PlateUp! News

The PlateUp! demo is now available for anyone to download from the store page. Sizzle your way through up to 6 days in a row of steak-making action, including sides, toppings and all the other upgrades currently in the game!

The demo is currently local co-op only, although the full game is planned to have remote online multiplayer, it isn't quite ready yet. The game has been tested and works well with Steam Remote Play Together, so you can play with friends from anywhere.

The game is still very much a work-in-progress, but I wanted to let everyone get their hands on it and tell me what they think, either here or in our Discord:



If you enjoy the game, please wishlist it on Steam!

Hi everyone,

Lots of news this week, including a new demo, a new stream and a new patch!

[h2]Stream[/h2]

Briony and Kirsty (who streamed PlateUp! during the TinyTeams festival) and going to play again on stream today at 2PM, which you should be able to catch here: https://www.twitch.tv/brionykay

It was a lot of fun last time, so be sure to check it out as they explore all the new content that's been added in the last few weeks!

[h2]Demo News[/h2]

For those of you who aren't in the Platetest, you'll be able to join in the fun soon with the new demo. PlateUp! will be participating in Steam Next Fest at the start of October with a playable demo. The demo will be available early, over the next few days, so everyone can get their hands on a little bit of cooking chaos soon

[h2]Patch 0.4[/h2]

This week's patch brings changes mostly to the headquarters and progression. I've reworked the way new dishes are unlocked, so that you now gain levels as you play restaurants, and unlock new dishes as you go up in levels. This should make the unlocks more predictable, so everyone can unlock things in a sensible order. It also means you get some progress no matter how far you get, so everyone will be able to get everything!



Aside from that, I've added some more decoration into the headquarters to spruce the place up a bit, including placeholders for two new rooms: the contracts room and the workshop. These aren't functional yet, but should be unlockable soon!



One much-requested feature that I've added this week is the ability to change the practice kitchen based on what dish you've chosen. Choosing a dish will now rebuild the kitchen to help you practice that dish.

Here are the full notes:

Patch notes 0.4

• Level-based progression added. Complete days to earn experience and reach new levels. Each level has a fixed reward. (Platetesters: your progression has not been reset, but you will be level 1; this means you'll level up but not get any rewards you already have)
  
• Decorations added to the garage and new placeholder rooms (contracts, workshop)
  
• Practice kitchen now resets when choosing a new dish
  
• Recipes now pop up automatically when you unlock a new dish
  
• Franchise layout extended to allow for more things
  
• Garage storage increased (this may cause your crates to be rearranged)
  
• Added descriptions for various things (thanks Black_Knight43, ItsYourBoyBlu)
  

Thanks again to everyone involved in the playtest for helping out!

Hi everyone,

First of all, thanks for the support from everyone who has been playtesting the game! It's been great to see how many people have been getting involved and joining the Discord to talk about the game and give feedback. Today's patch should address lots of the minor things people have come across as well as adding a few new features. I hope you like it and look forward to your feedback!

(Getting the bad news out of the way first, too: I had to redo the way the save system worked to make sure saves would be compatible going forward. Unfortunately this means your old saves won't be loaded into this version. Fortunately this should be the last time I have to do this, so your saves should be okay from here on)

[h2]New features[/h2]

[h3]Fish and Salad[/h3]

I worked this week on improving the pipeline for making new dishes, so that once I start working on content I can make lots of new dishes without too much repeated work. For now, there are two new dishes in the game, which can be unlocked after doing well in previous restaurants.

• Fish - Keep on your toes with a fish restaurant, where your menu is dictated by the catch that day! Each day, your available ingredients will shuffle between all your unlocked fish, meaning you never quite know what to expect. There are currently three types of fish to unlock, but if this trial works well I hope to add lots to keep your restaurants changing each day.
  
• Salads - Chop and mix your way to culinary greatness with the new salads. These start easy - with no cooking! Soon the complexity and the number of ingredients will ramp up and catering to the specifics of each order will test even the best chefs. If that wasn't enough, this dish also includes a new recipe designed to raise the challenge for all our experts!
  

I appreciate these might be a bit annoying to unlock as playtesters, but I'm working on improving the upgrade system so that it's easier to see what you're getting and why, which should make this better.

[h3]Recipe view[/h3]

The most common problem people have is not knowing recipes. To help, I've added a new recipe viewer on the help menu (escape/start => Help) which will show you the recipes for all your current dishes. This is a semi-placeholder while I figure out the nicest way of doing it (they're just text at the moment), but I wanted to make sure everyone could play without getting stuck.

[h3]Larger layouts, larger tables[/h3]

Aside from upgrading your franchise with new dishes to serve, you can also now gain access to a larger layout, with lots more space for kitchens and customers. Which is good, because I've fixed a bug that prevented table sizes from increasing, so you can now unlock tables of up to 5 people in game.



[h3]Tweaks[/h3]

I've also made lots of tweaks based on things people have suggested in Discord, check the patchnotes for full details.

[h2]0.3 Patch notes[/h2]

Here are the full patch notes for this patch. I've mentioned people who helped report things, sorry if I've missed anyone off!

• Added Fish
  
• Added Salad
  
• Added recipe view
  
• Added support for larger layouts, and new expanded layout upgrade
  
• Changed to new save system. Old saves will not be compatible (but this should be the last time this happens)
  
• Players no longer collide in build mode (thanks Orion Invictus for the idea)
  
• Readying up between days now requires everyone to confirm (thanks Crazd)
  
• Fixed Advertising unlock so that it increases your customer count rather than decreasing it (thanks JungleCat)
  
• Fixed larger tables not being available as an unlock choice (thanks JungleCat, Gary Br00ks and others who reported this)
  
• Added descriptions for more appliances (thanks Thereal1733)
  
• Walk speed when carrying appliances increased (thanks Orion Invictus)
  
• Customers now spread out at host stands so you can see group sizes (thanks JungleCat)
  
• Balancing tweaks to Informal Service and All You Can Eat
  
• Fix label errors on some blueprints (thanks JungleCat)
  
• Fix bug with messes being created when there was no space (particularly if your restaurant was already full of mess)
  

Hi everyone,

First of all, thanks to everyone who has been playing the game this week. It's been great to see all your feedback, so thanks especially to everyone who has sent me a message with your experience.

I've been busy rolling out the test this week. Soon, everyone who requested to join should be invited! I've also been working on fixing the bugs that people have reported and tweaking things in response to suggestions.

So, hopefully things like this will happen less often:



I'll be pushing out a playtest update later today with a few tweaks:

[h2]Playtest 0.2 Changelog[/h2]

• Changes to player movement that should make players more responsive (in particular, stop more slowly). This will probably need lots of fiddling, so let me know what you think in the comments or on Discord
  
• Items should be returned correctly when disconnecting, particularly in franchise mode
  
• Appliances should now be returned to the player when disconnecting
  
• It's now harder to place appliances on top of people, making it more difficult to push people out of the map (there's still more to do here, but if it happens now, you can reset yourself by using Disconnect in the menu and then holding a button to rejoin)
  
• Customers are more patient by default, which should make it slightly easier. The game's balance is still very much work-in-progress
  
• Customer patience now scales according to the number of players. The game will be easier for solo players, the same for two players and slightly harder for 3 and 4 players
  

Thanks again to everyone who reported these! I'm also looking into some reports that Steam doesn't detect when the game closes properly, and some people have said some of the recipes are confusing. Until I figure out a nice way to show it in the game, here's a picture showing the steps for making carrot soup:



Some people have also mentioned that the game is currently quite difficult played solo. I really want the game to work well both in co-op and solo, so I'm planning on working on some restaurant variants that should be easier to handle alone. Look out for a takeaway option that should let you focus on the kitchen side of things when you don't have someone to play as a waiter for you!