Mall Craze News

[h3]Hello everyone! 👋[/h3]
The first major update to Mall Craze is here!
And it brings long awaited Management and Economy into the game!

If you've been following the game's development since Early Access release (or longer), you know that the initial release was lacking some fundamental features. The feedback was unanimous - the game needs Management!

[h3]Lots of changes and additions[/h3]
This being a major update, there is naturally a lot to go through. The 0.2.0 update is roughly 4-6x the size of a regular 0.1.x update (at least based on the number of Patch Notes list).

Let's start with the most important news:


The main addition to the game is money, and everything then revolves around it - construction costs, product prices, cashier salaries, finances overviews, marketing, bank loans and so on..

[h2]Finances Overview Tab 💵[/h2]

There are multiple new UI windows that are related to mall and shops management. The first one of them is the Finances Overview tab that can be found both in Mall Management and Shop Management windows. The overview shows the most important data that you need to analyze the current situation of your mall or a specific shop. It contains various bar and line charts for a specified overview period. The charts in this tab are interactive, and display additional information when you hover over a specific data point.

[h2]Products Overview Tab 🛒[/h2]

No longer are products just a nice decoration. Customers are now shopping inside your stores. Products Overview tab is here to see which products are they buying, how much they cost, and how much revenue they generated. You can also edit their pricing here.


[h2]Marketing Campaigns 📣[/h2]

You can now run a mall-wide marketing campaigns. There are many different campaign types, so you can choose carefully based on your current financial situation. The longer your campaign is running, the less it can cost per month, but here's the catch - you can only run a couple of campaigns at once, so choose wisely! Marketing campaigns can be found inside Mall Management window.

[h2]Bank Loans 💸[/h2]

Are you running low on cash? Need a small boost to be able to afford a new shop construction? You can take a bank loan! Similarly to Marketing Campaigns, you can only have a specific number of active bank loans at once. Experiment with the loan amount and loan duration to get a better yearly interest rate - you don't want to overpay a fortune!

[h2]Mall & Shop Dashboard[/h2]

The dashboard were updated to also show the new financial informations. The overview is divided into 2 sections - Revenue & Expenses.

[h2]Shops Overview[/h2]

Same as the dashboard, the shops overview tab inside the Mall Management window has seen an update with the new financial informations.


[h2]Cashiers[/h2]

Cashiers now have Experience and a monthly salary, which is directly linked to their Experience. The less experienced workers will be cheaper to employ, but they will also be slower behind the cash register, so make sure to balance things out! You get new job applications at the start of each month. You can also pay a small fee to get new applications during the month.

[h2]Customers[/h2]

An AI improvements were made to customers. No longer are they just wandering around your mall. When a shop meets all the conditions, customers will start visiting it. What are these conditions?

• Shop has to be open.
  
• Shop needs at least one hired cashier.
  
• Shop must have at least one sellable product in it.
  

Throughout all the screenshots above, you could see a new UI design. It is not a completely new directing, rather it's an iterative improvement over the old design. This change was made for better clarity and readability, as the UI is no longer filled with various border lines.

The main changes and improvements are:

• Overall redesign with less border lines and smaller round corners.
  
• Window tab menus now having text as well, instead of only having icons.
  
• Header text in some windows is now displaying dynamic information.
  
• New animations.
  
• Windows become transparent during window drag.
  

[h3]Shops[/h3]
Shops can now be closed and opened. When a shop is closed, no salary is paid to cashiers, as they aren't present in the shop during that time.

[h3]VRAM Indicator[/h3]
To better estimate your graphics card capabilities, VRAM usage indicator has been added in the graphical settings.


[h3]Build Pop-Up & delete particles[/h3]



The development of the game continues with a regular 0.2.X updates - the same ways as with 0.1.X updates. The main focus of 0.2.X updates will be new content (more of everything) and additional management improvements. These updates will once again become more regular, as they will be smaller in size, with another major update being 0.3.0 (but I'm getting ahead of myself).

This update was in the oven for over 2 months, and I'm super excited to finally release it now!

Thank you everyone for your support, and I will se you in the next update!
- Milan, developer



[h2]Additions & Improvements[/h2]

• Shops can now be closed and re-opened (salaries are not paid and cashiers are not present when shop is closed).
  
• Customer AI
  • Customers don't go inside shops that are closed, without products, or without cashiers.
    
  • Customers are now buying products.
    
• Cashiers
  • Monthly salary and Experience added.
    
  • Cashier's speed and salary is determined by Experience.
    
  • New job applications are generated at the start of each month.
    
  • Fee can also be paid to generate new applications during the month.
    
  • Sound added to cashier register after payment.
    
• User Interface (general)
  • New build cost pop-up UI added for building and recycling objects.
    
  • UI style remake for better clarity and readability (windows, buttons, borders, ...)
    
  • Animations added to UI windows and other elements.
    
  • Main tabs inside windows now also have text instead of only icons (Mall Management, Shop Dashboard, Product Details, Settings, Tutorial)
    
  • Header text at the top of UI windows is now displaying dynamic information.
    
  • VRAM usage indicator added inside graphics settings UI.
    
• Mall Management
  • Dashboard - Profit previous month added.
    
  • Dashboard - Total Revenue and Expenses for previous month added.
    
  • Dashboard - Revenue and Expenses items broken down for previous month.
    
  • Finances tab and Overview & Marketing & Loans subtabs added.
    
  • Finances overview period added (1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 3 years, all time).
    
  • Finances Overview subtab additions
    
    • Actual Balance.
      
    • Balance history bar chart.
      
    • Revenue vs Expenses line chart.
      
    • Best & Worst profitable shop.
      
    • Shops sorted by Revenue and Expenses.
      
    • Revenue over time bar charts (Total, Product Sales, Recycling, Other)
      
    • Expenses over time bar charts (Total, Cashier Salaries, Construction, Running Costs, Other)
      
  • Finances Marketing subtab additions
    
    • New campaign creation.
      
    • Active campaigns.
      
    • Campaign history.
      
  • Finances Loans subtab additions
    
    • New loan creation.
      
    • Active loans.
      
    • Loan history.
      
• Shop Management
  • Dashboard - Profit previous month added.
    
  • Dashboard - Total Revenue and Expenses for previous month added.
    
  • Dashboard - Revenue and Expenses items broken down for previous month.
    
  • Finances tab and Overview & Products subtabs added.
    
  • Finances overview period added (1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 3 years, all time).
    
  • Finances Overview subtab additions
    
    • Profit during selected time.
      
    • Profit history bar chart.
      
    • Revenue vs Expenses line chart.
      
    • Best selling product by Revenue.
      
    • Best selling product by Units.
      
    • Products by Revenue and Units.
      
    • Revenue over time bar charts (Total, Product Sales)
      
    • Expenses over time bar charts (Total, Cashier Salaries, Running Costs, Other)
      
  • Finances Products subtab additions
    
    • Product sales for selected period.
      
    • Sales history for Revenue bar chart.
      
    • Sales history for Units bar chart.
      
    • Product overview and details.
      
• Running costs for mall and shops added.
  
• Money and economy added into the game.
  
• Product pricing can now be adjusted.
  
• Marketing Campaigns added
  • Types: Social Media Posts, PPC Ads, Magazine Page, Advertizing Banners, Billboards, Influencer Campaign, TV Spot)
    
  • Total and monthly payments calculated based on campaign type and duration.
    
• Bank Loans added
  • Total payment, monthly payments and yearly interest rate calculated based on loan amount and loan duration.
    
  • Dust particles added while deleting or bulldozing objects.
    

[h2]Small Changes[/h2]

• User Interface
  • Windows now become transparent during window drag.
    
  • Main UI - Construction buttons (Mall, Shops) switched to better reflect desired build order (1. build mall, 2. build shops).
    
  • Main UI - Shops icon changed.
    
  • Mall Management UI - Shops lists improved. Customers list changed.
    
  • Product Details icon changed.
    
  • Product Construction icon changed.
    
  • Hover effect added to Staff Hire Card.
    
  • Hover and Pressed sounds added to Combo Boxes.
    
• Pre-made malls now have starting cash.
  
• Staff Hire window is now opened right after finishing new shop construction.
  
• Graphical settings
  • Turning On Lumen Reflections also switches Global Illumination to Lumen.
    
  • Turning Off Lumen GI switches Off Lumen Reflections as well.
    
  • Small rendering improvements for Volumetric Fog, TSR, Reflections & Lumen.
    
• Collision boxes
  • Collisions improved for Windows and Electro Scooter.
    
  • Objects and Products can now be placed closer to Windows.
    
• Spelling corrections for various objects and texts throughout the game.
  
• Tutorial updated to reflect new gameplay and UI additions.
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed: Save files getting corrupted when shop or mall name includes an apostrophe.
  
• Fixed: Shadow glitch on translucent materials for Virtual Shadows.
  
• Fixed: Customers walking behind cashier tables and standing next to cashiers.
  
• Fixed: Music still playing in Main Menu for a split second when master volume is set to 0.
  

Hello everyone!

It's now been over a month since the last update, and I thought it would be a good idea to take a quick look at what's coming next to Mall Craze!

The previous updates (0.1.1 - 0.1.4) were all focused mainly on bringing the management into the game, but they never fully did. They served mostly as a foudation to the management, hence their names (Management Foundations). There won't be any update 0.1.5, because over the last couple of weeks, I've been working on the update 0.2.0, which will be the first update that will truly introduce the management and economy into the game!

[h3]Small preview #1 - Finances tab, UI improvements[/h3]


[h3]Small preview #2 - Build cost tooltip, delete particles[/h3]


This is only a fraction of what's coming next. Overall, the 0.2.0 will be roughly 3 - 4x the size of the regular 0.1.X update. Besides these 2 small previews, there are many more finance-oriented features and improvements coming (some of which you can also see in the first picture), customer AI improvements, UI improvements, and more.

[h2]When is 0.2.0 coming? 👀[/h2]
The other reason for this preview is that I don't currently have a release date for this first major update. That being said, I'm already in the second half of this development period, and I'm aiming at releasing it this month.

Until then, Thank You all for your support, and I'll see you in the next chapter of Mall Craze Early Access!
- Milan, developer

[h2]Update 2 days after the original post: 🔧[/h2]
Based on the initial batch of crash reports, there are some crashes happening when launching the game, and random periodical crashes happening randomly. Based on the reports, these crashes are related to graphics card drivers. I'm sorry if this is happening to you. There is a possible solution - Mall Craze is developed on Unreal Engine version that has been released in May 2023. If your graphics card drivers are from around this time or older, there is a chance that you will experience these issues.

In that case, what you can do is update your graphics card drivers. It may not be a 100% solution, but it already helped a few people launch the game. Please follow the official instructions from your graphics card manufacturer (AMD, NVIDIA, Intel).

[h2]Original Text[/h2]

[h3]Hello everyone! 👋[/h3]

Today I bring U another batch of updates and changes. Are U ready? Let's dive into it!



Now, why the weird talk and the use of "U"? If you've played Mall Craze, the you're probably pretty familiar with this keybinding. So far, if you wanted to have customers in your mall, you had no other option but to spawn them by constantly pressing the U key. This was only a temporal solution (and not a particularly great one), which at least allowed you to bring some life into the mall.
Not anymore!

Customers are now arriving and leaving on their own!



[h2]Customer Behavior[/h2]

And that is not the only improvement to customers. The behavior has also been updated, and customers now better understand your mall. Up until now, their movement wasn't very sophisticated, and even though it made the mall more occupied, there weren't many people in the actual shops.
(the movement was literally random, making the chance that they will pick a spot inside a shop small).

Customers now spend more time inside shops, and they're also actually looking at the products. The new implementation still has a lot of room for improvement, but the overall flow is now more natural.

OLD behavior - customers roaming randomly:



NEW behavior - customers looking at products:



[h2]Improved character navigation[/h2]

By design, there aren't currently any collisions enabled for objects during building. This allows for huge possibilities of object combinations and creative arrangements, but also puts a lot of responsibility on the player. I've adjusted the navigation mesh properties to make sure that even tight passages and areas are more likely to be reachable. I then improved collisions for some objects to decrease the occurance of customers stepping on them (mainly benches, fountains, and other short objects).

Customer are still happy to sometimes get stuck inside objects and on the grass, so they're currently not being saved. Once these issues are dealt with and once there is an economy, saving of customers will work as expected.





If you would think of a list of objects that represent malls better than other, escalators would probably be pretty high up on that list. Because escalators are closely related to pathfinding and navigation, I've decided to take a closer look at them. There are now 2 escalator variants in the game - 1 floor and 2 floor. Both can be customized as any other object in the game, and you can also change their direction.

(there is a small shadow and reflection flickering that is introduced with TSR and Lumen reflections - I will look at it more in the future)





Hopefully, this update marks the beginning of more crash fixes. I've written a small teaser in the previous update and today, the Crash Reporter is now in the game! Well, technically, it's not IN the game, rather it is AFTER the game. Crash Reporter should now appear whenever Mall Craze crashes.
The sending of the report is not automatic, and it still requires you to press the "Send to Mall Craze Developer" button. No more emailing of the crash files is needed :)
You can still look at the reports yourself by clicking at the link in the reporter.



Thank You All for your support, and I will see you in the next update!
- Milan, developer



[h2]Additions & Improvements[/h2]

• Customers are now arriving and leaving on their own.
  
• Customer behavior improved: customers are now actually looking at products.
  
• Customer behavior improved: customers now spend more time inside shops.
  
• Escalators added: 1 & 2 floor variants. Escalators can change directions.
  
• Navigation mesh improved, allowing customers to better navigate in tight areas.
  
• Collisions for navigation improved for these objects:
  (palm tree, grass, 2 flowers, 2 fountains, 2 pavement sides, 2 benches, 3 mannequin products).
  
• Crash Reporter Added.
  

[h2]Small Changes[/h2]

• "U" keybind to manually spawn customers removed.
  
• Static road with sidewalks added into the map.
  
• Starting camera position adjusted to show road.
  
• Directional indirect lighting slightly adjusted.
  
• Customers now also have opacity animation when arriving and leaving.
  
• Tutorial UI changes: Customers text updated.
  
• Tutorial UI changes: Buttons that are meant to be static are now static (no hover or sounds);
  
• 80's Dream: map slightly updated to make room for road.
  
• Sunny Skies: map updated to connect mall with the road.
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed: Game crashes when loading large save files (multiple-floor malls covering almost the entire map).
  
• Fixed: When moving object with Free Build, the next move operation has Free Build ON as well.
  
• Fixed: Moving objects down from upper floor makes them invisible.
  
• Fixed: Ground floor walls are sometimes not selectable after game load.
  

Hello everyone!

It is time for another Management Foundations update! And this time, it is all about the time!
Quite literally.



[h2]Time & Dynamic Time of Day[/h2]
Before this update, there was no time passing by in the game. As simple as it is, time is an important part of the whole management side of game. Without it, it would be impossible to generate monthly reports or pay your staff salaries on a consistent schedule. That's why I've decided to implement it into the game now, before I further develop other areas of the management.



With time now passing by, the natural addition to that would be to visually represent this.
It was already possible to manually change the sun position and other environment settings, and now,
there is a new Dynamic Time of Day option, which can be turned on or off in the graphical settings. To keep things simple, each in-game month is represented by one day cycle.



[h2]Improved Tutorial structuring[/h2]
To improve the Tutorial, I've made some structural changes. The overall presentation hasn't changed yet, but no longer is it a long list of pages, where you had to guess if Material Designer was explained on the page 10 or 17.

The window is now categorized into menus and submenus, which are much easier to navigate, and it's easier to find a piece of information that you're looking for.



Still, it is not a perfect solution, but there was a need for some change.

[h2]Coming up next time[/h2]
A significant portion of the work on this update was spent an a thing that isn't actually in there - better crash reporting system.

The current manual "email a file found in a hard-to-reach folder" way of reporting crashes is only temporary, and far from being a good long-term solution. The new system is ready for the most part, but there are still some things that need a bit of work.
Once the new system is in place, it will be much easier to send the crash report, and I will be able to truly tackle the crashes.



Until then, Thank You All for your support, and I will see you in the next update!
- Milan, developer



[h2]Additions & Improvements[/h2]

• Time added into the game.
  
• Dynamic Time of Day added.
  
• Improved Tutorial structuring - new menus and submenus.
  
• Lumen Global Illumination visuals slightly improved.
  

[h2]Small Changes[/h2]

• Add Area and Remove Area now has emissive materials to be better visible at night.
  
• "Low" option for Shadows added.
  
• Text component explanation added into Tutorial.
  
• Staff hiring and firing explanation added into Tutorial.
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed: Keyboard camera rotation not properly working on QWERTY layout (Z key)
  
• Fixed: Settings window tab buttons not visually toggling
  

Hello everyone!

The second piece to the Management Foundations puzzle is here!
This update builds upon the previous one.

I didn't mention it in the last update, but you may've noticed that the Shop Dashboard UI already had 2 tabs - the Dashboard itself, and a placeholder Staff tab mentioning that cashiers are coming in update 0.1.2.

[h3]And they are![/h3]

[h2]Hire Cashiers[/h2]
The biggest new addition to the game are cashiers that you can now hire (and fire).
Once the economy is added into the game (we're getting closer), more stats and attributes will be added to cashiers as well.



A lot of invisible work has been done in the background.
Objects (currently cashier tables) can now have multiple "Activity Slots", that in the future will be used for stuff like people sitting on benches, waiting in queues, or customers interacting with products.

[h2]Significant Drag Build Performance Optimizations[/h2]
A lot of reports mentioned poor drag build performance, where things would start to lag a lot once you wanted to build a larger area.
This issue was present for everyone, regardless of computer performance (myself included).
The exact numbers will vary for everyone, but on my PC, I was able to achieve a 16x decrease when making adjustments to the build area of roughly 50x50 (1 seconds -> 0.06 seconds)



[h2]Camera Rotation Keybinds[/h2]
Besides Middle Mouse Button, it is now also possible to rotate the camera with QEYX buttons (QE for side to side, YX for up and down). These controls can become useful when playing with touchpad.





[h2]Additions & Improvements[/h2]

• Cashiers can now be hired and fired.
  
• Staff Info & Staff Hire tabs added into Shop Dashboard Window.
  
• Mall Management Dashboard: overall staff number added.
  
• Significant grid build performance optimizations.
  
• Camera rotation keybindings added to QEYX.
  

[h2]Small Changes[/h2]

• Cashier Tables can now only be deleted when there are no cashiers behind them.
  
• Graphical settings: changes were made to "Lumen Low" option to decrease flickering.
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed: Mall Management and Shop Management tab buttons not visually toggling
  

Until next update, Thank You for your support, and take care!
- Milan, developer