Winkeltje: The Little Shop News

Hey there shopkeepers!


It's been a troubled few months for everyone in the world. With much of the world switching to remote working, we have not stayed behind. We are fortunate to have already had the infrastructure in place to continue working from home, which should hopefully minimize the impact the current situation has on the progress on the game. We hope you all stay safe and healthy.


For the longest time we've been working on overhauling the customer behavior for Winkeltje and this has been hinted at for about as long as we have been working it. Due to other more pressing matters popping up this has been pushed and pushed to a later date but with this update we can finally share the new customer behavior. Customers will now be browsing your store more and when they can't find anything they will queue before your counter where you can ask the first person in line what they're looking for. You will then be able to sell them the item they're looking for or send them away.

With this update the maximum amount of shop levels has been raised to 40, of course we didn't stop just there, we rebalanced how fast levels are gained and the unlocks for each level. What this means is that what was previously level 30 is now level 35 and 35 to 40 will be new territory, your levels will automatically be updated to reflect this change. Of course any unlocks you may have had before the rebalance will remain unlocked, so you will not be losing access to these because of this change.

Let us know what you think of this update in the comments or join the Discord (https://discord.gg/winkeltje) where you can get in touch with us and the rest of the community. On the Discord you can also sneak a peek at the change logs as the game is being made so you know what to look forward to or what you can expect on the unstable beta branch where all the changes will be immediately playable.


[h2]New[/h2]

• AI - Customers now queue up at the counter when they want something that isn't on the shelves. This also fixes the issue where customers would sometimes wait around even when an item was placed on a display.
  
• AI - Customers now show up in a more limited pool, allowing the player to more easily increase the happiness of customers.
  
• AI - Customers actually use their budget now, and will as a result buy more items if they're of a lower price. This should make farming more viable as you can sell more items to a single customer.
  

[h2]Balance[/h2]

• Levels - Shop Levels have been increased to 40.
  
• Unlocks - Level unlocks are spread out over the new levels to lessen the amount unlocked at once.
  
• Unlocks - Item unlocks through the shop level are now in order of how much money each item makes and are unlocked close to items that require it for crafting.
  
• Events - Summer; Wood, Turf and Coal are all less sought after in Summer.
  
• Events - Autumn; Tools are now affected by Autumn and are slightly more expensive.
  
• Events - Winter; Meals are now affected by Autumn and are slightly more expensive. Wood, Turf and Coal are all more sought after in Winter.
  
• Events - Blacksmith Convention; The price adjustment for Tools have been reduced (2.5x -> 2x).
  
• Events - Tailor Convention; The price adjustment for Clothing have been reduced (2.5x -> 2x).
  
• Events - Chef's Cook-off; The price adjustment for Meals have been reduced (2.5x -> 2x). More customers now show up on this day.
  
• Events - Harvest Day (Spring); The price adjustment for Bread has been reduced (4x -> 2x).
  
• Events - Harvest Day (Autumn); The price adjustment for Bread has been reduced (4x -> 2x).
  
• Events - King's Day; The price adjustment for Clothing has been changed to be percentage based.
  
• Events - Tournament; The price adjustment for Tools have been reduced (2.5x -> 1.2x). Tools are slightly less sought after than before (7x -> 6x).
  
• Objectives - Seasonal objectives now reward 100 silver each time they are completed successfully in addition to any unlocks when they're completed the first time. ("Prepare for ..." objectives do not get this extra reward)
  

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Art - Updated the look of the Terracotta floor tiles.
  
• Art - When picking up the commission board items, the trader will now spawn without a backpack and get one after picking up the items.
  
• AI - Base budget is now calculated based on the average of all the items a player owns.
  
• AI - Set the minimum budget of customers to 30.
  
• Customers - Defined more customers which should result in audible sighs to fit the customer's name and model.
  
• UI - You should now be able to press escape to exit out of the commission menu.
  
• UI - The game will now be paused while the commission menu is open.
  
• UI - Customer patience now counts down instead of up
  
• Objectives - "Sell 30 Tunics" objective will no longer start in new shops as it no longer fits the progression.
  
• Objectives - Disabled the starting of Avoid type objectives ("Rotten Apples", "Thank Me Trader", "Craft Lottery") as we evaluate how to make them more fun.
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Art - Made the walls look better when masked.
  
• Art - The bushes in the main menu were not changing with the displayed season.
  
• Gameplay - Access points would sometimes not be marked as invalid.
  
• Gameplay - Customers would sometimes request seeds
  
• Gameplay - Player rotation would not be loaded correctly
  
• Objectives - The Max Appeal Upgrade Tutorial now autocompletes if the shop already has been upgraded once before.
  
• Objectives - Cheese was not unlocked when Quiche was unlocked through crafting.
  
• UI - Fixed an error that could occur by rapidly clicking the accept button when the last commission in the commission menu was selected.
  
• UI - Fixed an issue that could let you buy/order items twice within a single frame if clicked fast enough.
  
• UI - The detail panel in the commission menu had the wrong background.
  
• UI - The outline colour of the trader icon would sometimes not reset its colour correctly when using a pooled prefab.
  
• UI - Wall masking hotkey 'H' is now disabled when a menu is open.
  
• UI - Renaming the "Shop" tab to "Shop Upgrades" broke the description in the unlock menu.
  
• Main menu - Main menu animated backgrounds should now have wall masking disabled.
  
• Audio - Music in main menu was not looping anymore.
  

• Customers - Customers would default to an opinion of 0 instead of 50.
  
• Customers - Old save files with the customer identity set to "random" would always load in as the Male Villager instead of correctly picking a random model.
  
• Customers - Customer opinion was clamped between -5 - 15, instead of 0 - 1000.
  
• Customers - Customers now get 1 opinion when being sold something via the counter.
  
• Objectives - Paying off your debt with a loan would sometimes throw an error
  
• UI - Customers show a happy face again when buying something.
  
• System - Delivery monoAgent wasn't being cleared correctly.
  
• System - Ordering supplies from the counter twice while the shop was open should no longer softlock the game.
  

Greetings shopkeepers!

It is time to bring you another update and to show what is new. For this update we've prepared some exciting new features, a load of improvements and a bunch of fixes. So get yourself a nice beverage of choice and strap in, there's a lot to talk about. Afterwards, why not give these changes a go and play some Winkeltje for some quality you time.


The commission board is your gateway to receiving and completing commissions and is unlocked at level 15. Commissions require you to prepare and deliver orders of varying types and amounts within a certain amount of time. Commissions have different ranks to them and each rank increases the difficulty of the commission in question. After a commission has been prepared, it can be delivered at the commission board. The goods will then be picked up and your pay delivered! The feature has been long in the making and we now feel like it's ready for release to you all.


A much requested feature was being able to hide the walls in some way to get a better view of the shop and the displays. In this update we give you the opportunity to change the way that walls are shown. You can show them in their entirety at all times, show them as half walls or use the trusted dynamic method which only hides the part of the wall you're behind. Of course this is only visual and the walls perform as you'd expect them to. You can easily cycle through the different hiding methods by using the "H" hotkey.

As we mentioned in previous announcements, the price for Winkeltje will increase to $12.99 around the time that this update goes live

Winkeltje has seen 23 updates since launching into Early Access a little over one year ago. We feel that this new price reflects the content & updates that have been put in since. If you have questions regarding the price change, don't hesitate to ask us on the Steam forums or on Discord.

Let us know what you think of this update in the comments or join the Discord (https://discord.gg/winkeltje) where you can get in touch with us and the rest of the community. On the Discord you can also sneak a peek at the change logs as the game is being made so you know what to look forward to or what you can expect on the unstable beta branch where all the changes will be immediately playable.


[h2]New[/h2]

• Community Request: Wall Masking - Added several wall masking options which can be switched between with the "H" hotkey.
  
• Furniture - Added the commission board which can be unlocked at level 15. Commission tasks will now show the item quality and icon in the objective tasks.
  
• Audio - Added new music for the winter season.
  
• Objectives - Added an objective reminding you to upgrade your shop.
  
• Structure - New Large Window for Stucco and Brick walls.
  

[h2]Balance[/h2]

• Objectives - The Harvest Day Preparations objective now rewards Table of Plenty, Large Blue Banner and Large Red Banner on completion.
  
• Objectives - The Taste of Autumn objective now rewards the Autumn Shelf on completion.
  
• Objectives - The Keeping Warm objective now rewards the Small Blue Banner and Small Red Banner.
  

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• UI - Increased size of reminders.
  
• UI - Renamed the "Shop" tab to "Shop Upgrades" in the Unlock window.
  
• UI - Disabled the save button when the shop builder is open to avoid a weird save state.
  
• Main Menu - Files in the "Load Shop" menu are now ordered by the date it was last played.
  
• Main Menu - Removed anniversary confetti and the "Anniversary Update" text below the logo from main menu.
  
• Structure - Updated several prefabs to have consistent wall masking settings.
  
• Art - Updated the structure shader to make the backfaces a bit lighter.
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Crafting - Leather wasn't unlocked when Gloves were unlocked.
  
• Crafting - If farming had already been unlocked before the farming revamp the "Kitchen Garden" was no longer unlockable. "Kitchen Garden" now also unlocks from the first farming objective.
  
• Art - Doors with handles on them should now also fade when a customer passes through.
  
• Art - Shop sign appeared transparent from the sides.
  
• Decorations - Bushes update their colours & flowers correctly once again.
  
• Furniture - Furniture with more than one collider should no longer deselect early when one of its colliders has moved out of the player's awareness range.
  
• Events - The seasons should now correctly start when the previous one ends.
  
• Events - Events were not correctly being blocked by other events when required.
  
• Objectives - The Catering objective didn't have an objective tracker, making it difficult to see the progress of the objective.
  
• Objectives - The Growth Spurt objectives would not be completed until the layout was changed, accepted or declined. Even if the size of the shop was already larger than the objective's goal.
  
• Specialization - Having a single specialization would constantly switch the shop sign outside between a general sign and a specialization sign.
  
• Gameplay - When you get a game over screen the game will not auto-save anymore, allowing you to replay the last day to try again.
  
• UI - "Display" in Game settings > Graphics was using the incorrect translation string.
  
• UI - Character select menu header label now no longer wraps.
  
• UI - Failing an objective would not correctly reset the fail routine.
  
• UI - A re-used objective UI element would not reset the deadline progress bar making the deadline progress bar seem empty when it should be full.
  
• UI - Missing icons now default to the inventory icon instead of crashing the game
  
• UI - The buttons in the confirmation window could occassionally become really small.
  
• UI - Tweaked some of the objective task spacings to look nicer.
  
• UI - Crafting menu item text was colored to a quality when first hovering over it but changed to white after a craft. The text is now white from the get go.
  
• UI - The task progress label should now update its width when set. This should allow task text to wrap more accurately.
  
• UI - Exceeding a task requirement should now make the progress text gray.
  
• Main Menu - Deleting a shop in the Load Shop menu should no longer prevent subsequent shops from loading without revisiting the menu.
  
• Audio - Female walk and run animation was missing the footstep sound effect.
  
• Translation - Select Scenario had incorrect linebreaks when playing in Dutch
  

About a year ago Winkeltje was released into Early Access as a simple shopkeeping simulation fantasy game. With this post we would like to remind you that Winkeltje will increase its price from $9.99 to $12.99 as of March 10th 2020. Below we will explain what has led to this decision.

A price increase has always been mentioned in our Early Access statement which can be read on the Steam store page. At the time it was anticipated that Winkeltje's price would see a one time price increase at full release. Considering where we are with Winkeltje, and where we want the game to be, it made more sense to slightly increase the price to reflect the improvements of the last year and allow it to help fund the continued development.

Winkeltje is currently being developed by a team of 4 and we are proud of what we have accomplished together with the valuable feedback from the community. In summary of last year's development we have:

• Released 20+ updates in 1 year (amounts to roughly an update every 3 weeks)
  
• Increased the supported languages from 4 to over 12 with the help of our awesome community.
  
• Added difficulty and creative modes
  
• Added wall mounted furniture
  
• Added a quick restock option
  
• Added cooking as a crafting option along with 10 new items
  
• Added multiple planter options
  
• Added dozens of new events
  
• Added dozens of new furniture pieces
  
• Added several new structure kits
  
• Supported door locking to keep customers out of private rooms
  
• Added several different pallet options
  
• Updated the farming and crafting UI
  
• Numerous balancing passes and updates
  
• Added a new trader model
  
• Supported double wall pieces and a host of different wall options
  
• New crafting themed decorations
  
• Added a click to move control option
  
• Several seasonal updates such as Spring, Autumn, and Winter
  
• An overhaul of the main menu, save loading, and shop naming
  
• The option to play with a different shopkeeper
  
• And much, much more.
  

It's not easy to keep the game fun and stable while adding all these improvements and new features to a game in this genre. And while the list above has definitely made Winkeltje better, we feel that there are still things that need to improve before we can consider releasing Winkeltje version 1.0.

Thank you for your continued support.

On February 19th it will have been a year since we launched Winkeltje into Early Access, and what a year it has been!

Together with all of you we added new features, new content and made a whole lot of changes, 1948 of them to to be exact. We have a few more for you today, so let's get right to it.


A much requested features has been Character Customization. Today we take a step into that direction by introducing a new character and letting you pick which character represents you as a shopkeeper. Once you load in a shop (new or old) you should get the option to select your character.

The price increase to $12.99 will happen on the 10th of March, 2020

Winkeltje has seen 22 updates since launching into Early Access roughly one year ago. We feel that this new price reflects the content & updates that have been put in since. If you have questions regarding the price change, don't hesitate to ask us on the Steam forums or on Discord.





[h2]New[/h2]

• Community Request: Character Select - New character option.
  
• Objectives - Added the Gardener 2 and Harvester 2 objectives to better spread out the farming unlocks.
  
• Main Menu - Added Winkeltje logo to the main menu.
  
• Main Menu - Main menu now has confetti in the background to celebrate the 1 year anniversary.
  

[h2]Balance[/h2]

• Unlocks - Unlocking the kitchen garden now only gives 2 Potato Seeds instead of 4.
  
• Objectives - Re-adjusted the amount of harvests needed for the farming objectives to complete.
  
• Objectives - Lowered the amount of light decorations needed for the A Light in the Dark objective from 10 to 8.
  
• Objectives - Put back the silver rewards for the tutorial.
  
• Decorations - The prices for all decorations have been halved.
  
• Decorations - The prices for all wall type decorations have been reduced by about 20%.
  
• Decorations - The prices for all carpet type decorations have been brought in line with wall decorations and have been halved.
  
• Events - Earliest possible day for the War event has been delayed (1 -> 30)
  
• Events - Earliest possible day for the Fire event has been delayed (1 -> 15)
  
• Events - Earliest possible day for the Plague event has been delayed (1 -> 60)
  
• Events - Earliest possible day for the Tournament event has been delayed (1 -> 60)
  
• Events - Earliest possible day for the Iron Find event has been delayed (1 -> 30)
  
• Events - Earliest possible day for the Coal Find event has been delayed (1 -> 30)
  

[h2]Fixes & Changes[/h2]

• Shop Builder - Player was able to remove the entrance using a double wall
  
• Structure - Cross/diagonal beams of Stucco and Brick walls with cross/diagonal beams were too thick causing them to clip through paintings.
  
• Structure - Stucco and Brick wide arch had a collider set to trigger mode instead of collision mode allowing players to pass through the wall.
  
• Objective - Tutorial on Item Placement didn't start at the right stage meaning explanation for Access Points wasn't shown.
  
• Optimization - Heavily optimized the CPU usage of the particle system.
  
• Optimization - Replaced button svg gradients with a better performing and less error prone solution.
  
• Particles - Removed Item Glow particles from items that are of Poor & Normal quality.
  
• Particles - Changed particle texture to a star instead of the default circle.
  
• Particles - Tweaked the item quality particle system to feel more lively while using fewer particles.
  
• Objectives - Objective progress now also shows a number for progress when this information is meaningful.
  
• Objectives - Objectives were not giving money on completion
  
• Main Menu - Winkeltje logo and disclaimer text should adjust position depending on UI scale.
  
• Other - Audio Listener in the PreGame scene would not be removed correctly.
  

Happy New Year Shopkeepers!

This is the first update of the new year as we're getting into the swing of things again after some much needed rest and relaxation over the holidays. With the holidays and half the team sick for a period of time it's a bit of a smaller update compared to the previous one, but there is still plenty to see! From optimizations, to overhauls, to fixes. So sit back with some vegetable soup or a steamy beverage to prevent getting sick and play some relaxing Winkeltje to forget about the cold wet outside. Now if only I had taken some of that vegetable soup... I might not have gotten that plague event after the holidays.


Next up in the UI overhaul is the Customer HUD, a fresh lick of paint and some love and care has resulted in an updated look for the customer HUD. Nameplates will only show up when they are within the player's range, resulting in a much calmer screen. Customers will now make a sound when they found something they want or when their patience has run out. The patience now shows yellow when a customer has found an item they wish to buy, and red when their patience has run out.


In the previous update we added support for double walls and a set of wide arches to plan out your shop with. With this update, we expand on the double walls with some double shutters and large windows. These can help create a large storefront or provide a great view on a garden and are great ways to let in some extra light.


In this update we introduce a new stance on how crafting is done. Now you will no longer craft an item of a quality, but you will simply craft an item and there is a range of qualities that can result from that. We feel like this better highlights the feeling of getting more comfortable with the craft and creates a better diversity for item qualities to sell. This change really opens up what we can do with crafting to make it even better and we've got some cool stuff in the pipeline to make crafting more engaging and interesting.

[h2]Farming Rebalance[/h2]
We've always felt that farming felt rather lackluster and there really wasn't enough reason to pick it over any of the other crafting methods. With this change we hope to alleviate that lackluster feeling a little. The order of the unlocks for farming has been changed, with the kitchen gardens now being the first ones to unlock and the planters later. When you unlock a planter you get some free seeds to go along with your planter, so you can put your green fingers to use right away. Harvesting crops will now always give you some seeds as well as an additional chance for an extra seed, so you can keep farming to your heart's content.

Of course, for this update too, we're interested in your thoughts on these changes, so feel free to let us know what you think in the comments. Or join the Discord (https://discord.gg/ZSMEenk) where you can get in touch with us and the rest of the community, and where you can sneak a peek at the change logs as the game is being made so you know what to look forward to or what you can expect on the unstable beta branch.

And of course, here are the full update notes.

[h2]New[/h2]

• Community Request: Trashcan UI Revamp - Trash bin radial menu now subdivides items into categories and, if applicable, quality groups.
  
• Community Request: Graphics - Added support for resolution 3840 x 1080.
  
• Community Request: Shopbuilder - Double width window options for all wall types.
  
• User Interface - Added confirmation before unlocking a crafting station.
  
• User Interface - Clicking on the objectives header will now open the objectives menu.
  
• Customer HUD - Customer patience shows a red ring when patience has ran out.
  
• User Interface - Customer claiming an item will now have a yellow affirmative ring around the item request.
  
• Audio - Nearby customers claiming a requested item or running out of patience will now have audio feedback.
  

[h2]Balance[/h2]

• Community Request: Farming Rebalance - Rebalanced farming unlocks & rewards.
  
• Balance - Planters are now unlock through the farming objectives and are no longer unlocked through leveling.
  
• Balance - "Gardener" objective requirements raised (3->30).
  
• Balance - "Harvester" objective requirements raised (8->50).
  
• Balance - "Farmer" objective requirements raised (30->120).
  
• Balance - "Industrial Farmer" objective requirements raised (15->250).
  
• Balance - Reordered seed and vegetable unlocks. Whenever a vegetable unlocks, the seed now also unlocks.
  
• Balance - Farming objectives now also unlock seeds and vegetables.
  
• Balance - All seed prices increased because of farming rebalance.
  
• Balance - Sunflower Bouquet now unlocks at level 4 (was level 18).
  
• Balance - Tulip Bouquet now unlocks at level 18 (was level 4).
  
• Crafting - Leveling up crafting now grants you a chance to craft a higher quality item, rather than always getting the item previously associated with that level.
  

[h2]User Interface[/h2]

• Main Menu - The background in the main menu scene no longer forces a winter scene.
  
• Customer HUD - The Customer HUD has an updated look.
  
• Customer HUD - Customer names are only shown for the nearest customers.
  
• Customer HUD - Customer patience now starts to slowly blink when patience is running out.
  
• Crafting - The crafting item info tooltip no longer shows the probable crafting quality value as the result can now vary much more.
  

[h2]Performance[/h2]

• UI - Increased the drawing efficiency of the top bar.
  
• UI - Significantly improved drawing performance of the Objectives HUD, Top Bar HUD, Inventory HUD, and Customer HUD.
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• General - Shop doors will now remain open if the trader is inside.
  
• General - Items that are added to the player inventory are now always marked as unlocked
  
• Shopbuilder - When placing a new wall, the pillar collider is also checked to avoid inconsistencies in placing furniture inside a pillar.
  
• Shopbuilder - When removing/placing a wall it now correctly ignores shelves that are close to the wall but aren't attached to it
  
• Shopbuilder - Window shutters with an outside floor tile on one of the sides were treated as being indoors.
  
• Shopbuilder - Walls with multiple colliders now correctly validate furniture.
  
• Furniture - Wall mounted furniture should now correctly be marked as incorrect when there's multiple on both sides of a wall.
  
• User Interface - Confirmation windows related to paying debt should now pause the game. This addresses an issues where coins were added after the debt payment check was already performed.
  
• User Interface - Fixed a mouse selection issue causing a raycast not to return the first hit furniture.
  
• User Interface - Updated the sprite atlas asset to account for a shift in the icons. This caused some icons to appear wrong.
  
• User Interface - The tutorial text on the player should now no longer be jittery.
  
• User Interface - The open shop label on the entrance should no longer appear when standing next to the entrance when the shop closes.
  
• User Interface - Interactable objects that are enabled while next to the player should now highlight.
  
• User Interface - Pressing escape after having cloned a planter would prevent any further interactions.