What's New Games

October Dev Diary - Product Management Improvements

October 30, 2023

Hello heroes! 👋

In this update, we will be discussing the changes we've made to the game's product management system.

TLDR: We've overhauled our product management system to show real-time burger count updates when recipes change. New researchable features offer pricing insights into customer preferences and an inventory calculator for efficient business management. Inventory sees a unified view for both normal and cold storage, the introduction of an expiry mechanic for ingredients, and revised storage size for an added gameplay challenge.

We found out during our playtests that players had no problem changing burger recipes. However, they had a hard time predicting how those changes would impact their inventory the next day.

Because of this, players often ran out of stock earlier than planned. The latest product management design intends to fix these issues by providing players with more relevant information right where they need it.

Product Management 2.0

We used to have three screens for product management. One was for recipes and pricing. Another was for burger inventory. The last was for drinks. 📋

This setup sometimes missed key links 🔗, like the tie between recipes and current stock. 🍔📦 Now, we've updated it to show four related tabs:

Recipe 📜
Prices 💵
Inventory 📦
Ordering 🛒

Recipe Management 📜

The recipe section now shows how many burgers you can make with each ingredient you have. Change an ingredient in your recipe? The number of burgers changes right away. 😍

Plus, we added a new save feature 💾 for recipes. You can save and swap recipes easily 🔄, depending on your strategy.

Price Management 💵

We've added a new, researchable feature for pricing: "purchase probability insights" 📊. This helps you set the right price for different customers 👥.

Before, you only saw pricing effects after the day began 🌅. Now, with this new section, you get an estimate. You'll see how likely each customer group is to buy based on your set price 🏷️.

Inventory Management 📦

The inventory section has major updates 🔄. Before, there were separate screens for normal and cold storage 🌡️. Players couldn't easily see which ingredient took up the most space, making stock planning a bit difficult 😤. Finally, we didn't have the product expiry mechanic.

Now, things have changed.

Normal and cold storage are together in one view, and ingredients are now organized by storage priority. Cold storage is now researchable.

Expiry Mechanic: Cold storage ❄️ helps your patties and cheese last longer 🍔🧀. Without it, they go bad in a day. With it? They're good for up to three days!

We've also revamped the storage indicators for improved visibility, allowing players to gauge the space occupied by individual ingredients swiftly.

Lastly, we've made the default storage smaller. Previously, storage management was not a big part of the gameplay mechanic. That’s because the storage was too large to be a consideration.

We hope the smaller storage will make for a fun twist that ramps up the challenge and tests your resource management skills.

Ordering Management 🛒

We've restructured the ordering procedure to ensure a more streamlined and intuitive gaming experience 🕹️.

Clear Quantity Signs: It's now easy to see how many ingredients you need. We relocated quantity details from within the tooltips to more prominent positions to avoid oversight and facilitate informed decision-making.

New Ordering Button: In the previous version, replenishing your inventory required you to start a new day 🌅. Now, we've separated the 'Order' function from the 'Start Day' button, enabling a more logical and intuitive end to your ordering process.

Inventory Calculator: The inventory calculator is a researchable item that can help you manage your business more easily.

With this calculator, you can quickly compute the required purchase orders for burger production, saving you time and reducing manual calculations. As your business grows, this tool will become indispensable.

That's it for this update!

We'd leave you with Laz's attempt to recover from a disastrous financial position on his journey to hitting $250,000 in cold hard cash!

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Live Long and Prosper 👋,
Team Visionaries

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