Blooming Business: Casino News

Hello Owners!

It is us again, with a new post on our recent development progress! After the huge last update and the thrills of our past playtest, we took a breath and came back with a smaller one. But smaller doesn’t mean it isn’t exciting, far from it. We actually added a whole new level! And color variations on decoration items!

In past playtests, we experimented and presented different types of levels (“the Med”, Sandbox,…), to gather your feedback on our first iterations on what could be our game modes. This time, we worked on a new type of level.

[h2]A whole new level[/h2]


We also previously introduced one of our VIP Nat Kiddin, Las Venas’ own Deputy Sheriff. And this time, she needs your help! In this new level, she will entrust you with a capital mission: placing some undercover agents in your casino, in order to spy on the mobsters that famously visit your casino.
But your ol’ friend Tony might not be happy about that... Will you tip him off? The choice is up to you.

Apart from this unique mission, this level is also full of challenges to make your business thrive.

Would you like to try? Don’t forget you can register as a playtester using our form. We may organize tests later on during the summer.

[h2]Color variations[/h2]


You love all our decorative items (and who in their right mind wouldn't ?) but you always thought to yourself “if only I could have it in green, it would match SO WELL my vibe!”? Then consider your prayers answered.

We added new colors for almost every decoration item AND for some walls & floors as well!
You want to build a casino full of blue or green items? We got you covered.



With this new feature, we are certain we will unlock your inner artist!

[h2]Client types & VIP families[/h2]
Our client UI got a makeover! With this new UI, we show how client types and VIPs are articulated between them. This menu showcases which type of visitors you can attract and how to satisfy them. It should be a lot clearer as well as prettier.



[h2]Bugfix:[/h2]

• VIP will not leave your casino without reasons (on some occasions, they may have been stubborn and did not want to enter)
  
• Items cannot be placed outside their designated area
  
• Fixed some issues with areas when loading a save
  
• Added a confirmation pop up when selling an area
  
• Fixed some issues where the “client footstep” icon would appear in place of the “employees footstep” icon
  
• Fixed some missing texts
  
• Fixed some issues with the catalog filters
  
• Fixed issue where some items and FX could be visible from another floor
  
• Added area borders
  

And that’s all for this update. As always, do not hesitate to share your thoughts and questions as we make progress to the development of Blooming Business: Casino. We want to share with you how we progress and are always keen for feedback!

Don’t forget you can join our Discord to chat with the dev team!

The Homo Ludens team.

Hello Owners!

You might feel like it is the theme of one out of every two updates (and maybe you’re right), but the areas’ designer tool got a do-over, and we strongly believe (and hope) this will be the last of them. It has come a long way since the Tetris pieces, and we hope that you’ll like it as much as we do. Your feedback in previous playtests was instrumental in improving this key feature.

And for more fresh news, we added a whole new underground floor! This new basement will be yours and your employees’ headquarters, where all the important stuff happens.



Third (or fourth, who’s counting anyway ?) iteration on areas!

If you’ve been following us since the start, you might remember when we first put areas in-game. They were actually advertised in our very first dev update, under those words:
“Constraints boost creativity which is why we added two new area types, for bars and restrooms. By giving you a frame in which to fashion your games, it will help guide your building while allowing you to better manage your casino.”
They went from random “Tetris” like pieces to squares, to a drawer tool, to what you’re seeing today. What a journey for our little areas, kids grow so fast!

Minimalist HUD
Building HUD has been streamlined into 3 slick buttons.

• Create areas: under this menu, you’ll find all areas.
  
• Store: under it, you’ll find every item you can buy in-game.
  
• Build: this is the place to go for walls & floors.
  

Improved catalog
The overall look of the catalog has been reworked. You’ll also find some new sorting and filters options.

Areas ready to go
When building an area you’ll get easy access to its specific items. You can take all the time you need to build the perfect area, and finalize the creation only when you’re happy with it.

Areas sizing
Sizing and resizing areas have been quite a hassle in the past. With the new tool, you can quickly expand your areas with the side arrows, or be more diligent and give it the exact shape you want with the “segment” feature.

DOORS
You’ve been heard! YES, YOU ARE NOW ABLE TO PLACE DOORS AS YOU PLEASE! Game devs often joke about doors, but they truly are challenging. It took us a while, but we finally did it and we are as relieved as you to finally be able to place them as we want without resorting to tricks and bug exploits.



Basement

Welcome to your new headquarters! In your basement of course, as any self-respecting billionaire would do. A whole floor for you and your employees to manage your business as you please, out of sight.

Employees areas
All employees' restricted areas will be moved to your basement, as well as the warehouse. This is where employees take their break and have their locker from now on.

Vault area
With all this cash going on, you needed to have your own super-secure vault, one cannot trust bankers amiright ?
We added a vault area in the basement, the perfect place for you to store your precious money, and for your Clerks to do their job. Clerks love money, they’re magpies, after all.

Cash & chips
As you may know, in a casino, clients don’t use actual cash to pay for things, if they did they might actually notice how expensive everything is and probably stop right away. They use chips instead.
How does it work?

• When entering the casino, clients cash in, changing their bills against shiny chips. Then they use those chips for all their transactions into the casino and change back when leaving (usually for a lot less than they had when entering).
  
• But the casino only has a limited amount of chips, and if running out you won’t be able to welcome any more clients.
  
• That’s where the Clerks come in! Those little magpies will retrieve chips all around the casino, and after counting them, bring them back to the cash register.
  
• They also get the cash stocked in the cash register and carefully count it before safely storing it in the vault, where you can grab some for more investment in your casino.
  

Clerk

We just talked about this new employee taking care of the vault, you can here admire the magnificence of the magpie!


Bugfix:

• Fixed animations issue where Nat Kiddin T posed during transitions
  
• Fixed an issue where Nat Kiddin would not exchange her money for chips when entering
  
• VIPs can no longer enter the casino when it’s closed
  
• Th cleaning frequency of restrooms is now correctly saved after being changed
  
• Fixed some missing localizations
  
• Fixed some issues where mural objects would overlap
  
• Fixed some issues with broken scroll bar in UI panels
  
• Items spawning sound is no longer played twice
  
• Added a missing panel on breakroom area
  
• Fixed a display issue on the in game news pop up
  
• Added a driver to the restock truck
  
• Fixed some issues where items on the second floor where visible in the ground floor
  
• Selling an item near a wall no longer sell the wall woith it
  
• Fixed some items that were clipping through walls
  
• Fixed issue with client types spawn conditions whe the text did not match the actual behavior
  
• Fixed saved game whith VIPs in it
  
• Fixed issues where VIP will immediately leave befaire entering the casino
  
• Fixed a bug where keyboard command (camera, timer) would still be active when typing inside a textbox
  
• Fixed some issue with story events where the tooltip would not match the actual behavior
  
• Fixed some animations issues on bartender
  
• Fixed some performance issues
  

And that’s all for this update. As always, do not hesitate to share your thoughts and questions as we make progress to the development of Blooming Business: Casino. We want to share with you how we progress and are always keen for feedback!

Click here to join our Discord!

The Homo Ludens team.

Hello Owners!
Here's everything that's new with the game...




VIPs grand arrival

We want you to experience personal and unique stories! This is why we are adding special characters - VIPs - to give you the opportunity to experience emerging events.

You will be able to connect with a variety of VIPs and all your choices will impact their behaviors. They have a unique set of skills (for example, Nat can catch cheaters in your casino) and are way more exigent than all the other client types! Gaining celebrity's favor could bring you fame and fortune, but you might have to grease some palms or give the mob a free pass. Is it even possible to run a casino without getting into organized crime?

Let's remind you who are our current super stars!

VIP come back : Tony (Ant’ny Barr)

• Role : Head of the Barr Family
  
• Special ability: When satisfied, throws chips to other clients in a radius around him!
  
• Background: The head of the new crime family who just "ousted" (read: murdered) the Rheeves family. Oddly enough he's not a high roller. When he's around he plays very tight, but he loves to be served by his favorites. If you don't have a staff that he approves of... expect trouble... big trouble. Broken items, maybe even a dead staff member or two... clean up in slots!
  

New VIP: Nat (Nat Kiddin)

• Role: Police Officer
  
• Special Ability: The Paw of Justice: when satisfied, she can catch cheaters red-handed anywhere on the floor.
  
• Background: Nat's moto is: “shoot first, talk later.” When it comes to law and order, she sees the world in black and white. Her itchy trigger finger gets results, which is why the Sheriff’s department keeps her on the payroll, but there’s always collateral damage, and the department has to do damage control after Hurricane Nat has come through.
  

VIP Pretty cutscene
We've also added several new VIP features! The player is now notified of the arrival of a VIP by notifications in the HUD. Clicking on the notification triggers a short cutscene that shows the arrival of the VIP in their own car.

VIP Pretty UI
At the end of the cutscene, a UI pop-up is displayed, giving more insight into the VIP background, likes & dislikes.



Bar

The bar stock management has been revised to be clearer and give more control to the player. The monthly restock was not understood well, and having all bars unavailable all at once every month was an issue.

Restock
The monthly restock was replaced by a unit restock. The player can choose a unit threshold under which the barmen will start the restock. The idea is that you can choose between fewer restock that take longer, or shorter and more frequent restocks.



Warehouse
The overall stock of the casino can now be managed from the warehouse. When restocking bars, barmen come to pick up the stock they need from the warehouse. Same as the bar stock, the warehouse stock is replenished when hitting a threshold. With a lower threshold, you restock more units at once which cost fewer thanks to wholesale pricing, but the player takes the risk of being short at some point.



Photobooth

The photo booth is a new in-game item. It was added to deepen the Rockabilly client type who loves the photo booth. It’s not area-bound, so the player can place it wherever they want. It is also a new electric item, which will be useful in the future as we plan to add some energy management.

New music

The main loop has been reworked. We also added two new music, each for one VIP that will trigger at their arrival.

Live OPs

We added several live ops features to improve your general onboarding in the game, easily informing you of everything new. We started to implement server-side features and tuning our processes.

News pop up
The new news pop-up content is fetched from our server instead of being built-in, which will allow the marketing team to customize it at will. It still needs some UI rework.

Analytics update
We updated our analytics to match the in-game content and ease the processing of data.



Bugfix:

• Re-enable the bouncer hiring in the entrance panel
  
• Add missing animations on VIP
  
• Fix some behavior issues with VIPs
  
• Fixed tooltips errors in story events
  
• Fixed some issues in the bar situation report panel
  
• Fixed issue where clients would urinate outside of the casino
  
• Fixed some awkwardest in item placement
  
• Fixed some issues with the second floor
  
• Added some missing text
  
• Fixed an issue where selling an item next to a wall would delete the wall as well
  
• Fixed some button size issues in the UI
  
• Fixed some items clipping through walls
  
• Fixed issue with keyboard commands registered while typing in a text field
  
• Fixed issue where clients would bet above their money
  
• Fixed issue where clients would not actually pay for their drinks
  

And that’s all for this update. As always, do not hesitate to share your thoughts and questions as we make progress to the development of Blooming Business: Casino. We want to share with you how we progress and are always keen for feedback!

Click here to join our Discord!

The Homo Ludens team.

Hello Owners!

For this new update, we focused on adding more personalities & characters to the game.

It’s the big comeback of our favorite bear, Ant’ny Barr! But as good (or bad?) news never comes alone, he comes with Nat Kiddin the ferocious police officer. They both might bring you a lot of money, but beware as these two could be trouble, more than you can handle.
If you were starting to be bored by miners destroying your slot with their pickaxes, the mobster threatening everyone around, and the tourist spending most of their time taking pictures rather than playing, you’ll be happy to welcome some new clients! The police officers are good clients but don’t mix well with mobsters. Choose which baseball team you’ll support, and their fans will spend in your casino. Finally, the rockabillies will bring some fun and dancing and start the party!



Welcome your newest clients!

Each client type comes with special tastes and expectations!

The Rockabilly
Welcome the slicked fur, leather jacket, and swing dresses, a new style is in town! They’re young and they want to have fun.

• They love arcade games, with all the noise and the excitement that comes with it. They love using the photo booth to take romantic pictures, fun memories, and sometimes some little pranks.
  
• They are breaking the old traditions, old fashioned is out of fashion. They go for anything sweets, soda cocktails, and milkshakes for the win.
  
• Obviously, they are huge music fans and love dancing. The more jukeboxes, the happier they are. But they have very peculiar tastes and won’t hesitate to change songs for their favorite genre, the Rockabilly.
  

The baseball fans
Baseball is big in the area. Almost everyone has a favorite team that they support wholeheartedly. Bringing baseball fans in is good for business, but you’ll have to choose a team, there is no neutrality in baseball.

• Even if they don’t play it themselves, baseball fans like to picture themselves as great athletes. They will play anything that implies some agility skills to prove themselves.
  
• Their team is everything to them, and they will expect the same from you. Try to show some support with your decorations colors and theme, it will make them happy.
  
• Used to the stadium, they might not take care of their surroundings as you’d like. Be prepared to hire a few more custodians to deal with their dirtiness.
  

The Police Officers
Where you find mobsters, you find police officers. Like anyone they just want to have a good time, but they sometimes have trouble leaving the job behind. Difficult for them to do nothing when witnessing misdemeanors around. That might get your other clients on edge.

• Police officers are serious people and prefer cards and dice games.
  
• As they are a little uptight, they don’t like laziness or clumsiness. They’ll however be very happy to see employees performing well and being thorough in their tasks.
  
• Mobsters are their natural enemies. And even in this little place of truce, they won’t resist making some arrest if they see some misfit.
  

VIPs grand comeback



Ant’ny’s back
The luckiest among you already met Ant’ny a couple of playtests ago. He is back and here to stay. This big bear is the head of the new crime family who just "ousted" (read: murdered) the Rheeves family. Oddly enough he's not a high roller. When he's around he plays very tight, but he loves to be served by his favorites. If you don't have a staff that he approves of... expect trouble... big trouble. Broken items, maybe even a dead staff member or two... clean up in slots!”



New in town: Nat Kiddin
This ferocious cheethat is no other than one of the most feared police officers in town. Her motto: “shoot first, talk later.” When it comes to law and order, she sees the world in black and white. Her itchy trigger finger gets results, which is why the Sheriff’s department keeps her on the payroll, but there’s always collateral damage, and the department has to do damage control after Hurricane Nat has come through. Expect some unhappy customers if she finds people and things not to her liking.
When Nat shows up, make sure she's got no reason to suspect anything underhanded is going on, or you'll be cleaning up broken glass and having to give free drinks and free chips to upset customers, if she doesn't shut you down.



“Swiper no swiping”

• Some clients now have the ability to cheat at your attractions, making you lose money
  
• You can catch them yourselves, but it will be more efficient to hire guards to do so
  

Plant wear
Plants will wither over time, and if you don’t take care of it, it will lower the casino beauty
You can water them yourself, or hire custodians to do so

New level
A new level has been added, available from the level selector. It comes with new challenges, mostly focusing around the new clients: the baseball fan, the rockabillies and the police officers



Bugfix:

• Clients can no longer go in staff-only areas
  
• Fixed some missing text in clients’ log panel
  
• Fixed some bathroom issues where clients didn’t satisfy their need
  
• Fixed an issue where bartenders wouldn't restock if they were assigned after the end of the month
  
• Fixed issues with glass walls rendering
  
• Fixed a lot of issues with the French localization
  

And that’s all for this update. As always, do not hesitate to share your thoughts and questions as we make progress to the development of Blooming Business: Casino. We want to share with you how we progress and are always keen for feedback!

Click here to join our Discord!

The Homo Ludens team.

Hello Owners!

We hope that the year started well for all of you! On our side we are fired up as ever to bring you the best game we can, but first what is for us the last update of 2021! This update brings a lot of improvement all around, but the most noticeable one is the addition of context, not only on stories. We also added some context around casinos’ levels and clients’ motivations.



Stories improvements

Stories used to appear out of nowhere and more often than not disturbing the gameplay. No one wants to deal with petty thieves while building the cutest restroom right? Stories now appear in the 3D world on the affected area/item/agent, giving it more context. You can choose to play them at your will, but beware of what might happen if you choose to not deal with it.
We also improved the overhaul stories display with a beautiful UI and dashing artworks.



Anecdotes

In a similar vein, we added and made some improvements to what we call “anecdotes”. It's all the small events that appears on the floor such as clashes and chitchat. We added some crowd events such as cheering when someone hit the jackpot.



Clients log

Clients’ behaviors might sometimes be hard to understand, which can be an issue when you are trying so hard to make them happy. We added some logs into their panel (the one with their stat and all when left-clicking on them) that should bring light on why they do what they do. This new information should help you know what you can improve in your casino to make them happy, and more importantly to make them give you more money.



Level Selector

We added a new level selector. Right now we have only two levels, but it already give a good idea of what we’re aiming for. It adds more information on level content, and also some lore about our clients types and overall world. It’s still rough and most of the content is placeholder, but in the end it should be a really nice way to learn more about the levels you’ll be playing !



Graphical experiment

If you launch the level “Tikki Miner Mobster’s pie”, you will see that the environment has changed from play daylight to night. We are still trying some things out, but we thought that the night would enhance the festive casino feeling.



Bugfix

• Fixed some issues with wall decorations
  
• Fixed save issue with stairs
  
• Fixed issues with bar restock and icons
  
• Fixed errors in the financial report’s data and formulas
  
• Made some adjustments to the pinball playtime sequence
  
• Fixed issues with floors where some items from the upper floor appeared on the bottom floor
  

And that’s all for this update. As always, do not hesitate to share your thoughts and questions as we make progress to the development of Blooming Business: Casino. We want to share with you how we progress and are always keen for feedback!

Click here to join our Discord!

The Homo Ludens team.