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 ]