CoffeeBiz Tycoon News

First Alpha 2 update is live and introducing timeshifts. Now, after HR tier 1 research and with HR manager working in an office, you can control kiosk timetable. There you can plan two working shifts (6:00-13:00 and 13:00-20:00) for every weekday, so there is no need to change tired worker in midday or evening/morning manually.

• Timetables
  

• Barista and assistant tasks interface reworked
  
• Worker skills level interface reworked
  
• Pause now disable any game actions
  
• New key events messages: level up, the first weekend
  
• Dirt on kiosks visualized
  
• Reasons why kiosk cant brew coffee shown in kiosk panel
  
• The maximum amount of assistants shown in kiosks shop
  
• Outdoor adverts change visuals when an advertisement is placed
  
• In recipe details, the different wealth attitude to price shown
  
• New objects and details added to the first district
  
• Workers can be placed and removed from a kiosk without closing it
  

• Fixed salary change limit bug
  
• Fixed customers thought bubbles movement
  
• Fixed wrong XP data above kiosks
  
• Fixed assistants adding performance bonus to themselves
  
• Conditioner icon fixed
  
• Many small bugfixes
  

Thank you for all your feedback and bug reports. With you and your support, CoffeeBiz evolves the way it should. New updates coming soon, stay tuned.

Hi!

In previous Devlog I described how razor-sharp pixel-art style achieved. Brief: 2d background hand drawn, 3d meshes for shadows and objects distinctly rendered and then mixed.

It works perfectly for static objects. But an animated and interactive object can’t be created that way. For example, if I want NPC walking any direction plus a couple of animations, I’ll have to draw hundreds or thousands of sprites. And still, have 3d mesh for lighting and shadows.

So here some gifs are showing how 3d-2d mix for objects works.


Some primitive objects like pillar, pole, fence are made of basic shapes with color-fill texture. Such a simplified approach increases development speed. No need to hand draw 2d sprite and match 3d mesh to it for shading. But it only suitable to a very simple game object, any complicated geometry made such way doesn’t fit graphical style.



I experimented with different particle types and stopped on cubic meshes. It might be a little too GPU – costly but after rendered it fits perfectly. So its standard unity particles, but rendered twice – for objects layer and shadows layer. If the game paused, it looks just the way I need.



NPC
The Low-poly meshes and 3-5 colors texture (point filter and no compression of course). After some lighting and shadows tuning NPC look almost the way, I need. Next big challenge – cars. Right now they look great while moving straight. But when the cat turns, the magic disappears, and they look like from the different game. Working on it.


Trees
The most painful story. I tried many-many different possible variants. Sprite, sprite+mesh, mesh leaves, sprite base, etc. And they all looked like from the other game. Finally, after many attempts, I found the best visual variant – standard Unity3d tree with many small single-color plane leaves. Its GPU costly and will have some optimization – I don’t need unity dynamical wind-leaves movement. But I am fully satisfied with the achieved image.


Thanks for reading. More animated objects are coming next versions and the most complicated - cars and traffic.

Hi!

Thank you for all your feedback. I have finished the mid-week bug fixing; a new version is uploaded and ready. Restart steam to get an update.

Main bugfixes:

• People stuck in kiosk line and stopped all other after someone leaves because of a too long wait - fixed
  
• Autosave save time up to 20-30sec – fixed and reduced to 3-7 sec, but more optimization coming next update
  
• 2d-3d mapping of some objects on the first district - fixed
  
• People stuck at spawn point – some fixed but still can occur. More refactoring coming next update.
  

If any bugs still occur – feel free to contact me directly in steam, by mail ([email protected]) or in discord: https://discord.gg/xEpqx6M

Hello.

After two months from the last update (thank you for your patience), I am excited to announce the Aplha2 update for CoffeeBiz.

• New locations – two new locations to run a coffee business – industrial with blue-collar customer type and neighborhood with an extremely good attitude to coffee business.
  
• Updated marketing – new customer decision making AI for more realistic demand simulation. Poor/casual/rich customers stratification implemented. Different districts have different customer types and different hours/days of traffic.
  
• Updated workers – energy, performance, and mood reworked. New “stamina” skill implemented. A company employee is the main business resource. Now you need to monitor and influence their performance and mood, establish reasonable wages. New feature – assistants in the kiosk. They can help barista in brewing coffee, clear kiosk or advertise.
  
• Office and management – finally working the way it should work. Production manager for controlling lots, kiosk and coffee machines. HR manager for employees and Marketing for outdoor advertisement and advertisement campaigns.
  
• Branched saves – experiment with different strategies with no worries. There is a very limited amount of games with some nonstandard savegames systems. I thing branched saves (when you can start a new branch from any day and try some strategies).
  
• Adjustable difficulty – configure the game for comfort playing. Main gameplay problem was that you could easily become bankrupt. Sometimes one mistake if enough. I like hardcore games, but understand that someone wants just to relax. So the main marketing parameter – customer prices can be set up.
  
• New coffee machines – industrial type coffee machines for late game strategies.
  

More details about changes and info about Mac version and dev plans in upcoming devlogs.

Hello!
Its been two months from the last update. Sorry for this delay, but there is a lot of feedback, and Alpha2 update is BIG (a lot bigger than I planned). Some core game changes can’t be added in every 2-weeks “Agile” update manner. Also, I want to make sure everything works the way it should.

Thank you for all your positive and negative feedback – I appreciate any reaction and trying to make this game as good as I can.

Some Alpha2 features:

• Two new locations
  
• Game tutorial
  
• Extended help
  
• Assistants in kiosks
  
• Updated marketing model
  
• Updated workers model
  
• New kiosks, equipment and coffee machines
  
• New savegames system
  
• New manager abilities
  
• New financial and banking options
  
• Lot of small updates in gameplay and UI
  
• And of course a lot of bugfixes
  

Thank you for your patience.

Here is a screenshot from the new “Neighborhood” district.


Reminder - for the latest news and direct contact with the developer, join Discord server - https://discord.gg/xEpqx6M