1. Implemented a customer segment filter with tooltips in the notifications 🔔 section. 2. Added a line ➖ and date 📅 separator for new notifications. Players can now quickly identify their latest notifications.️ 3. Added animated elements to the notifications 🔔 section’s expanding and collapsing function.
Environment
1. Implemented a gradual transition effect for rainfall ⛈️ and snow 🌨
General fixes and modifications 🛠️
Tweaked multiplayer reconnection 🔁 to allow more reconnection attempts.
Stopped the display of drink 🍹 sale notifications when customers decide not to buy drinks.
Added the missing tooltip variable for new buttons 🔲 in multiplayer.
Corrected the position of the punching animation associated with warning notifications.
Fixed tooltip component throwing a null error when switching to multiplayer lobby view.
Weekly Short Update #9 📰
Hello heroes, 🤗
New Implementations 🎁
Environment
1. Implemented all animations for customers 👨👩👧👦 and Master Lee’s bubbly dog, Scotch 🐶 2. Added company valuation 💵 data to multiplayer.
Systems
1. Implemented new purchasing system requirements 🏧 for customers
General fixes and modifications 🛠️
Fixed multiplayer reconnection 🔁. Players can now get back into the game after network 📶 disconnection events.
Fixed abnormal customer queuing behaviour (sliding, walking backwards, and receiving burgers 🍔 before they reach the stand).
Fixed happy customer animation 🕺💃 in multiplayer and synced to clients 💻
Refactored the population to prevent the identical distribution of customers across days.
Fixed bank’s 🏦 interest rates to be calculated based on 30-day-old GDP figures.
Weekly Short Update #8 📰
Hello heroes, 🤗
New Implementations 🎁
Environment
1. Implemented the new design for the notifications 🔔 section.
General fixes and modifications 🛠️
Optimized game performance 🚄 by improving the day-cycle runtime.
Added missing tooltips for the News 📰 button in multiplayer.
Fixed happy customer animation 🕺💃 in multiplayer and synced to clients 💻
Modified the nightfall 🌃 view on the client side 💻 in multiplayer.
Increased the delay ⏲️ for the activation of News 📰 events.
Weekly Short Update #7 📰
Hello heroes, 🤗
New Implementations 🎁
User Interface
1. Implemented the effect of employee happiness 😄 on employee service speed and quality ⭐ 2. Added save 💾, load 🔃, and exit 🚪🔚 functions to the In-game menu. 3. Added animation to all main menu buttons 🔲
Environment
1. Implemented Bankruptcy animation.
Game Logic
1. Implemented the Bankruptcy logic in multiplayer.
General fixes and modifications 🛠️
Improved the game’s performance when loading Day 1 by 68%. Reduced load time for the whole frame from 4.35 seconds to 1.4 seconds. ⚡
Fixed the bug that caused sold Stands to remain in the income and expense reports 📃.
Reduced customer monologue 💬 frequency from 1 in 10 customers to 1 in 20 customers.
Locked auto-stock and other inventory management buttons during the day.
Fixed the bug that caused customers’ animation to be stuck after leaving the queue.
Purchase Probability: Why Customers Buy When They Do
Hey Heroes 👋,
Welcome to this behind-the-scenes look at how we designed the customer's decision-making process for food purchases. Let’s dive right in. 😉
Design Goal & First Steps
Our goal was to create a fun customer simulation for you to experience what it is like to be a business owner in the outdoor food industry😁. Food vendors interact daily with a broad range of people with different tastes and preferences, and they design offerings to meet those needs.
Engineering customer behaviour in the game was a challenge.
Because we could not cater to all customer tastes and preferences, we started by creating nine customer segments based on food-related lifestyles. 👨👩👧👦
Their purchase decision is influenced by one or a combination of the following factors:
How appealing the Stand looks
The price of burgers
The food and service quality of the stand
Brand popularity of the business.
Implementation
We divided the customer purchase journey into three steps:
Before customers can decide whether to buy from your Stand, they must first become aware of it. If they do not, they will keep going on their way. 🚶
They become aware by colliding with your Stand's Range of Influence. The Range of Influence is like an invisible force field around your Stand. It alerts customers of its presence.
The size of a Stand’s Range of Influence size is determined by its Brand 🧑💼, Quality ⭐, and Appeal 😍. The stronger these are, the larger the range of influence and the higher the likelihood that customers will collide with the range of influence.
The Range of Influence formula is:
Colliding with a Stand's Range of Influence activates the second step of the customer purchase journey.
Step 2: Purchase Activation
Now, the customer goes through various factors to determine whether they will buy. Their probability of purchasing from your Stand depends on how well your business satisfies these factors.
The following are the factors they consider.
Is the Stand classy enough?
Some customer segments, like Managers, have a minimum Stand requirement. There are six types of Stands available; if a customer segment does not consider the Stand you own classy enough, most will not buy from it. 👎
But this only applies to the more affluent customer segments 🏧. Other customers are not too bothered with what type of Stand your business owns. They just move on to the other factors.
Am I Hungry?
Each customer segment has a time of day 🕒 when they are likely to be hungrier than at others. During the hungry periods, the customer’s activation probability gradually rises ⬆️ to a peak of 100%. It then dips ⬇️ to a low of 25% after that.
When customers collide with your Stand’s range, the system generates a random number between 0 – 100. If the number falls below the customer’s activation probability at that time, the customer will proceed to the next deciding factor. If it falls above it, the customer will continue on its way.
How much does the burger cost?
Some customers are more sensitive to your burger price 💲 than others. These customers will pass if your burger seems expensive. They use the difference between your selling price and the cost of an average burger patty to decide its affordability.
Side note: We chose to use the burger patty as the basis for price sensitivity because it is the most valuable part of all the burger recipes in the game.
The lower the difference, the more affordable, price-sensitive customers perceive the burger. This increases ⬆️ their purchase probability based on price.
Below is how the purchase probability for Students 🧑🎓 is calculated.
Y = Probability of purchase based on burger price X = % of selling price based on the cost of patty
The formula results in this graph showing customer purchase probabilities at different selling-price-to-patty-cost ratios:
As the ratio increases, the purchase probability of each customer segment decreases. The process is similar for drinks 🥤. However, the basis for price sensitivity is the base cost of drinks.
The formula for parents 🧑🤝🧑:
Y = Probability of drink purchase X = % of selling price based on base cost of drink
The graph below displays the result of the formula for customers at different sales-to-cost-price ratios:
You can see customers are less sensitive to drink pricing than burger pricing. This is because drinks 🥤 are a complimentary product in the game.
Customers with a high purchase probability at your burger price will proceed to their final deciding factor.
Does the Stand have a good reputation?
Every Stand has a reputation which influences the number of customers it attracts. Reputable Stands attract more customers across all segments than those with a low reputation.
The two factors that form a Stand's reputation are its Quality ⭐ and Appeal 😍. Quality has food and service aspects. Food and service quality depends on employee performance. Appeal depends on the type of stand and upgrades installed in it.
Some customers may decide not to buy from a Stand if its reputation is too low 👎. The purchase probability formula for the influencer segment based on a Stand's reputation is:
Y = Probability of purchase based on reputation X = Appeal Value or Quality Value
Below is the graphical representation of the formula across all customer segments at different quality or appeal values:
The purchase probability for each segment clearly increases with quality or appeal.
The customer’s purchase activation process culminates in an overall purchase probability figure. This figure is a combination of their time 🕒, price 💲, quality ⭐, and appeal 😍 purchase probabilities.
It is now time to decide.
Step 3: Purchase Decision
We all know that customers can be unpredictable sometimes. Your product could tick all the right boxes ✅, but they still decide to postpone their purchase for other reasons.
We factored in this slight deviation from predictability by adding an extra step at the purchase decision point.
After a customer's overall purchase probability is determined, the system generates a random number between 0 – 100. If the number is less or equal to the overall purchase probability, the customer decides to buy from the Stand. But if the number is higher than the purchase probability, the customer postpones the purchase.
Conclusion
Understanding your customer's decision-making process is essential to the growth and success of any real-life business 💹. We tried to replicate this in the game without spoiling the fun.
We hope the customer simulation provides an equally enjoyable and valuable experience for you as you build a successful food truck business.
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Live Long and Prosper 👋, Team Visionaries
Weekly Short Update #6 📰
Hello heroes, 🤗
New Implementations 🎁
User Interface
1. Added employee reaction emojis 😄 😡 to the salary and bonus section. 2. Added increase and decrease indicators to all statistics bars to preview the impact of management actions. 3. Implemented tooltips for numbers in the dashboard accounting 🧾 view.
Environment
1. Implemented a gradual transition effect for the weather when it is raining ⛈️ and snowing 🌨️ 2. Moved rainfall 🌧️ position to cover the entire locality 🏙️
General fixes and modifications 🛠️
Stopped bird particle effects from occurring when the weather is not sunny ☀️
Adjusted the customer positioning to face the food stand when displaying a happy/exalted 💃🕺 reaction.
Turned off God ray 🌇 in the nightfall sequence.
Separated the Stand dashboard view into two views: Recipe dashboard view and Inventory/upgrades dashboard view.
The storage :package: capacity indicator now updates during the day with stock depletion ⬇️.
Weekly Short Update #5 📰
Hello heroes, 🤗
New Implementations 🎁
User Interface
1. Stand navigation buttons ⬅️➡️automatically disabled when the business owns less than two stands. 2. Added visual cues to show available and unavailable upgrades ⬆️ for each stand. 3. Implemented a new alert system to make warnings ⚠️ and important prompts 🛑 visible.
Environment
1. Improved walking 🚶animation and speed for all customer segments 👨👩👧👦 2. Implemented Bankruptcy 😱 logic and animation.
General fixes 🛠️
Fixed error ❌ that causes the player steam name to display as Offline Player.
Stopped customers from waiting by a stand 🧍🧍 when it runs out of stock.
Fixed move stand function to show the destination spot animation in new localities.
Stand spot now shows as empty after the stand occupying it has been sold.
Fixed events in the Breaking News 📰 section to show employee details.
Weekly Short Update #4 📰
Hello heroes, 🤗
New Implementations 🎁
User Interface
1. General improvements to the perfect recipe 🧀 + 🥬 section. It’s easier to find now. 😉 2. Added economic happiness 💵 😄 and perfect recipe range data to the customer segment tooltip. 3. Implemented a new design for the inventory management 🛒 view.
Environment
1. Moved stand spots in Park Central closer to customer pathways. 🛣️ 2. Removed the penalty for expensive burger 🍔 feedback. 3. Added Ingredient icons 🍅 🥬 🧀 🥩 to recipe feedback notifications. 🔔
General fixes 🛠️
Reordered the gameplay flow chart layer to prevent tooltip obstruction.
Fixed the bank graph 📈 to reflect current GDP 📊 and bank interest rates 💲 from events.
Weekly Short Update #3 📰
Hello heroes, 🤗
New Implementations 🎁
User Interface
1. General improvements to various special effects ✨, animations, and icons 🏆. 2. Added the development team's progress chart 📊 to the welcome menu.
Environment
1. Implemented a warning ⚠️ message when attempting to buy drinks without a fridge.
Systems
1. Finished implementing the analytics 🧮 and cloud diagnostics system 👨⚕️.
General fixes 🛠️
Stand management view now remains visible when navigating across stands.
Fixed the errors that were invalidating ❌ the analytics reports 📄.
News VFX 📰 no longer stays visible after navigating from the news view.
Configured the events system to shut down upon mission completion 🎯.
Weekly Short Update #2 📰
Hello heroes, 🤗
New Implementations 🎁
User Interface
1. Impact of weather on customer patience 😠 is now in the weather tooltips.
Environment
1. General user experience improvement to the navigation. 2. Added new animations for customers throwing burgers they hate 🤮.
Systems
1. Implemented a feedback system for seamless bug and improvement reporting.
General fixes 🛠️
Stopped showing population data when there is a Storm ⛈️ since everyone will be indoors. 🏡
Fixed the cost of patty 🥩 in the UK.
Modified the bank rate 🏦 tooltip to show the correct rates in the bank graph section.
