characters and added new animations #CantHaveEnoughAnimations
• Added some new hair styles and face types
• Fixed an issue with the registers and staff not being able to access them due to lacking space between the wall and the register
• Staff can no longer use "the force" to interact with objects that are being moved by the manager
• The game will no longer implode on itself when adding/removing articles from a display simultaneously
• Inventory packed in boxes will no longer deduct funds when moving/placing the box
• Fixed a glitch in the matrix where the marketing PC would sometimes spawn inside a wall
• Added the marketing PC to the "Getting Started" checklist when starting a new store
• Unemployment rate suddenly spiked: Job applications will now always appear in your office
• You can no longer negotiate with multiple people at the same time
• While in your office, pressing ESC will now zoom out of any interaction
• Fixed a visual bug where only half the screen would be blurry when pausing a game (opening Settings menu)
• Pallets now require a larger space around them to be placed to avoid navigation for AI's to be blocked (might affect existing save games, but will fix itself when placed again)
• Fixed some of our broken English throughout the game ;)

Thank you all for helping us track down most of these bugs! As for the future we will begin focusing on adding three new mechanics to the game namely a talent tree for you staff, replacing the customer interaction system with a new and improved design and adding new ways to do marketing for you stores. When we are a bit further in our design of these we might show and tell a bit ;) Don't forget to visit our Facebook Page for announcements, competitions and more! We wish you all a great weekend and good luck in your sales! -The dev team

[ 2019-04-04 20:30:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

If you would like to follow the development more actively, or even influence the direction of the game you can join our Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/kingofretail/ There you can read info about features under development, get your say on future ones, or even get content decided by you personally into the game. This, along with a competiton once in a while. We hope you will join steamhappy Cheers Emir, Mathias & Daniel

[ 2019-03-30 08:45:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear retailers, we are very excited and happy to announce that King of Retail is now officially out on Early Access! First and foremost we would like to extend thanks to all of our beta-testers, your testing and feedback has helped tremendously in catching those pesky bugs and we hope you will lend us your continued support going forward. With that said we are very interested in your thoughts and ideas about the game. Are you ready to start as a brand new manager and challenge yourself by completing various contracts in the career mode? Or perhaps you are more into being your own boss and set your own goals in the entrepreneur mode? Feel free to share your thoughts on the King of Retail Community Hub or from the in-game feature, we'll be sure to check in and listen! As for the future we are already in the process of designing and developing the next features for the game and we would like to give you a heads up on what that is:

Talent tree for you manager

Becoming the next King of Retail is not a simple task but instead a long and challening process. There are a lot of different aspects in retail: handling sales, ordering stock and managing staff to name a few. And no matter how good you are you can not become the ultimate expert in each aspect. We would like to introduce a talent tree for the manager where you, as a player, will have the ability to choose which aspects you'd like to pursue and become an expert in.

No marketing, no profit!

Building and setting up a store is no small task but all your efforts might go to waste if no one even knows you exist. That is why marketing is vital for success! We'd like to expand on the current marketing aspect in the game with more ways to build up your reputation and get those customers inside the store. But marketing can come in many forms, such as online campaigns, catalogues, ads or even shouting at pedestrians on the street! We are currently working out which methods would fit the game best so more on this later.

Customer interaction

The current implementation of how you interact with the customers when they ask for help is admittely a mechanic from the game's early days and we feel this needs a rework! Interacting with customers is your chance as a manager to directly affect the sales. As with much in retail, this comes with a risk! Being too pushy might end in the customer being annoyed and leave your store without making a purchase. But with the right pitch and sweet talk you could convince the customer to buy more than intended, earning you a boost in sales! We would like to capture this risk-reward aspect into to a simple interaction where you would make a choice: Do I take the safe route to guarantee a sale or do I push extra hard to influence the customer in spending more money than intended? There is still a long road ahead of us and we hope the three points above help steer the game in the right direction. Again we are very eager to hear what you think about King of Retail, be it good or bad we will take both into consideration! We wish you luck on your way to becoming the next King of Retail! -The King of Retail dev team

[ 2019-03-26 13:40:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

King of Retail is here with a new content patch v0.3.0!

We've been working hard to bring you this patch which will be the version to be released on Early Access as soon as possible! Here's a list of the most important changes: - New game mode - Career! Managers can now begin their career in retail with this new game mode! The career is laid out as various contracts that present different scenarios/challenges in the retail world. Each manager you create now has his/her own resume that will be filled as contracts are accepted and completed giving the player an overview of the progress made. - Articles rework! How all articles are presented in the game has been reworked. Instead of articles having variations in the form of different colors, each variant is now its very own article. This saves the player a lot of clicks in menus when playing the game and gives a better overview of all the articles in general. In addition new articles have also been added to game. - Marketing! It's now possible to buy and place a new computer for your staff room in the store! Here you can do marketing research slowly increasing the reputation of your store ultimately attracting more and more customers. You can also have your staff do this research while you buzz around doing important manager business! - Overall updates, balancing and bug fixes! In general some older systems/mechanics have been updated/optimized to make the game perform better overall and ease development in the future. Some menus has also been given an overhaul and lots of bugs have been squashed! This version is planned to be released on Early Access very soon so stay tuned for more information! - The King of Retail team

[ 2019-03-10 17:08:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

A lot of work has gone into the game since v. 0.1 was released in the late summer. These are some of the changes:

- Staff This includes a hiring process and scheduling of work hours and breaks. They also have a basic Energy/Mood system, that influences them in both long and short term. Their AI allows them to perfrom all tasks in store, so you no longer have to do everything by yourself. - Manager's Office Instead of a screen with basic functionalities, you retreat to your office at the end of the day. Here you can perform a lot of various tasks. - Save / Load Functionality So you actually don't have to start over every time. - Graphics packs. The city has been upgraded. New character models and animations. More inventory models, which can be designed with different materials. Few more walls, floors & articles. - InGame report system. So you can report errors, ideas and thoughts directly in game. - Various UI changes and improvements. And lots and lots of bugs.

We also have a new homepage, so if you wish to become a beta tester, visit: kingofretail.com or join the facebook page. Also, in the future, we will bring updates much more frequently for testers to enjoy.

Thank you for taking interest in the game.

[ 2019-01-21 20:52:49 CET ] [ Original post ]