Winkeltje: The Little Shop News

Greetings shopkeepers!

After the smaller intermediary update from last time, it is now time for what we could not include then. This update marks a major milestone for the UI overhaul, with the largest overhaul done yet. So have a seat, get yourself something nice to drink and strap yourself in, we've got a lot of cool stuff to go over. Of course I can only tell you so much about it, the real kicker is in the experience, so after you're done reading, why not give the new features a try and play some Winkeltje for yourself? Browsing, buying, placing and expanding have never been easier.


We have teased it in the previous update, but now the next installment of the UI overhaul is finally here. The furniture and structure catalogs are a complete rework of the UI for buying furniture and building your shop.

[h3]New Grid Based Browsing[/h3]
Using the new grid based catalogs you can now browse, buy, place furniture, and select your floor and wall faster than ever, no more scrolling endlessly until you find the furniture piece or wall you want to place.

[h3]Preview with properties[/h3]
Previews have been redone to more elegantly show the information for each different piece, with properties of each piece clearly expressed with icons.

[h3]Favoriting[/h3]
Favorite furniture, walls and floors to quickly find them again using the new sorting and filtering methods.

[h3]Sorting and Filtering[/h3]
Sort based on price, appeal, item slots, wall type, favorites and more to find what you're looking for much faster than before. Use the filter to show only those things you really want to see in the catalog, filter based on favorites or any of the specific properties of a piece. And of course they both work together, now you can find that most expensive winter decoration piece in a cinch.

[h3]Variants[/h3]
Variants of the same type of item are collapsed under one base instance, so no more seeing all 8 different bushes in the list with all items. Just one bush is in the list, but you can easily go to the different variants and quickly switch between them there as you're tending to your garden.

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 branch where all the changes will be immediately playable.


[h2]New[/h2]

• Community Request: Favoriting of Furniture/Wall/Floor - Favorite furniture, wall and floor pieces so you can quickly find them later.
  
• Community Request: Filtering of Furniture/Wall/Floor - Filter pieces in the new catalog to only show pieces that fit a certain filter.
  
• Community Request: Sorting of Furniture/Wall/Floor - Sort the items in the new catalog based on various sorting methods.
  
• UI - Added bottom bar UI
  
• UI - Added catalog menus (buying & building)
  
• Audio - Added new autumn night music.
  

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• All - Numerous changes to support new catalog menu features
  
• Objectives - Removed prompt for using tab to manage the shop from "Placing Furniture" tutorial objective to reflect the new catalog changes.
  
• Objectives - Table is now only unlocked after completing the "Placing furniture" tutorial objective, instead of at level 1.
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Customers - Customers should get stuck in queue less often
  
• AI - Fixed multiple AI issues with the commission pickup.
  
• UI - The shop open/closed contextual prompt was not updated correctly when the shop was opened.
  
• Objectives - "Placing items" tutorial objective could be soft locked if tables with items were placed before the objective activated.
  
• Translations - Dynamic text which isn't found in the loaded language should now also revert to English by default
  

• Objectives - Issues occured during the "Item Placement" tutorial if a furniture piece without accesspoints was selected for placement.
  
• Tutorial - Rotating furniture prompt should now correctly show shoulder buttons prompt when playing with controller.
  
• UI - Picking up furniture using controller will now toggle the L2/R2 prompts to avoid confusion.
  
• UI - Catalog grid items are now set to be interactable when item values are set to prevent a rare case where grid buttons are no longer interactable.
  
• UI - Fixed a critical error that could occur when placing furniture.
  

Greeting shopkeepers!

As we're all continuing to work from home through these strange times we are currently hard at work on an update to the Furniture Purchasing UI and Shopbuilder UI. This is proving to be a bit more work than we initially expected so it will be a little longer before we can hand that to you all. But while we're working on that we of course don't want to keep you waiting for a new update for too long. Today we have a smaller scale update to address some issues that have popped up and to add some new summer music to the game.

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]

• Audio - Added new music for nights during the summer season.
  

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Decorations - Reduced the size of the collision box of the Winter Garland slightly so they can be placed on both walls in a corner.
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Gameplay - When selling an item directly to a customer, the item would sometimes be null
  
• Customers - List of customers would be shuffled at the incorrect time, resulting in the same customer type walking in all the time.
  
• Customers - Customers would go to a newly placed item when their original target would still be there.
  
• Customers - Under rare circumstances, a customer could be standing in queue but not be correctly set as being in queue.
  
• Objectives - New objectives that were added through the levels would not be updated correctly when loading in an older save file.
  
• Objectives - Opinion thresholds for "Customer is King 1" and "Customer is King 2" were not updated to match the new opinion max values.
  
• Objectives - Loan task in the Objective UI would not complete when paying debt + loan at the end of the day.
  
• Objectives - Players could get infinite loans when they didn't have enough money to pay the debt if they paid off their loan when opening the shop.
  
• Events - Events loaded from a save file would not have its progress correctly loaded
  
• Audio - Background music would sometimes stop playing.
  

• Objectives - Item Placement Tutorial would not update when items were placed on tables.
  
• Shop Loading - Loading a shop file that was saved on a payment day would throw an error.
  
• Customers - Customer list would not be loaded correctly
  
• Customers - Added a fallback for older save files, which should now shuffle the customer list when loaded
  

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.