After months of work and skipped Alpha 3, today, I am finally releasing the CoffeeBiz Tycoon Alpha 4 update!
Key changes
New objects placing system Kiosks and A-board advertisements can be moved around the district. No more "lost" and its restrictions, you can run your business almost anywhere.
New ingredients system Rewritten from scratch. Every ingredient now can be different quality, have different taste and freshness
New marketing system Customers evaluate and make decisions about where to drink (or not to drink) a coffee in a new, more complicated way. And players now have new instruments to understand customers' needs. Also, each kiosk now can be promoted on every district, even if it's not placed at all.
More automatization Managers now can automatically clean kiosk, buy ingredients and service or repair coffee machines.
Full changelog
Changes
"Lots" removed
Kiosks can be placed at many different positions with different rent prices
Kiosk mounting time showing above the kiosk
CLOSE label removed while the kiosk is in placing mode
More information about districts
Faster load game mechanics
Equipment renamed to upgrades and moved to new kiosk panel tab
Each kiosk have its unique possible upgrades
Movable advertisement a-boards
Customers who know or see kiosk or its advertisement can be highlighted
Kiosk and all its adv zones can be shown by one button
Three competitors kiosk at downtown, one at industrial districts
New ingredients system
Different ingredients taste
Ingredients freshness
Ingredients auto buy
Marketing funnel
The owner (player) can work as a barista
Updated tutorial
Campaign and sandbox modes
Known and visible kiosks shown in the customers' details panel
Snacks and drinks sales are different for different customer types and their wealth
Incorporation available only after some coffee brewed
Competitor zone can be shown
Customers distinct valuation
Customers forget about kiosk
Market share graphs of the district
Adverts aggressiveness are configurable
Auto repair and auto service of coffee machines
Auto clean of kiosks
Business points removed
Advertisement campaign can be canceled
Different company colors
Campaign winning condition
Neighborhood kiosk campaign
The coffee machine can be serviced without closing kiosk
Mouse wheel zoom in/out
Pause on keyboard ` key
Competitor kiosk can be vandalized
First research tiers cheaper
Fixes
Different kiosk outlines in placing and placed modes
Some kiosk 3d models fixed
Kiosk colliders fixed
Face generation saves bugs fixed
Kiosk attractiveness info changes at the moment kiosk upgraded
Log saves reworked to reduce save-load speed
Industry and tourists marketing values fixed
Not placed kiosk image fixed
Adv image after load game fixed
Adv contacts calc right
Used coffee machines prices
Subway entrance customers stop fixed
Permanent tooltip help
Kiosk work in progress 2d and 3d models
News about the game
Hey there, coffee brewing enthusiast. It's have been a while from last post and update. You might even think that development stopped and the game is abandoned. No way, not while I am in charge! There was an involuntary pause in dev process in the summertime. I got over those issues, and for last month I 100% concentrated in development, almost no communicating with the community. Sorry about that. So here are some key points about the game.
Development not stopped.
And it is going as fast as possible.
Alpha 3 skipped.
Some critical changes like free placing kiosks and equipment lead to so many changes in core game mechanics, so Alpha 3 becomes almost unpayable till almost every game module where re-worked. Let's call Alpha 3 inner version for testing purposes, and Alpha 4 is the next big update. There are hundreds of changes in my patch note. If you can't wait to check it out:
Beta branch created.
You can join beta-branch (of Alpha game, yes, but that's are Steam terminology). Just message me on Steam, write in Discord (https://discord.gg/xEpqx6M) or by mail (contact@thesociopath.software), I'll give you beta access password.
Weeklong deal
I urgently need new feedback for new upcoming Alpha4 and hope the 30% discount will help new coffee brewing enthusiasts to join us.
Alpha 3 coming soon.
Hi!
Alpha 3 is almost ready and coming live this or next week. As you can notice, there is some delay to the roadmap plan, but there is a reason for it. After some players feedback, I prototype new mechanics of placing coffee kiosks. I removed such game element as a “lot,” replacing it with the possibility to place coffee kiosk at any suitable location.
It was such a great improvement, so I decided to implement it as soon as possible. It required a huge change of game codebase, and that caused delay, but it worth it.
After some more testing, I will upload Alpha 3 to steam so that you can try it out!
Game development Roadmap!
Hi everyone!
The development of CoffeeBiz Tycoon continues, and I have many things planned to implement. New features, game mechanics, and the content will come in new updates. To summarize and organize it all here is first Roadmap (now just as a list) of previous and upcoming updates. It’s important to say that roadmap is subject to change depending on your feedback and game development process.
Alpha 1 (Early Access Launch) – October 2018
Core game mechanics
Alpha 2 – March 2019
New locations
Updated marketing and workers modules
Office and management
Branched saves
Adjustable difficulty
Workers time shifts
New coffee machines
Alpha 3 – May 2019
UI update
New ingredients system – ingredients quality, shelf life, bulk purchase, and weekday-weekend purchase planning.
Distinct managers – assign a manager to take control of kiosks and workers operations marketing to increase its performance and get access to new operations over it.
Competitors pressure – disturb competitors, sabotage their kiosk business operations to get an advantage.
Events that require reaction decide on how to perform in such situations as worker absenteeism, competitor sabotage, and other business disturbing situations.
Research tree
Missions – accomplish missions from locals and authorities to earn money, reputation, and other bonuses.
Further – Alpha 4,5,6…
Custom scenarios mode
Sandbox mode
New locations
XS, L, XL kiosk sizes
Custom coffee kiosks
Vending coffee machines
Custom coffee recipes
Workers perks
Multi-language support
Mods support
Branding
Weeklong events
New kiosk, coffee machines, office equipment
Release – Q4 2019.
Its very estimated date, but I don’t think that more than one-year Early Access is good for the game or players.
Thank you for playing CoffeeBiz Tycoon and all your priceless feedback.
Alpha 2.2 is Live!
Hi!
While I am working on a big Alpha3 update, a minor update for Alpha2. More details about game development plans and roadmap to full release in upcoming devlog.
Improvements and Changes
New event – worker boost
Hi-level workers resume search
Assistants 3d models added to kiosks
Promoter cup costume for assistant
Locations new objects and details
Lot work-in-progress visuals added
Different kiosks place on the lot time now showed in the kiosk shop panel
M size kiosk graphics update
Bank loans available only after company incorporation
Bugfixes
Second assistant kiosk panel operation fixed
Locations 2d-3d graphical bug fixes
Kiosk client attractiveness data of not placed kiosk fixed
Alpha 2.1 is Live!
First Alpha 2 update is live and introducing timeshifts. Now, after HR tier 1 research and with HR manager working in an office, you can control kiosk timetable. There you can plan two working shifts (6:00-13:00 and 13:00-20:00) for every weekday, so there is no need to change tired worker in midday or evening/morning manually.
New features
Timetables
Improvements and Changes
Barista and assistant tasks interface reworked
Worker skills level interface reworked
Pause now disable any game actions
New key events messages: level up, the first weekend
Dirt on kiosks visualized
Reasons why kiosk cant brew coffee shown in kiosk panel
The maximum amount of assistants shown in kiosks shop
Outdoor adverts change visuals when an advertisement is placed
In recipe details, the different wealth attitude to price shown
New objects and details added to the first district
Workers can be placed and removed from a kiosk without closing it
Bugfixes
Fixed salary change limit bug
Fixed customers thought bubbles movement
Fixed wrong XP data above kiosks
Fixed assistants adding performance bonus to themselves
Conditioner icon fixed
Many small bugfixes
Thank you for all your feedback and bug reports. With you and your support, CoffeeBiz evolves the way it should. New updates coming soon, stay tuned.
Devlog #2 - animated objects
Hi!
In previous Devlog I described how razor-sharp pixel-art style achieved. Brief: 2d background hand drawn, 3d meshes for shadows and objects distinctly rendered and then mixed.
It works perfectly for static objects. But an animated and interactive object can’t be created that way. For example, if I want NPC walking any direction plus a couple of animations, I’ll have to draw hundreds or thousands of sprites. And still, have 3d mesh for lighting and shadows.
So here some gifs are showing how 3d-2d mix for objects works.
Primitive geometry
Some primitive objects like pillar, pole, fence are made of basic shapes with color-fill texture. Such a simplified approach increases development speed. No need to hand draw 2d sprite and match 3d mesh to it for shading. But it only suitable to a very simple game object, any complicated geometry made such way doesn’t fit graphical style.
Smoke and water
I experimented with different particle types and stopped on cubic meshes. It might be a little too GPU – costly but after rendered it fits perfectly. So its standard unity particles, but rendered twice – for objects layer and shadows layer. If the game paused, it looks just the way I need.
NPC The Low-poly meshes and 3-5 colors texture (point filter and no compression of course). After some lighting and shadows tuning NPC look almost the way, I need. Next big challenge – cars. Right now they look great while moving straight. But when the cat turns, the magic disappears, and they look like from the different game. Working on it.
Trees The most painful story. I tried many-many different possible variants. Sprite, sprite+mesh, mesh leaves, sprite base, etc. And they all looked like from the other game. Finally, after many attempts, I found the best visual variant – standard Unity3d tree with many small single-color plane leaves. Its GPU costly and will have some optimization – I don’t need unity dynamical wind-leaves movement. But I am fully satisfied with the achieved image.
Thanks for reading. More animated objects are coming next versions and the most complicated - cars and traffic.
Alpha2 hotfix
Hi!
Thank you for all your feedback. I have finished the mid-week bug fixing; a new version is uploaded and ready. Restart steam to get an update.
Main bugfixes:
People stuck in kiosk line and stopped all other after someone leaves because of a too long wait - fixed
Autosave save time up to 20-30sec – fixed and reduced to 3-7 sec, but more optimization coming next update
2d-3d mapping of some objects on the first district - fixed
People stuck at spawn point – some fixed but still can occur. More refactoring coming next update.
If any bugs still occur – feel free to contact me directly in steam, by mail (contact@thesociopath.software) or in discord: https://discord.gg/xEpqx6M
Alpha2 is Live!
Hello.
After two months from the last update (thank you for your patience), I am excited to announce the Aplha2 update for CoffeeBiz.
Key new features
New locations – two new locations to run a coffee business – industrial with blue-collar customer type and neighborhood with an extremely good attitude to coffee business.
Updated marketing – new customer decision making AI for more realistic demand simulation. Poor/casual/rich customers stratification implemented. Different districts have different customer types and different hours/days of traffic.
Updated workers – energy, performance, and mood reworked. New “stamina” skill implemented. A company employee is the main business resource. Now you need to monitor and influence their performance and mood, establish reasonable wages. New feature – assistants in the kiosk. They can help barista in brewing coffee, clear kiosk or advertise.
Office and management – finally working the way it should work. Production manager for controlling lots, kiosk and coffee machines. HR manager for employees and Marketing for outdoor advertisement and advertisement campaigns.
Branched saves – experiment with different strategies with no worries. There is a very limited amount of games with some nonstandard savegames systems. I thing branched saves (when you can start a new branch from any day and try some strategies).
Adjustable difficulty – configure the game for comfort playing. Main gameplay problem was that you could easily become bankrupt. Sometimes one mistake if enough. I like hardcore games, but understand that someone wants just to relax. So the main marketing parameter – customer prices can be set up.
New coffee machines – industrial type coffee machines for late game strategies.
More details about changes and info about Mac version and dev plans in upcoming devlogs.
Alpha2 is coming soon
Hello! Its been two months from the last update. Sorry for this delay, but there is a lot of feedback, and Alpha2 update is BIG (a lot bigger than I planned). Some core game changes can’t be added in every 2-weeks “Agile” update manner. Also, I want to make sure everything works the way it should.
Thank you for all your positive and negative feedback – I appreciate any reaction and trying to make this game as good as I can.
Some Alpha2 features:
Two new locations
Game tutorial
Extended help
Assistants in kiosks
Updated marketing model
Updated workers model
New kiosks, equipment and coffee machines
New savegames system
New manager abilities
New financial and banking options
Lot of small updates in gameplay and UI
And of course a lot of bugfixes
Thank you for your patience.
Here is a screenshot from the new “Neighborhood” district.
Reminder - for the latest news and direct contact with the developer, join Discord server - https://discord.gg/xEpqx6M
