King of Retail 2 News

[p]Dear Retailers,[/p][p]We’re now in Autumn season, and we’re keeping the focus on stability, polish, and quality of life improvements to King of Retail 2 as we prepare features for our next major update.[/p][p]With update 0.3.1.2, we’re putting a lot of attention toward making your stores more responsive and your employees more manageable, while continuing to streamline backend systems for smoother play overall.[/p][p]Just a note that King of Retail 2 will be on sale starting today until October 21st for 20% off! I’d be deeply appreciative for people to get the word out, as we do still have a demo available to play as well![/p][h2]Smarter Teams, Smoother Stores[/h2][p]A new Team Order menu has been added to the Staff Management portion of the Store Hud. With this, you can now assign which number of cash registers you’d like open at any given part of the day.[/p][p][/p][p][/p]

• [p]You can now send employees home for the day, giving you greater control over scheduling and labor management. It’s also an excellent spot-fix if business is slow on any day. [/p]
• [p]Cashiers are now significantly more responsible, and will finish their Active Queue of customers before going on break.[/p]
• [p]Cash duty interactions are greatly improved, with fewer weird overlap issues if a register closes while another worker is on the path to open one. Overall this should make cash behavior look and feel more intelligent compared to earlier [/p]

[p]These small additions tie directly into our ongoing goal of making the employee system more interactive. We plan to add additional tasks in the coming months, but we wanted to set realistic standards before adding new tasks, and just hoping Employees can figure it out on their own. [/p][h2]QoLs and Big Ticket Fixes[/h2][p]We’ve also added a few significant improvements across the board:[/p]

• [p]Day/night toggle in Build Mode (finally!) lets you visualize the store at night, rather than just building it for daytime traffic.[/p]
• [p]Stronger distinction between items in Stock and items on Display - this should help with, at-a-glance, determining what’s in circulation for sale and what’s in storage.[/p]
• [p]Save games are now handled individually—no more relying on user preferences files. This should make it
• MUCH* easier to share save files between players. Just a note that, at this time, custom images won’t transfer between saves which may cause some visual issues. [/p]

[p]All in all, these changes should make daily management smoother and more predictable.[/p][h2]Performance, Bugs, and Beyond[/h2][p]As always, we’re continuing to address long-standing bugs and performance hitches. From saving and UI responsiveness to store scheduling, charts, and HQ functions—this update squashes a host of issues to make daily operations smoother.[/p][p]Here’s what we’re talking in 0.3.1.2.[/p][h3]Major[/h3]

• [p]You can now send employees home for the day[/p]
• [p]New team orders in the store. Tell how many cash registers should be open[/p]

[h3]Minor[/h3]

• [p] Added day/night toggle in build mode[/p]
• [p]Added confirmation when going to build mode[/p]
• [p]Save games are handled individually and not through userprefs file[/p]
• [p]The ordering button is disabled if you cant afford the order[/p]
• [p]Employee hover arrows are now visible through walls as well[/p]
• [p]Product overlays have separate entries for products in boxes/delivery units.[/p]
• [p] Added general distinction between products in storage, and being unpacked[/p]
• [p]Product store counts are updated regularly during the day, and on leaving store.[/p]
• [p]A Product’s local price is only active if enabled[/p]

[h3]AI[/h3]

• [p]Employees react faster to switch tasks if you take charge of the cash register[/p]
• [p]Customers moving to a closed register will now look for a different one.[/p]
• [p]Customers stay in the queue after the store is closed[/p]
• [p]Cashiers now finish their queue before going to break. If only open register, they will leave as is.[/p]
• [p]Cashiers will finish the queue at the end of the day before leaving.[/p]
• [p]Cashiers will also look at who is approaching a register in determining if they should close it or leave it open.[/p]
• [p]Customers will now wait 20 seconds to see if a cash register becomes available before leaving[/p]

[h2]Balancing[/h2]

• [p]Increased overall team score-based sales performance.[/p]

[h3]Bugs[/h3]

• [p]Build mode now always displays the current time and weather as Store mode.[/p]
• [p] AM/PM times no longer makes double lines in Hud[/p]
• [p]HQ rooms saves their positions properly after being moved[/p]
• [p]First time display load lag could cause multiple displays to be spawned[/p]
• [p]Closing screen during negotiations open the proper relevant menus[/p]
• [p]Selling inventory have proper prompts and same audio/visual feedback[/p]
• [p] HQ Sell Room menu doesn’t close after selling a room. This has been fixed.[/p]
• [p]Sell/buy at 0,00 doesn’t cause weird UI issues.[/p]
• [p]Sales confirmation prompts can be closed with ESC. Attempiting to move inventory in store mode have proper audio feedback.[/p]
• [p] Interaction menu will reopen if it’s still overlapping the Inventory screen when moving or selling inventory [/p]
• [p] Grid moves up and down with moved inventory to other floors.[/p]
• [p] Doors properly remember rotations from build mode to store mode.[/p]
• [p] Rotating door now triggers build mode confirmation[/p]
• [p] Game crashing when having 2-week scheduled employees, and going to team management.[/p]
• [p] Selling inventory will not return double the paid price[/p]
• [p] Product overlay only counts products on display for value in-store:[/p]
• [p] Product overlay now counts storage units properly[/p]
• [p] Game settings did not save properly when changed[/p]
• [p] Window-spacing distance should now be the same in build and store mode[/p]
• [p] Cash registers reset sales stats each morning[/p]
• [p] Deleting saved games doesn't have load lag.[/p]
• [p] Bug in store schedule swapping even and odd weeks in dual week schedules[/p]
• [p] Store schedule is now scrollable[/p]
• [p] Selecting show only sold in product summary, actually shows sold products[/p]
• [p] Product sales charts no longer converts units sold to currency.[/p]
• [p] Customer flow chart count not converted to currency[/p]
• [p] Customer flow chart buttons is set to enabled by default[/p]
• [p] Customer flow properly shows selected time[/p]
• [p] Min/Max ordering should rigidly follow what is in the store[/p]
• [p] Fixed animation blueprint allowing for idling poses to occur more than once pr .character[/p]
• [p] "Type" data sets can also be removed from sales charts[/p]
• [p] HQ pc properly upadtes store funds when selecting store to manage[/p]

[p]As before, we’re building the next few steps of the game Wide, not Tall, with a focus on depth and stability as we plan out the next major update.[/p][p]Your feedback continues to drive that work—so please keep it coming through the Community Discord and our feedback channels. And as always, come visit me on my Twitch channel every Friday to see development-in-action and share your feedback![/p][p]As always, keep your shelves stocked and your cash drawers balanced – which should be easier now that Employees will be smarter about staffing them.[/p][p]Until next time, happy sales.[/p][p]– Daniel[/p][p]
[/p]

[p]Dear Retailers,[/p][p][/p][p]A huge thank you to everyone who jumped into the Macromanagement update with last month’s update. We’ve gotten enormous feedback from players on both Macromanagement’s Employee update and Rise to the Top’s building improvements.[/p][p]As we move into the next phase of development for King of Retail 2, I wanted to take a moment to talk about what’s coming up on the horizon and our focus for development through the end of 2025.[/p][p]My priorities over the next few weeks will be to strengthen our foundation: building better moment-to-moment interactions within our existing systems frameworks to improve how stores operate, add functionality to teams, and better define the role of the player at the enterprise level, managing multiple Concepts and Stores.[/p][p][/p][h2]Building Better: Expanding the Core[/h2][p]The next several patches will revolve around improving existing features—especially those that govern how your stores feel and function behind the scenes. That means:[/p]

• [p]More Products: We’ve held off on product updates with the Macromanagement update just because we had a huge feature push to worry about. With that out of the way, we’ve been hard at work designing additional products, which we plan to introduce in a coming update.
  
  Store Task Systems: We’ve laid the groundwork for teams, roles, and management, but now we’re taking that further. Employees have a fairly limited range of tasks to perform at the moment, which underutilizes the Employee system on a whole. One of our early additions will be looking at Store Cleaning, which will provide a new role and new interaction for Employees to take on as a task. Over time, we’ll be adding new tasks and behaviors to Employees.
  [/p]
• [p]Employee Evolution: At the moment, Employees do have fluctuating and changing attributes, mostly reflecting an individual’s change of habits over time. With the Employee Heirarchy system in place, we plan to add functionality
  [/p]
• [p]Technical Improvements: I also want to be conscious of the amount of technical debt that has accrued (and always keeps accruing) over the course of the last few months. Now that we’ve added some vertical features, this is an ideal time to work on improvements on UE5 integration directly and prepare the game for future additions.[/p]

[p]This is all part of a larger effort to make the experience of playing  King of Retail 2 feel more interconnected. Making your game loop more compelling, more seamless, and easier to engage with isn’t always the most exciting or flashy of things to update, but it’s very necessary that we build our foundations properly before we start striking new ground.[/p][p][/p][h2]Sharing your Designs: Workshop Functionality[/h2][p]We’re also looking into Steam Workshop functionality, and plan to roll out some initial integrations that will allow players to upload and share some custom creations across steam directly.[/p][p]Full Workshop functionality, as in the ability to create custom assets or mods, isn’t planned quite yet - that’s something we’d like to address closer to launch. But our Discord is already full of Store and Display designs from players which, while they can be shared, still must be done manually. [/p][p]I will have more updates on Workshop functionality as we explore how best to integrate it with King of Retail 2, but we plan to roll out Workshop support in stages to allow players to share their designs with other players.
[/p][h2]Performance, Quality of Life, and Player Feedback[/h2][p][/p][p]I know I say it a lot, but it always bears repeating:  your feedback matters—a lot more than you think.[/p][p]Performance improvements and quality-of-life refinements have become an ongoing priority for us. Every patch brings optimizations to help stores run smoother and faster, and we’ve been combing through your feedback to identify the small, everyday frustrations that we can iron out.[/p][p]So thank you to everyone who’s been submitting bug reports, sharing suggestions, and helping us test new builds. You’ve been instrumental in shaping King of Retail 2 into something stronger.
[/p][h2]Looking Ahead: Built Wide, Then Tall[/h2][p]Our next major milestone update, which we’re planning for early next year, will be the  next “vertical” step in King of Retail 2’s development. We want to build out our base before we get there, but we can also take a look ahead at what major plans we have in store.[/p][p]That update will focus on building out Headquarters, which exist in the game but provide limited functions (it’s mostly your administrative hub). Additional office spaces, functions, and more use of the multiple floors of HQ will all be built out to add more reason and purpose to sitting in the Big Chair.[/p][p]But for now, our mission is clear: build it wide before we build it tall.[/p][p]As always, you can catch me doing Livestreams every Friday on my Twitch Channel, where you can watch me work on King of Retail 2 and ask me any questions or send me your feedback or suggestions. And as always, make sure to join the Community Discord where you can find design ideas, report bugs, and follow the development of King of Retail 2.[/p][p]Join the King of Retail 2 Discord![/p][p]Follow KoR2 Dev on Twitch![/p][p][/p][p]Until next time, happy sales.[/p][p]
– Daniel[/p][p]
[/p]

[p]Dear Retailers,  [/p][p]First, the “Rise to the Top” update added verticality through elevators and multiple-floor stores. In the meantime, we’ve been introducing quality of life changes to fix up build mode and help players realize their multi-level store complexes.[/p][p][/p][p]But throughout King of Retail 2’s life, there’s been a recurring trend: the player has to do nearly everything relating to running a business. Employees can pick up some of the slack during the day, but you always have to be there to keep them acting.[/p][p][/p][p]No more. Today, we announce the launch of the “Macromanagement” Update. Now, employees come to the forefront and become the building blocks of your retail empire. It’s time extract the Human Resource and put your employees to work.  [/p][p]As well, with the update, we will be joining the Steam Autumn Sale for 20% off this Monday, September 29th until the 6th of October. So if you’ve just discovered King of Retail 2: welcome!

Here’s what you can look forward to in today’s update.[/p][p]
[/p][h2]Macromanagement Major Updates[/h2][p][/p][h3]Run Multiple Stores![/h3][p]This is our highlight feature for the Macromanagement update. In today’s update, multiple stores now generator concurrent income through the addition of Store Automation. [/p][p]
[/p][p]Stores will currently, hour-by-hour, generate revenue based on real-time dynamics between your store, your customers, and your staff. This feature is only the first of many improvements we plan to make to Store Automation in order to build out complexities and ways players can run their stores at a distance. [/p][p]To run your stores, you’ll need a capable team that you can rely on in your absence. That brings us to…[/p][p][/p][h3]Employees, Ready to Work![/h3][p]Team Heirarchies have been implemented in the latest version as an accessible UI from your Headquarters computer. [/p][p]
[/p][p]One of our biggest ongoing bits of feedback are that employees do too little, putting a lot of busywork in the hands of owners. Team Heirarchy addresses that at its root, while opening the door for tons of new employee features in the future.[/p][p]
[/p][p]In this view, you can assign teams to manage stores on your behalf. Assign your team heirarchy, taking into account that your Manager sets the example for their team to follow, and that every team member needs support and structure in their workplace.[/p][p]
[/p][h3]Promote Your Employees![/h3][p]Inherent to Team Heirarchy is the roles of Manager, Assistant Manager, and Team Leader that are now available as assignable to your staff through the HQ. [/p][p]
Each serves a different role, structurally, in the management of your store. [/p][p][/p][p]Team Managers - Represents the store when you’re not there. Managers need high skills, as their talents (or lack-thereof) will have ripple effects on other employees productivity, mood, and workload. A strong manager can bring a team together, while a weak one will disorganize them. [/p][p]Assistant Manager - Can serve multiple roles currently. In small stores, they can act as a manager when the Manager is off, but they can also work in a delegative role in larger stores under a Manager, in order to lighten the load during busy shifts.[/p][p]Team Leaders - Team Leaders oversee specific functions, spaces, or departments within a store. This also allows you to break up your Team the same way, dividing the workload within your store around what specific roles you need done. Large grocery stores need Produce Teams and Stock Teams, while smaller stores may want rotating shift teams. The choice is entirely up to how you’d like to build your store.[/p][p]Employees - Employees have had their functions assigned to areas in past update, now Teams can fully organize those for your store. In future updates, they will also have the ability to learn and grow by having positive work experiences with trained Team Leaders and Managers above them. [/p][p][/p][p]As with Store Automation, this is a constantly evolving feature, as we introduce new behaviors into the mix and expand intra-team relations (more on that after Patch Notes below!)[/p][p] [/p][h2]Macromanagement Update - Patch Notes[/h2][p]Update 0.3.2.0 changes are below![/p][h3][/h3][h3] Major[/h3][p]- Team hierarchy management[/p][p]- Non-visited stores earn money.[/p][p][/p][h3]Minor[/h3][p]- Made some skills hidden[/p][p]- Skills have different weights towards the average score contribution.[/p][p]- Adjusted, added and removed skills[/p][p]- Skills are sorted by importance[/p][p]- Removed EA disclaimer when buying second property[/p][p]- Added short employee tutorial open entering HQ on day 2[/p][p]- Added wiki entry about team management.[/p][p]- Adjusted evening lighting levels on city map to be lighter, even in the worst weather[/p][p]- Adjusted city zoning colors to be more balanced in all lighting.[/p][p][/p][h3]Bug Fixes[/h3][p]- Saving and loading roofs are now working properly[/p][p]- Blue customer has colors again[/p][p]- Conference room floor is now showing properly[/p][p]- Adjusted selected colors of wiki buttons to be blue[/p][p]- Can open wiki and settings properly in the HQ[/p][p]- Only paint floors is now possible in HQ[/p][p]- Improved ESC functionality in menus (still need city)[/p][p]- You only see the employees of the given store in employee overview[/p][p]- You can now say no to deleting a role[/p][p]- Adjusted customer overlay UI where names overlapped each other[/p][p]- Adjusted product info to fit trends properly.[/p][p][/p][h2]What’s Next?[/h2][p]Once again, with another update out of the way, it’s time to consult the roadmap.[/p][p]
[/p][p]We're looking to continue to build functionality into Employee behavior and build out store functions within the team, but we’re also going to be looking at additional smaller updates down the road to flesh out the experience of the features that we’ve already added.[/p][p][/p][h3]Store Maintenance[/h3][p]With employees hard at work, a good business owner, indeed any good manager, will need to find more tasks for employees. [/p][p]“Store Maintenance” is where we’re starting: introducing additional tasks and visual features into the game that reflect the general wear and tear of your store as hundreds or thousands of customers walk through the door to peruse your items, track rainwater across your floor, and generally misuse the perfect store you’ve built.
[/p][p]We’ll be introducing new behaviors progressively depending on the nature of our updates, as Employee behavior is an always-on development goal. But Store Maintenance will allow us to build out the visual changes to the store and create fun new tasks such as:[/p]

• [p]Cleaning, facing and merchandising displays to keep them tidy and stocked.[/p]
• [p]Cleaning floors, as rainy/snowy days can lead to water being tracked inside the store.[/p]
• [p]Dusting and cleaning under or overused displays. [/p]
• [p]And much more, there’s really no end to drudgery if we put our mind to it![/p]

[p][/p][h3]Quality-of-Life Fixes[/h3][p]While the last thing we’lll be talking about in this update post, I want to stress that, after two major updates, the time to refine and improve the game experience is more important than ever. 
[/p][p]We wanted to build a strong cadence to push major features out the door with “Rise to the Top” and “Macromanagement”, but I’m personally conscious that there is such thing as too quick a pace when it comes to major updates. In the near-term, we will be actively sourcing feedback from the community and testing these new Employee features rigorously, while also picking up a host of visual and technical fixes that are long overdue.
[/p][p]We won’t be long off from the next major update, but since one has just arrived, I hope you take the time to explore what Macromanagement has to offer, and I ask for your support in the coming weeks to make it even better.
[/p][p]This Friday, I’ll be doing a livestream and going over any questions, comment or feedbacks while you can see me work on King of Retail 2. Please join me on my Twitch Channel, or join the Community Discord and let us know what you think.[/p][p][/p][p]Until next time, happy sales.[/p][p][/p][p]-Daniel[/p][p]
[/p]

[p]Dear Retailers,[/p][p][/p][p]Last week, we posted an update teasing some features coming to our next update, the new “Macromanagement” Update, which we can now say will be ready before the end of the month.  It’s time to look in more detail at what new employee functions will be introduced in this update, which is all about bringing Employees to the forefront to introduce store automation.[/p][h2]A Foreward on Store Automation[/h2][p][/p][p]Independently-running retail stores have been a hotly requested feature ever since our initial demo launch back in February. This has been a design challenge, as a lot of features need to be functional in order for “authentic” automation.[/p][p][/p][p]No,w what do I mean by “authentic” automation? When we represent actions that are occurring off-screen, we can do it by two broad approaches:[/p]

• [p]“Summarize” events as they occur from an input-output perspective (“Money generated is a function of X, Y, Z variables) so that the game generates an outcome.[/p]
• [p]“Itemize” events by generating and resolving them in real-time, so that actual things occur and their outcomes occur dynamically and possibly in real-time.
  [/p]

[p]To most players, the outcomes seem the same, but are based on different calculations. The latter is more sensitive to changing attributes and is closer in line to the experience we want to simulate. Automated stores that simulate entire shopping days are more responsive to the customization and care that players bring in.
[/p][p]As of the next release, we will be introducing Store Automation, but it will be introduced in stages in order to test and refine automation as a whole. That means that early iterations of automation may be closer to “Summarizing” work days than “Itemizing” them, but that will be our springboard to better refine the system in the coming weeks.[/p][p][/p][h2]The Noble, Lonely Manager - Stressed in All Things[/h2][p]Now onto our next feature coming into the next update: Team Roles!
[/p][p]We’ve got an updated Team Heirarchy UI that allows you to build custom team roles down to a store and even a departmental level. Let’s dig in:
[/p][p][/p][p]A preview of our upcoming Team Hierarchy view[/p][p][/p][p]Team hierarchy is divided into four broad categories of employees:[/p][p][/p][p]Team Managers - The principal worker in charge when you’re not at the store. With the coming update, this role will be functional when you’re not present, but will defer to your manual control for the time being while you’re occupying the store.
[/p][p]Assistant Manager - Works like a secondary manager, and takes over as full Manager on days that your Manager is off work. [/p][p]In larger stores, they can share the workload with the Manager and other AMs. All teams will incur a “Workload” to reflect how labour is distributed among the team, and one Manager can’t do everything on their own. That’s where Assistants step in to shoulder the load.
[/p][p]Team Leaders - Team Leaders serve as the guiding force of any established retail Team. Working closely with employees also makes them effective coaches. In later updates, Team Leaders will be able to coach individuals under them, with attributes that can make some TLs better recruits for trainees, or to specialize in specific departments or tasks.[/p][p][/p][p]Employees - Not to be forgotten, life doesn’t just end at the Entry Level. Employees will be able to learn and grow under experienced leaders and co-workers. Employees form the core of any team, and can be directed to specific tasks and eventually specific store areas as team functions are expanded upon.[/p][p][/p][p]What Influences a Good Team?
[/p][p]Rather than get into the math, let's look at practical applications of employee attributes and how they’ll relate to improving Team Dynamics once the feature is introduced in the next update.[/p]

• [p]Individual relationships between team members and with store leadership can affect work ethic, mood, and eventual workloads.[/p]
• [p]Relationships between Team Members change dynamically as they work together for a long period of time. Positive relationships can encourage both parties to work harder and tire out less easily, while long-term negative relationships can disrupt an employee’s work ethic.[/p]
• [p]A Leader’s own Positivity skill can emphasize existing positive relationships, building a kind of “social synergy” that adds to team harmony. Conversely, a Leader’s Conflict Resolution skills can manage and even improve negative relationships.[/p]
• [p]A Leader’s supervision skill dictates their capacity for additional work, allowing them to take on and delegate more tasks. For Employees, this same workload is dictated by their Teamworking attribute.[/p]
• [p]Highly motivated leaders can pass on their motivation to their employees and improve worker quality.[/p]
• [p]Worker quality is based not only on their individual personality and qualities, but also on their scheduling preferences. So if workers are doing the task they are best suited to, that will, of course, increase the quality of their work.[/p]
• [p]Supervisory and Leadership skills are emphasized the higher a role a worker occupies, and are consequently less important the lower they are. To develop good leaders, you’ll sometimes need to develop up-and-coming leaders as opposed to natural talent.[/p]
• [p]Employee skill progression will be based on their own Talent skill, as well as their leader's teaching skill. The teacher’s own ability at a specific Skill also affects their ability to teach others.[/p]
• [p]Teams without proper leadership or insufficient numbers are less efficient and become overworked more quickly without proper support.[/p]

[p][/p][p]As mapping and modeling worker behavior is an ongoing process with many, *many* complexities to account for and test, this is only the starting point of how we plan to build more dynamic, smarter, and more interesting employees to join your Team.[/p][p][/p][h2]What’s Next?[/h2][p]Automation and a mini-roadmap of how we plan to proceed with Automation as a design concept will be part of our next reveal, as we also launch the second of our major milestone updates: The “Macromanagement” Update. 
[/p][p]This is a huge undertaking on the backend for King of Retail 2, and something we absolutely want to hear your feedback on. Be sure to join the Community Discord, where I’ll have more news to share leading up to the launch. As always, your feedback is appreciated.
[/p][p]What do you want to see your employees do next?
[/p][p]-Daniel[/p][p]
[/p]

[p]Dear Retailers,
[/p][p]We’re rapidly approaching the end of Summer and it’s time to start looking ahead to our next update. With “Rise to the Top” last month, we looked at Building and Designing and saw some incredible designs. But the next update is on the way.[/p][p][/p][p]That being said, we have an enormous amount of work ahead of us, so while we are looking forward to a definitive “Red Letter Day” to get everything live, a lot of these releases will be coming out progressively over the next few weeks.
[/p][p]So as such, I’d like to start revealing some of the new systems coming into play with the next update, and how those pieces will eventually come together.
[/p][h2]The Challenge: Simulating Reality[/h2][p][/p][p]Throughout the pre-release and release of King of Retail 2, everything players do happens and responds in real time. In-game sales occur when an in-game customer picks up an in-game article from an in-game display, and so on. 
[/p][p]In summary: everything happens as a consequence of something else, which is turned influenced by a huge number of environmental and contextual factors, right down to the mindset of the customer and the work attributes of your employees.[/p][p][/p][p]In short: simulating this when you’re not around is quite difficult. Our end goal is to create simulated and automated store activity for stores not under operation, using as much information based on player decisions, designs, and – for the purposes of this update, a look at how Employees will keep the lights on when you’re not around.[/p][p][/p][h2]Employee Teams - Putting the MEAT in TEAMS[/h2][p]
At this stage, employees follow what we call on the business side a “Flat Heirarchy”. All employees are equal to one another and share responsibilities, roles, and functions. The player character is the exception to this rule, leaving all employees answerable to the player. [/p][p][/p][p]A preview image of how players will be able to craft their own team heirarchy[/p][p][/p][p]Employee teams will be your day-to-day employees, assigned by store, that allow you to begin building workforces that work when you’re off doing something else. The structure will develop as automation is added, but in the short term, we’re adding functionality to:[/p]

• [p]Build, customize, and assign teams within your stores.[/p]
• [p]Assign the Manager role: the individual representing the store while you're away.[/p]
• [p]Build out a hierarchy for your team, including Assistant Managers, Team Leaders, and basic Employees.[/p]

[p]This is where it begins, but where it can go opens up many, many opportunities for store automation.
[/p][h2]Team Dynamics are Everything
[/h2][p]The level of detail we’re building into Team Dynamics will as comprehensive as our parameters allow, and knowing how we’ve strurctured employee attributes, each individual employee will work differently with other employees, simply down to personality differences and shared (or differing) values. 
[/p][p]Relaxed employees may not jive with hardworking employees. Cleanliness-focused employees won’t appreciate working under a slob of a manager. And slackers of all kinds can drag down the team dynamic and spoil everyone’s work ethic in the long run.
[/p][p]Conversely, employees can build bonds through shared values over time, energizing them to go above the call of duty and put in extra effort in turning a profit for your businesses.
[/p][p]Scheduling and team sizes also come into play. The ratio of Leaders to Workers is essential to running a healthy team! Too many managers? Wasted time and money on oversight, and too little actually getting done. Too few? Managers will get overloaded and overworked. Team Leaders and Assistant managers step into this dynamic to allow you to break up large stores into manageable dynamics.[/p][p]
We went back to the books to faithfully recreate corporate retail work dynamics![/p][p][/p][p]The outcome is that the overall quality of your team and its organization will affect the income that stores can generate when you’re not around. The quality of the manager and their relationship with their team, and the relationship between individual team members all play a part in how hardworking your stores end up being.[/p][p][/p][p]This will also result in specific Manager traits affecting the long-term growth of the team under them. If a manager is a better teacher, then their team can develop their work skills under them. If a manager is confrontational, it can worsen mood and work ethic among the team so choose wisely. Constantly rotating teams also creates its own challenge, as teams that work long-term together can build positive bonds.[/p][p][/p][p]How we're representing employee behavior, from a very ground level.
[/p][p]The end goal is not only a novel challenge for players who want to dig into higher level retail management: but also the ability to correctly and compellingly simulate store activity while the player is away doing other things. [/p][p][/p][p]Teams are but one of the many, many factors that will allow this to be possible in future updates.
[/p][h2]What’s Next?[/h2][p][/p][p]We’ve gone over what Teams can bring to the table. Next week, we’ll be revealing what each new role brings to Stores, and how you can start promoting from within so players can start building Teams of their own. These will include what to consider when assigning Managers, Assistant Managers, and Team Leaders.[/p][p]
What makes a model employee ready for promotion? We’ll get into that next week. In the meantime, join us on the Community Discord where I am going into great detail on upcoming features. It’s really the best way to get active updates, but we’ll be sharing more info when more becomes available.[/p][p]
All the best, and see you all in the aisles.[/p][p]
[/p][p]-Daniel[/p][p]
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