Coffee Shop Tycoon
COFFEE SHOP TYCOON TO INCREASE ITS FULL PRICE NEXT MONDAY
After six years of hard work, we're finally entering the last stage of the early access period. We could say it started with the release of the October patch, but the news we just shared is the real turning point. Due to Valve's particular way of managing price changes, we decided to move forward by December and increase Coffee Shop Tycoon's to $9.99. This action will allow us to offer a release discount next month and extend it until the end of the Winter Sale.
The new price will become effective next Monday in the morning (PST), so this weekend you’ll have a last chance to get a copy at early access price ($7.99). Of course, you will enjoy all the updates developed until the present day just as the rest of players.
Next week we’ll be able to share further details on the release update of Coffee Shop Tycoon and the future of Riff Studios. In the meantime, it’d be amazing if you could help us reach new coffee lovers by talking about Coffee Shop Tycoon on social media. Share your best moments tagging our Twitter account (@RiffStudios) so we can join the conversation too. And, of course… don’t forget about wishlists — they’re super important for us!
See you next week, enjoy your coffee!
The Riff Studios Team
Coffee Shop Tycoon v0.9: The final stretch towards full release
Today we have decided to surprise you all by launching the new update you have been waiting for, so you can consider this entry as its respective patch notes. Coffee Shop Tycoon’s full launch is finally coming this December, so we wanted v0.9 to include a lot of relevant changes to help you manage your coffee business in a more complete and efficient way. You'll soon realize why we decided to release a simpler patch last time!
In our previous entry, we gave you a preview of the customer dashboard and the new fan-based progression system that will take over from the traditional levels starting today. But now, it’s time to go deeper into this matter and the other features left to introduce — featuring more screenshots and GIFs that will help you understand them better!
New leveling system
Until now, the progression system was exclusively driven by reputation points and it was limited to 11 levels despite all the new items, machines, and coffee types you were able to unlock through roasting challenges or rival company acquisitions. The new fan-based system allowed us to say goodbye to these limitations because your business growth has no limits.
Every item requires a certain amount of fans to be unlocked instead of reaching a level. On top of that, the reputation of your business will play an important role in the status of your follower counter. The more famous it becomes, the more demanding your customers will become. As you see, this new system makes the game more challenging than before!
Existing save files will be automatically updated, and your current level will be converted to an equivalent number of fans. For our next update, we’re planning to introduce new items that will be automatically unlocked if you have enough followers once the patch comes out. Additionally, there will be a new achievement for those players aiming to build a huge community of coffee enthusiasts.
Customer thoughts + Customer dashboard
Customers in Coffee Shop Tycoon care about many aspects of your store. We felt that sometimes this was not very clear, and you had to click on every customer to find out exactly what was important to them. You still have that option, but now essential thoughts are displayed over your customer's head; this includes things like "Good service," "No coffee," "Bad quality," and "Old food," among others.
All these thoughts are aggregated into a new summary screen that you can access from the manager menu. With this new information, you can cater to all your customer's needs and react promptly when there is a coffee crisis. With this change, we also decided to update the "I'm stuck" icon that popped over your customer's head, as many players were confused by the previous design.
Improvements to the store icons
New icons are now visible next to the requirements of each item to better communicate how to unlock it. Store items are unlocked by fans, roasting challenges, and buying rival companies.
Sugar tables are now functional
If you have condiment bars in your shop, you will notice that some clients will take a detour to pay a visit. This simple action will help you gain additional reputation points, so it’s strongly recommended to have one at every shop! A new animation for this interaction will come soon to the game.
Employees with custom names
This has been a highly requested feature and one we are happy to announce — you can finally rename your employees! You can click on any employee and edit their names in the "Employee Info" screen. Just think twice about firing an employee that has your name on it. We would not want you to start hating the world of coffee…
Additional pathfinding fixes
This is a very elusive bug that has frustrated you and us for months. There was a slight chance that customers would end up frozen in front of the cashier; the only way to fix this problem was to close and reopen your store. Well, we are happy to communicate that the bug has been zapped. While testing the update, we were able to reproduce the problem and add a fix that should prevent this from happening again, no more stuck customers!
And that’s all for now, we hope your verdict is good and you enjoy playing Coffee Shop Tycoon! As usual, we want to remind you that feedback is always welcome here, because it usually helps us identify new bugs or features you might like to see in a game like ours.
That said, remember that these last few months of development are very important to us and we would love for you to recommend Coffee Shop Tycoon to your friends. Every addition to your wishlists counts!
Have a great weekend,
The Riff Studios team
Road to the Autumn update: customer dashboard & fan system
Hello there, coffee lovers!
We hope your autumn (or your spring!) it's been off to a great start. After a well-deserved vacation, we’re back to game dev with our batteries fully charged. In fact, it's been a few weeks since that but we decided to delay the new post until we could show you a preview of the next update. And, for your joy, it's happening today!
Today we’re focusing on two aspects of the upcoming patch that you’ll find most interesting — the fan base system and the customer info dashboard! But first, let’s quickly remind ourselves of the rest of the changes this Autumn update will bring.
- Important notifications such as the status of coffee or the lack of demanded services will appear above customers’ heads.
- Customer thoughts will turn into review tags that can be aggregated for a summary.
- Side tables with sweetener dispensers will be functional.
- The number of marketing campaigns you can active simultaneously will be limited.
- You will be able to rename your shop staff.
The first two points concern the customer information panel, so we'll start by breaking down this feature.
Keeping your consumers happy is vital for your business to attract new coffee fans over time. We are not talking about individual opinions, such as those that can already be read by clicking on each character, but about how this group of people who frequent your store perceives your products and services. To display this information simply, we have created an information dashboard that looks like this:
The more customers rate positively your drinks, your food, and what you offer to make their stay comfortable, the higher your average happiness rate will be. You will get an idea just by looking at the thinking clouds popping over clients' heads. As for the last review received, there’s not much new: the reviewer's opinion is worth the same as that of any other customer, but it creates positive or negative trends that increase or reduce the number of customers you have for a limited time.
Clients won’t show a preference regarding the bean variety or its roasting level — but they take quality very seriously, so you better start training your roasting skills and unlocking new machinery because some of them will expect you to serve coffee with a score higher than 80 or 85 points. If you constantly forget about satisfying that expectation, they’ll finally manifest a negative opinion of your shop and refuse to become your fans.
All this brings us to the new progress system we’re about to introduce. It’s planned to replace the current scale of 11 levels where reaching each of them unlocks a new feature or machine, so once you get to the last one there’s a crescent sensation of having reached the top of the game. The fan base system breaks with it since the number of brand adepts will constantly increase depending on your decisions and management style.
We will keep the aspect of unlocking new items as you achieve a certain amount of followers, but all the rest is entirely new. Every time a customer orders a coffee or a bun, the game evaluates different aspects of the products and services you offer. If the result meets the client's expectations, this person will become part of your fan base.
One more thing you have to bear in mind is that being popular doesn’t mean business growth is going to be quicker — the bigger your community is, the harder it will be to unlock new traits and machinery. We’d love to make it clear with another screenshot, but the IU for this feature is still in development and there’s not too much to see now. We will reveal it as soon as possible in a new post.
That’s all for today, dear coffee addicts! We are counting the days until you can enjoy this new content. This is the final stretch of Coffee Shop Tycoon’s development, which is planned to be fully released in December 2022, and we need more than ever that you help us to make it known. If you have friends who love management games and are curious about the world of coffee, please recommend them to try ours!
Have a great weekend,
The Riff Studios team
The Economy Update is now live!
Hello, coffee lovers!
Today is the day! We are super excited to announce that, finally, the Economy Update is out! We are very happy with the result of these months hard work and we want to thank you for your patience and your support. Now it is your time to play it and let us know what you think about it.
Remember that the Economy Update will let you set prices for food and beverages in your coffee shops. But not only that, as the reputation of your business will have a significant impact on how much you can charge for a cup of coffee. You can take a further look at everything that this update brings to the table in this link.
And now, let's brew some coffee!
A further look at the next major update of Coffee Shop Tycoon
Hello there, coffee gourmets:
Thank you all for coming by one more day to learn the secrets of Coffee Shop Tycoon. In today's post, we're going to explain in detail what the next big update to the game is all about, which, as we said last week, is still scheduled for this month. You can actually take a peek at the update tomorrow, Saturday 16, as we will be streaming it at 7pm PST. This patch won’t only bring the price editing system, but also bug fixes that you have mentioned several times both on the Steam forums and Discord. Without further ado, let’s go for it!
Pricing & Customers’ Expectations
It’s sad to say goodbye to our famous $1000 cup of coffee, but we had to make some changes for the sake of players’ immersion. From this update onwards, each cup of coffee will have a different price according to its value in the real world — which, following the law of supply and demand, obeys what customers are willing to pay for each one of them. Of course, it also affects the food.
You'll be able to modify this pricing from the menu configuration panel to learn how it affects the clients’ expectations. Needless to say that selling a low-quality cup of coffee or stale buns as they were made of gold will make your customers angry, so be careful with that!
How does the pricing work? For starters, coffee will have a standard price of $6 (even the custom ones) and food will be $11. But each category will have different ranges. You will be able to sell coffees from a range of $1-$15 whereas food range will be a bit higher, $1-$25.
Keep in mind that you will be able to set up different prices for different coffee categories. But the real deal comes when you get better beverages thanks to the roasting mechanic. The better coffee you get, the higher the price your customers will be willing to pay! What you need to keep in mind is that price will be tied to the quality of the coffee and food you are serving. That means that low quality goods will mean that customers won't be accepting to pay a lot of money.
Last but not least, location will also play a role when pricing your goods. Their quality will be highly dependent on the staff you hire as well as on the ingredients you use.
Improvements & Bug Fixes
- In the customised drinks creation system, honey won’t be identified as sour anymore.
- We have improved the collisions of customers with the cashier to fix the bug that caused them to freeze while placing their orders.
- If you're preparing coffee in the brewer when the DuLatte Awards activates, there's a chance that you can see the timer on the screen as the event happens. The new update is fixing that bug.
Is there any other bug fix or upgrade you expected in this new update? You’re invited to let us know in the live stream event we’ll be running on our store page at 19 PM PST (4 AM CEST), leave it in the comments section of this blog post, or open a new thread in the Discussion forums. Also, we’re waiting for you on our community Discord server, where we gather to talk about our favourite beverage from time to time.
Enjoy your next coffee and have a great weekend,
The Riff Studios team
New live stream next (Friday) Correction: Saturday
Hello there, coffee lovers:
We're very happy to inform you that we're in optimal conditions to carry out the live stream event we planned for the beginning of July... so it's finally happening next week on Steam! There we will show you firsthand all the contents of the new update, talk about our plans for the upcoming months and share with you all our experiences as tycoon game developers. Plus, we may indulge in coffee madness and do something really crazy to make the event more fun — who knows what you'll miss if you don't come?
We're still balancing our schedules to choose a date that fits for both of us (the one you'll see now on Steam is not accurate), so make sure to check our Twitter account or this entry in the coming days to learn more.
Have your first coffee of the weekend to our health!
The Riff Studios team
A quick note on our next major update
Here we are one more day to keep you up to date with the development of Coffee Shop Tycoon. Today, we bring some news about the next major update according to our roadmap, which is the one focused on economy balancing and user expectations. As those who follow us on Twitter may already know, we've been working hard in our spare time to complete the new content in time for its release in early July. At least, that was our plan until one of our team members got positive in corona last week.
Of course, this won't mean a big delay with respect to the original date. Our big guy is recovering little by little and he now feels much better, so the update will be ready in two or three weeks... if we don't find any further inconveniences in the way! That's what we wanted you to know, just in case you were worried about the absence of news.
In the meantime, we'll keep updating our dev blog with fresh information about the content that will come with this patch and more tutorials for you to make the most of all the features in Coffee Shop Tycoon. Last but not least, we planned a surprise live stream on Steam. We'll let you know the details a day or two before it happens so you all can tell your friends and see us!
Without further ado, we wish you all a peaceful and funny weekend. Please drink a hot coffee for our convalescent colleague.
Best regards,
Riff Studios
Decor your coffee shop to grow up your reputation
Hello there, coffee lovers:
Summer has officially arrived in the Northern Hemisphere! Though some of you might have cleaned and stored your quilts long ago, the beginning of a new season is a very common benchmark to carry out this kind of household task. Also, there are lots of people who feel like redecorating their homes and offices to welcome this stage of the year, which in terms of human psychology is usually tied to positive concepts like freshness, and excitement. So, well, what we mean is that you, dear coffee shop manager, should care about your shop design too!
The decor is just one of the requirements you must meet to reach a higher level in our current reputation system, which starts with a three-star scale that later turns into the usual scale of precious minerals: your coffee shop may obtain a bronze, silver, and golden bean as a symbol of its status.
Good reviews and a high-quality coffee are the factors that make the real difference but, as it happens in real life, customer satisfaction also has to do with how your place makes them feel. Depending on the size of each shop and the level it has, the reputation system will demand a different amount of decor points. They’re pretty easy to get because each piece of furniture has a unique value of 12 points.
Chairs are the only element that sums 6 points per item, but shall only be added to the final score when they’re put together with a table. And speaking of these elements, please remember the valuable information we shared last April in our dev blog: “There’s a 60% chance that customers who were very happy with their order and sat down to drink it, go back to the counter for another coffee to go”. Keep it always in mind!
You are free to decorate your shops as you wish from there. Each time you level up and complete a special roasting challenge, you'll unlock new furniture and accessories to use at any of your cafes. Stick to a simple, minimalist style, take inspiration from the particularities of each new location you move to, or, why not, even try a themed shop! It’s up to you.
We hope you will be able to use this short guide to running one of the most reputed coffee shops in the world through the power of shop decor. As said, this part of the game doesn’t have much complexity compared to the more closely related aspects of product management, so if you have any suggestions for improving it we would be pleased to hear from you. Next week, we’ll be talking about the effectiveness of each kind of drink in the reputation of your shop.
Remember to follow us on social media for more game tips, and join our community server on Discord to be in touch with us.
Enjoy your next coffee,
Riff Studios
5 Things We Learned From The Coffee Industry
Hello there, coffee gourmets!
We are glad to have you on board with us one more week. Creating a tycoon video game requires some research into the subject matter, and this was no exception for Coffee Shop Tycoon. It wasn't a particularly hard task for us to get started as we've always been big fans of this delicious beverage but, indeed, we did have to analyze the most relevant aspects of managing a cafe and learn a lot of new concepts in no time. Today we're sharing this knowledge with you all in a short list of 5 things we learned from the coffee shop industry. Let's get started!
It takes a world to produce a good cup of coffee
The production of coffee is a fascinating topic! It takes between 4 to 7 years for a coffee tree to reach maturity; at that point, it produces cherries that can be harvested by hand or through machinery. These cherries are then processed to remove the outer layers of the fruit, revealing the coffee beans we all know and love. Coffee roasters purchase these raw seeds to extract their best properties to produce high-quality coffee. The final tasting profile will depend both on the coffee's origin and the roaster's goals.
But we are not done yet; the barista takes the coffee to the finish line. There are many brewing practices, each producing an exciting outcome. If you take the same coffee and compare the flavor of espresso vs. a pour-over, you will immediately notice how different even the same coffee can taste.
So, as you can see, producing a good cup of joe is very complex. Next time you find yourself enjoying this glorious drink, think about all the work that went into it to give you that experience.
Light roasted and dark roasted coffee have the same amount of caffeine
Contrary to popular belief, the process of roasting doesn't change the amount of caffeine in each coffee bean. The only thing that will affect the amount of caffeine in your drink is how many beans you use to brew it. Here is where it becomes interesting!
Depending on how you measure your coffee, you might end up with more caffeine or not. Dark roasted coffee beans are larger in volume since they have expanded with heat but weigh less. Consequently, if you measure your coffee by volume, dark roasted coffee will mean fewer coffee beans than light roasted coffee, hence producing a less caffeinated drink. But if you measure by weight, since each dark roasted coffee bean weighs less, you will end up with more coffee beans and, therefore, more caffeine than a light roasted coffee.
Good quality water is just as important as good quality coffee
This might be obvious, but oftentimes you don't give it a second thought. If you want to taste a coffee flavor that is only driven by the coffee properties, try to filter your water. Tap water has chemicals to prevent the growth of bacteria. The smell and taste of these chemicals can ruin a wonderful cup of coffee.
Coffee can go extinct with climate change
Coffee can only be produced in some parts of the world. It is susceptible to temperature, light, and humidity levels. It is estimated that rising temperatures due to climate change can reduce the areas suitable to produce coffee by 50%. This will not only affect the amount of coffee we produce but also the flavor. The soil, elevation, and conditions of each region give the coffee its distinct flavors and aromas. If the weather changes, coffee will need to be produced at different altitudes, changing its properties.
You have probably only tasted Arabica coffee
There are two major types of coffee, Robusta, and Arabica. Depending on where you live, you might have only tasted Arabica coffee. Before arabica coffee started to be associated with quality, it was common to come across supermarket coffee that used Robusta as a filler. Nowadays, Arabica is considered the standard and a higher quality coffee, so it is hard to come by Robusta beans.
Some community members are familiar with these ideas since they have worked in cafes and restaurant businesses for many years, so we’d love to know their points of view. After all, tycoon games should be all about a balanced mix of expertise in the topic to address and lots of crazy ideas to turn the usual tasks and work routines into a super fun gaming experience. We think Riff Studios is on the right way when it comes to achieving this, but a little push never hurts!
With all that said, the only thing left is encouraging you both experts and fans to express your thoughts on this in the comments section, or maybe the DIscussions area. Also, there’s a wonderful community server on Discord that you can join today — this is the best time to do it because we are on the verge of many interesting changes in its structure!
Enjoy your coffees, we’ll see you in the next entry!
Riff Studios
How to make drinks that people actually love
Happy Friday, coffee lovers!
Here we are one more day to share with you the best-kept secrets of Coffee Shop Tycoon. Today, in response to a question made by Celticsungod, we’re revealing a very useful one about the custom drinks system. In the previous post of the #Tips&Tricks series, we reviewed the basic elements of this game feature, so now it's the perfect time to dive into a crucial aspect of it: how can you achieve the highest acceptance rate among the audience of your interest during the test round?
If you’re the kind of player who enjoys doing the math to optimize your results in tycoon games, the following explanation is going to be like a walk in an amusement park for you.
- In order to calculate each target customer’s reaction to your recipe, the game measures how Sweet, Bitter, and Sour your new drink is. These variables are related to the ingredients you choose and in what proportion you add them. Generally speaking, it could be said that teenagers love sweet drinks, experts prefer the bitter taste of traditional coffee and casuals have no clear preference.
- In Coffee Shop Tycoon, the taste is determined by a range of values associated with the flavors mentioned above. This range is different for Teenagers and Experts, while the Casual audience will value all three in the same way.
- Teens: Bitter (0 - 32), Sweet (60 - 100), Sour (0 - 60)
- Casuals: Bitter (0 - 50), Sweet (0 - 50), Sour (0 - 50)
- Experts: Bitter (50 - 90), Sweet (0 - 30), Sour (0 - 20)
- Teens: Bitter (0 - 32), Sweet (60 - 100), Sour (0 - 60)
- These points will get multiplied by a fixed number to calculate the final score of the drink:
- Teens: Bitter (0.8), Sweet (1.4), Sour (0.8)
- Casuals: Bitter (1), Sweet (1), Sour (1)
- Experts: Bitter (1.4), Sweet (0.8), Sour (0.8)
- Teens: Bitter (0.8), Sweet (1.4), Sour (0.8)
If the result for Bitter, Sweet, and Sour falls within your target customer’s range of values, the drink will score well. Here is a practical example:
- Drink A has the following values: Bitter (24), Sweet (70), Sour (45).
- This is what we get after using the multipliers:
- Teens: Bitter (19.2), Sweet (98), Sour (36). Perfect for them!
- Casuals: Bitter (24), Sweet (70), Sour (45). Too sweet.
- Experts: Bitter (33.6), Sweet (56), Sour (36). Less bitter than it should be.
- Teens: Bitter (19.2), Sweet (98), Sour (36). Perfect for them!
It is also important to mention that the customers having a coffee in your HQ will use the average number within their range to evaluate it. For example, taking the values we used first, we would find this:
- Teens: Bitter (16), Sweet (80), Sour (30)
- Casuals: Bitter (25), Sweet (25), Sour (25)
- Experts: Bitter (70), Sweet (15), Sour (10)
Mother of God, what a serious headache! Making a tycoon video game is no mean feat, and explaining the system to other people... can be even more so. Anyway, we hope it helps you create even more successful drinks in the near future. If there's any further detail you want to discuss, feel free to leave a comment here, open a Discussion thread or join our community server on Discord. We’ll always be happy to learn about you!
Enjoy your next coffee!
Riff Studios