CoffeeBiz Tycoon News

I created Discord for CoffeeBiz Tycoon, so feel free to join.
https://discord.gg/xEpqx6M

Alpha 1.12 is live. This update should be savegames safe.

Main changes – new marketing model (more details in Devlog #1)

• Fewer chances of events
  
• Prices now are colored if they are much higher or lower than average market prices
  
• Kiosk removal clear its marketing information
  
• The promotion gives neutral kiosk rating change
  
• New workers for hire in workers shop can be bought
  
• Some outdoor adverts moved to cover more customers
  
• Outdoor adverts stats showed
  
• A new way of customers decision where to order coffee
  
• Customer state and decision process showed in the customer panel
  
• Recipes satisfaction graph in brew log
  
• More speed and taste penalty on high-level recipes
  
• Kiosk income and barista experience information above the kiosk
  
• Graphs in the finance panel
  
• No need of production manager for coffee machine repair
  
• No need of marketing manager for kiosk marketing stats
  

And lots and lots of small bugfixes.



Big update - Alpha 2 version is coming soon. With new locations, new equipment, and new game mechanics.

The base concept of this game – sophisticated and realistic business simulation. And marketing is one of the most complicated modules of CoffeeBiz. In upcoming Alpha 1.12 marketing are getting a huge update and in this devlog, I’ll try to describe how it will work.


Base element and point of sales are a coffee kiosk; it has three base parameters – visibility, attraction, and popularity. And if everything is done correctly, clients will decide to buy coffee and spend their money at your kiosk. More satisfied customers, more sales, more money. But there are different customers with different needs, different locations with different challenges and competitors, who also want to sell their coffee. I want to make marketing module work in such a way, so there can’t be a single most effective working marketing strategy, and the player must always adapt to market and new situations.


Customers walk, notice kiosks and decide where to buy a coffee. Customer starts looking around for coffee kiosks to serve his demand. He will compare all visible kiosks and know kiosks, even if they are far away. After making a list of potential kiosks, customer compares their attraction value and goes for coffee to highest offer. At the kiosk, he checks out current kiosk clearness, line length, chosen recipe availability, prices. Only if satisfied with all these factors, he will order coffee. Otherwise, he will leave.



Each customer type has its demands preference. For example, a student almost doesn’t care about kiosk clearness and service time are critical for office workers. Right now its only 4 type of customers, but new updates will bring new locations with new customer types to investigate.

After coffee brewed, the customer pays and evaluate its taste (0-100), customer service bonus and kiosk clearness bonus. Based on that total satisfaction are calculated. But that’s not all. Coffee can be awful, service low and kiosk extra dirty. But if you pay for it only 1$ - it’s become a good deal. So customer resulting opinion of the kiosk is based on satisfaction/price table. For example, full students chart below.



The chart is filled gradually, and the full chart is visible only after hundreds of sales. Notice that only barista with >1 service level can catch information about customer type – higher service level, higher chances. Increase the barista service level, brew lots of coffee and you will learn how to deal with each type of customers. Also, the barista service level increases chances to sell extras – toppings, drinks, and snacks.


The well-known kiosk can get much more customers because customers will evaluate it at any position on location. Especially if there are no competitors. Some popularity kiosk is getting from client – after buying a coffee, even unsatisfied, he will remember kiosk. Also, some percent of passing by clients can notice and remember kiosk, even if they not ordering any coffee. Same way the outdoor advertisement works – its adds some popularity to kiosks and can force the customer decides to buy coffee immediately. Another way to get some popularity – pay for an advertising agency. To monitor clients, who know about kiosk and who don’t - in kiosk marketing tab “highlight clients” can be clicked.

• Branding – create and promote brands specialized in different marketing strategies
  
• Marketing guidelines – create advertisement guidelines to improve outdoor advertising
  
• Custom menu – create specialized menus with accents on some recipes or extras
  
• New adv types - a man in costumes, draw on the floor
  

Alpha 1.11 is live. This update should be savegames safe.

Main change – implementing fast customers pathfinding so it can handle x4-x8 game speed modes. 8x speed is experimental and can be chosen by “4” button on the keyboard. Screenshot illustrate customer paths from spawners to their destination.



Also some bugfixes and changes:

• Freddo recipe fixed
  
• Baristas get tired slower and regain energy faster
  
• Kiosks getting dirty slower
  
• New workers for hire created, when less than three are left in the shop
  
• Worker level caps reduced
  
• Coffee machine service price reduced
  
• The customer can be clicked to show base info
  
• Average sale sum in kiosk shown in the graph
  
• Second subway entrance fixed
  
• Scenario success status can be viewed
  
• Actives and liabilities second-week bug fixed
  

For Devlog #0 short backstory, how 2d-3d graphics works. The game is created in Unity3d, so I'll use unity engine based terminology. The first idea was to make an isometric 3d camera and pixel-art textures. But it was a total fail. All modern 3d graphics are full of anti-aliasing, texture filtering, and float values. Textures were blurry, edges not sharp at all. Dynamic objects were like from the different game. I found it impossible to keep a razor-sharp pixel-art style in full 3d. So in CoffeeBiz, it’s a combination of 4 different layers - 2d interface, 2d game, 3d isometric for shadows and other 3d for dynamic objects (mostly vertex-lit). Perhaps one more layer for normal mapping is coming. Animation, explaining it:



Step 1: Hand-drawn isometric object. Filter mode - point, no texture compression.
Step 2: 3D mesh of the same shape, so it fits drawn sprite pixel-perfect
Step 3: No cascades for shadows, for sharp look
Step 4: Combined As a final result, I am trying to achieve, so when you pause a game, you get a feeling, that there is no 3d at all, and lighting and shadows are drawn, not rendered.