Food Truck Empire - Thank you for playing our demo!
Hello Emperors! 🍔
Thank you so very much for playing our demo! 🔥
How is everyone doing in the New Year? We're back - fully recharged after winter break and ready to tackle more challenges and create awesome gaming experience for all of our players!
But first things first - we want to extend a huge thank you to everyone who took the time to play the demo of Food Truck Empire! Your enthusiasm, creativity, and feedback have been really important to us - your passion for our game and the sheer amount of ideas, suggestions and comments have absolutely inspired our team to do more and more! 🔥 🔥 🔥
You’ve shared your thoughts on everything (and I mean it literally, we've received feedback on even the smallest details which is absolutely amazing!) and we’ve been listening carefully so we can now say that your feedback is already shaping the future of the game. Thanks to you, we’ve identified areas for improvement, exciting new ideas to implement, and ways to enhance the gameplay experience for everyone.
The current demo is going away but not for long - with the amount of improvements and upgrades we want to introduce to the game we're excited about bringing it back very soon with even better and refined experience!
Stay tuned for updates, sneak peeks, and announcements. We’ll see you soon, back on the streets, serving up delicious fun!
PS. Literally, stay tuned - very soon we'll have some cool opportunity for you to add your little own touch to the game. You'll see!
The city streets are bustling with opportunity, and we’re here to introduce you to a brand-new feature that will make your journey to Food Truck dominance even more engaging.
Say hello to our new revamped and refreshed Neighborhoods!
You may be asking - what are neighborhoods? Aren't those the places where customers live? You already have seen some parts of the neighborhoods when you were playing through our demo, however what we are doing now is giving them a much more important role. Let's start with the basics!
Neighborhoods are clusters of city blocks that players can "conquer" - they all share a certain pool of Fame that you can gain. Think of them as mini-territories within the sprawling urban landscape, each with its own challenges and rewards.
Your primary goal? Build your influence within these neighborhoods by serving customers on their streets and growing your reputation. Gain enough Control, and you'll unlock special perks and opportunities to solidify your empire!
Every neighborhood is made up of designated road segments - streets where your Food Trucks can operate and maintain their business. By serving the customers on a street belonging to a certain neighborhood you'll be able to increase your Control over that neighborhood. Now... This all seems very nice but what exactly will that Control give you?
Gaining Control influences the neighborhoods in two major ways:
1. By leveling up your Control you can gain access to unique quests that are available for that particular place. These quests can give you great benefits that will make it easier for you to conquer the rest of the city.
2. The higher level of Control over the neighborhood, the less Fame you'll be able to get out of them (and remember you need fame to research new projects and enhance your food trucks). At this point people pretty much start seeing you everywhere, even when they simply open up their fridge!
Keep in mind that some streets will lay on the border between two different neighborhoods! In these cases, Fame and Control are shared between all affected neighborhoods. Fame multipliers are averaged, and Control gains are divided.
Clicking on the street will also provide you with information about how many people from different demographics tend to traverse through them - it will definitely prove to be helpful information!
Now you're probably wondering - what happens when you gain total Control over the neighborhood?
When you max out the Control over a particular neighborhood several changes happen all at once:
1. Neighborhoods control no longer decays over time. The neighborhood is now fully stabilized under your rule. 2. You earn a global Fame bonus - this boosts your reputation across the whole city giving you a passive bonus to all Fame income across the level.
Take a look at the Neighborhood Inspector visible above. By clicking any block within a neighborhood this little window will open, giving you a detailed overview of the area.
Name: Every neighborhood needs a name, right? Speaking of which - Join our Discord if you want to name some of the areas yourself as we’re currently gathering all ideas for their names! Control Progress Bar: Showcasing the current level of your control over this place. Demographics: A summary highlighting all customer demographics and how big is their population in this area. Quests: Some neighborhoods will have unique quests tied to them - with an enticing reward!
Neighborhood quests are a completely new way for us to give you additional goals to work for while adding a new layer of strategy and narrative. Don't be surprised to find some very unique and interesting quests in your neighborhoods!
However in order to get a quest you will first have to unlock it and you will do so by reaching the first level of Control in that particular neighborhood. You need to invest in the area in order to potentially reap benefits but you will always be able to first see what kind of rewards await you there and then decide whether you want to invest your time.
What do you think about the new Neighborhoods?
The Neighborhood system transforms the city into a living, breathing entity that reacts to your actions - no matter whether you aim for total Control, maximize Fame bonuses, or chase quest rewards. What is more, our aim is to implement more flair and add additional flavor to the city - having separate neighborhoods with their own story, image and feel should make the area so much fun to explore!
Keep in mind, as always, that this system is a work in progress, and we’ll continue refining it. However we’re confident that Neighborhoods will add a whole new flavor to your experience. 🍔
Happy New Year!
As this might be the last of our devlogs this year we'd also like to take a second to wish you all great holidays and fantastic Happy New Year!
We're going to enter the year of 2025 with renewed energy and even more ideas and fun features that you might hope for - just watch us ride this truck!
We hope you're having a great holiday time! Some changes have been introduced to the demo and we hope you'll like them - this is a smaller update but we hope you'll enjoy it nonetheless!
🍔 Settings have been added to the "ESC" menu!
6 Winter-themed stickers have been added to the customization screen
Small quality of life changes have been added
As we want to highlight the amazing effect your feedback has on our game every change that resulted from your feedback will receive an appropriate burger icon!
Thank you for your feedback everyone! 💝
⚠️ Creating Food Truck Empire is an immensely satisfying process but we couldn't done it without you. Make sure to let us know about your comments, ideas, suggestions - pretty much any and all feedback. We believe in player-facing development and we want to hear from you whenever we can.
There are many ingredients that you can use to create all kinds of meals in your food truck. Consequently there are many different cooking processes that your ingredients can undergo resulting in many, so many, different variations of food you can create. It's no wonder that sometimes even the smartest and wisest food truck entrepreneur can get lost in it - but we're saying “stop” to that.
Let's introduce a new feature that we're working on!
First of all let's explain what a cookbook actually is - it's your handy companion, a favorite book of all aspiring entrepreneurs, that should make all your cooking much easier. Cookbook lists all ingredients that you have an access to and showcases what cooking process they can go through together with (if you've ever attempted to do so before) the result of how that process will transform the ingredient. This means that every time you want to do something interesting with the ingredients available in your truck, you can simply open up the cookbook tab and check what are your options and possibilities.
Take a look at the easy example below.
The screen you see above is just a part of the cookbook focusing on a certain ingredient - in this case Meat Patty, which is outlined by the yellow circle. Now, usually the names of the ingredients or processes show up only after you move your cursor over them but to simplify the picture we're including relevant tooltips in the screenshot.
Every ingredient that you look up in the cookbook will highlight all the processes it can go through as well as the processes that preceded its creation (if those exist!). In the case of Meat Patty, you can quickly see that this particular ingredient can go through several different processes (including highlighted Grilling), and that it was created through Hand Prep from a different ingredient.
Now, I'm pretty sure you have also noticed the question mark icons, so let's talk about that.
Cooking is often a process linked with discovery. You can also make all kinds of decisions regarding your ingredients - sometimes you will end up with something great, sometimes it will be absolutely inedible. You can discover different blends and mix tastes together to create something tasty.
Cookbook will accurately track your actions within your trucks. Whenever you start using a new ingredient or work with a new cooking process you will receive a notification about the discovery you've made. Uncovering a new ingredient will result in it being then firmly placed within your cookbook for you to see it at any point in time.
However, if you haven't yet tried to combine certain ingredients with a particular cooking process, the cookbook will display a question mark icon, signifying that this particular outcome has not yet been discovered. You will need to either research that particular ingredient, so it becomes available in your truck, or experiment with your cooking processes to discover what ingredient will be created through your actions.
As soon as the ingredient is discovered the question mark icon in the cookbook will be replaced with the relevant ingredient icon and you will now be able to see all the processes that are connected to it.
It's satisfying to find the right combinations of ingredients and processes, but it's also fun to go into it unknowingly - it all depends on your own approach, but we've got you covered on all sides! The cookbook will always remain at your disposal to ensure that you're never left without a helpful companion. Ultimately, whether you rely on your memory or this new feature will be, of course, your choice.
Okay, so how do I reach the cookbook? How do I navigate it?
You can reach cookbook in two ways:
Simply click on the blue Cookbook icon that will be available in the UI bar at the bottom of your screen
This action will be available to you on most screens within the game and it will open the cookbook. Then you will be able to select what meal you want to create and what ingredient you want to learn more about.
The extra step regarding choosing your meal is an important one - the cooking “system” we’re currently actively developing is going to be complex and it’s entirely possible that some ingredients will have different cooking processes and results depending on the meals you've decided to create.
While in the food creation screen simply hover over the ingredient (either placed in truck or in the side menu) you're interested in and press "C"
This will bring the cookbook on your screen. However, this time it will automatically open up on the ingredient that you previously hovered your mouse upon. This way you'll be able to quickly navigate through the pages of the cookbook and efficiently find all the recipes you might be thinking about. All you need to do is to just hover and press "C".
What do you think about the Cookbook?
Keep in mind that the art you're seeing right now is not the final version of it, and we'll be still working on its visual and functional side. We do however think that our Cookbook will help you explore what sort of tasty or kooky recipes you can whip up in the Food Truck Empire! 🙌
Food Truck Empire Demo - Available for a longer time!
Hello Emperors! 🍔
Play Food Truck Empire Demo right now! 🔥
We can see that the interest in the demo of Food Truck Empire is still going strong and we both absolutely love it and are humbled by the reception we've got. As that is the case we've decided to yet again extend the availability period of the demo for an unspecified amount of time!
Frankly speaking - as long as we see that you want to play it we want to let you play it! 🤩
Don't miss out - play Food Truck Empire demo now!
⚠️ Creating Food Truck Empire is an immensely satisfying process but we couldn't done it without you. Make sure to let us know about your comments, ideas, suggestions - pretty much any and all feedback. We believe in player-facing development and we want to hear from you whenever we can.
Play free Food Truck Empire Demo right now - for an extra week! 🔥
Cooking Fest is almost behind us but we have one extra news for everyone who enjoyed their time with Food Truck Empire or might have missed the chance to play it yet!
We're extending the time demo is available on Steam for one more week!
📆Demo will stay available on Steam up until November 25th!
During the Cooking Fest we've received a lot of very valuable feedback and in recognition of the enthusiasm that our players have showed us we decided to leave the demo available on Steam for slightly longer time. This should give a an extra chance to everyone to play the game and possibly reach out to us with further suggestions, ideas and feedback. And we're always hungry for feedback! 🤤
Speaking of Cooking Fest - we're happy to say that we've received a lot of interest for the game. Many of you have joined us on our Discord - which is amazing - discussing our game and we cannot be more thankful for that. Keep in mind that you're always welcome there and we hope to talk with you as much as possible!🙏
Thank you everyone for participating in Cooking Fest! 💝
⚠️ Creating Food Truck Empire is an immensely satisfying process but we couldn't done it without you. Make sure to let us know about your comments, ideas, suggestions - pretty much any and all feedback. We believe in player-facing development and we want to hear from you whenever we can.
Mini Cooking Fest Dev Log #3 - About city and customers!
Hello there, Emperors!👋
🍲Play Food Truck Empire DEMO on Steam now!
The Cooking Festival is almost at its end, but we're here to tell you more about our game before that happens! We'd also like to thank you everyone for playing Food Truck Empire during the Cooking Fest - we had a lot of fun interacting with you and listening to your feedback, which we'll now take to our dev roundtable, where we discuss everything Food Truck Empire-related!
Today we'll focus on the city and customers - we'll tell you a bit about our plans for the future too, so hopefully you'll get excited together with us!
Let's jump into it!
The city is alive with the sound of hungry customers - we're here to make sure those turn from hungry rumblings to joyous declamations of satisfied happiness!
During Cooking Fest you had the chance to play a bit in one of the cities we're planning to include in the full version of our game, but as you probably already deduced, and, as our steampage proudly displays, we're working on several cities for you to enjoy and conquer with your culinary prowess.
The main point of the game is to feed the hungry masses and make the city yours - at least when it comes to food. Cities are going to be ripe with all kinds of bigger and smaller events that will influence the way you play the game. Those events can pertain to pretty much anything happening in the city - perhaps there is a festival and there are a lot more tourists within the city for next two weeks; perhaps most of the children went away with their parents for vacations and you have to deal with creating a holiday-themed menu for the remaining citizens and so on.
We have a lot of ideas for the cities - some are the usual mainstays you would expect, but some are quite quirky. We want to make them feel unique not just by appearance, but also by inclusion of unique customer groups or new events. What’s more - we're working hard on making sure that each of the levels you will be able to play through the game will sport a distinct look that will make it aesthetically pleasant to play through!
The customers are, of course, of highest importance for all Food Truck Emperors. Depending on their approval of your food you will see a glowing success or a sore defeat. You will have to adapt to clients’ meal preferences and always have your head open for researching new solutions to cover the wants of as many customers as possible at the same time.
New cities mean that customers might change too - or at least their preferences. Don't get hoaxed into thinking that one solution will work across several cities - proper research should always precede the action!
It might get complicated - a group you might remember from the first city could have a new variant introduced, with much more challenging preferences... Groups might have up to 5-6 preferences at the beginning but more than 10 later on. The preferences also come in two categories - likes and dislikes. And of course, what one group loves, the second might passionately despise.
Hopefully you're ready for the tastiest of all adventures!
Mini Cooking Fest Dev Log #2 - About pipelines and ingredients!
Hello there, Emperors!👋
🍔 Play Food Truck Empire DEMO right now on Steam!
It's another beautiful day of Cooking Fest! What did you eat today? Have you taken part in our contest? Make sure to check out our Social Media to learn more about it and participate!
Today we'll talk about our pipelines and ingredients you can use during your cooking endeavors and why sometimes your food might turn out a bit... interesting!
Let's jump into it!
What is a dish pipeline - you might ask. And it's a great question, the most important question!
Pipeline is the way you design how work happens within your food truck. It's the cool and fun lines you might have seen within the food truck on our streams or on screenshots; lines that start at the basic ingredients and slowly go through many different phases and inventory pieces. Those lines symbolize the road that your food takes before it's fully processed and ready to be ingested.
Now - depending on those lines several things will happen but there are two that we want to highlight here:
Your food will receive the flavor score - a numerical value that signifies how tasty your dish turns out to be.
The overall speed of production will be calculated - generally the quicker you are with your dishes the better.
You have limited space in your food truck and you need to organize it properly. You can drop and move the elements of your inventory wherever you want in the food truck (but the serving counter needs to be by the serving window!) to organize your pipeline however you see fit. Sometimes you will have to sacrifice some speed to make sure you have more flavor. Sometimes you will do the exact opposite to appease the customers with a short fuse. It's up to you to find the best possible connections!
There's a lot of ingredients at your disposal too. And you will quickly notice that a certain choice will always be yours to make - do you want to make your dish from scratch or will you rely on pre-prepared variants of the components of your dish?
Wanting to create the dish from basics generally yields more quality and flavor! However, you have to go through many more steps in order to create it and, as you've already read before, more steps equals longer pipeline, and that means that your serving speed will suffer a hit. Sometimes that won't be a problem as your customers have different patience thresholds, but it's good to remember about it.
We can't wait to see what will be your strategy - will you create an amazing dish consisting of high quality handmade ingredients, or will you cater to those who want a culinary quick fix right now?
We've made some small changes to the demo build based on the community feedback:
🍔 Renamed customization exit button to "Save & Exit"
🍔 Dispelled a ghost button somewhere around the pause menu
🍔 Fixed a typo ("refrigeration")
Increased the size of popup and quest text slightly
Increased the visibility of game speed toggle buttons
Added tooltips to game speed toggle buttons
🍔 Ensured that the value in research progress tooltip is updated properly
Allowed cancelling dish change by closing the window
🍔 Fixed equipment tabs sticking out
🍔 Changed tutorial text to explain equipment placement explicitly
As we want to highlight the amazing effect your feedback has on our game every change that resulted from your feedback will receive an appropriate burger icon!
Thank you for your feedback everyone! 💝
⚠️ Creating Food Truck Empire is an immensely satisfying process but we couldn't done it without you. Make sure to let us know about your comments, ideas, suggestions - pretty much any and all feedback. We believe in player-facing development and we want to hear from you whenever we can.
Mini Cooking Fest Dev Log #1 - About reviews and food parks!
Hello there, Emperors!👋
We hope you're enjoying yourself with our demo! Today we wanted to talk a bit about our reviewing system and about the food parks - share some light on our philosophy behind it but also give you the platform to talk about your feelings regarding those two systems. Let me start by saying that if you have any opinion on them whatsoever we invite you to let us know about your feelings in the comments to this dev log. We'll be happy to discuss and talk with ya!
Let's jump into it!
Designing a reviewing system that is both balanced, fun and adequately challenging isn't an easy thing. We should know - we went through multiple redesigns from the ground up for that particular system and many many changes regarding how it should work in the game - if you joined us previously during some of our playtests you might even still remember some of the older ideas we had.
However, ultimately, we obviously landed on one unifying idea - the system needs to be immediately understandable for our players. The game needs to be fun! This might seem obvious but in reality, when you have a head full of different ideas and interesting notions, keeping the system simple and fun can be a challenging ordeal. Our current system should embody the main design points - fun, simplicity and clarity and we worked really hard on making sure that each of those points are present within the game.
Simple should not however mean too simple. The challenges presented to you in the Food Truck Empire will slowly get bigger but at the same time more satisfying. We want to ensure that you will always have the right amount of freedom within your cozy little food truck - freedom to create amazing dishes as you see them fit while also juggling different ideas on how to sate your customers.
We have based our newest system on the simple idea - each ingredient has its own tags and some of our demographics will like that tag (thus giving you a higher score) or dislike it (and lowering your final score for your review). It’s simple and elegant, and it works very naturally while still leaving us a lot of creative space for interesting ideas and challenges!
Let us know in the comments what you think about our reviews system - we are always open for implementing further improvements within our systems!
Let's talk about Food Truck Parks now!
During the development of Food Truck Empire we had an idea for specific places on the map that will boost the capabilities of your food truck. Well, technically yours and your competitors (coming in full version of the game!) but let's focus on you specifically. We wanted to give you some extra options when it came to strategy as we strongly believe that the more options you have, the more fun you will experience. A little touch of strategizing will also add to the overall experience!
When you're managing your trucks you're given a seemingly simple choice - either scout the city and find the right place to park your truck and capitalize on the citizens in vicinity OR use food truck parks to try and extend the area of effect for your trucks. The catch being - food parks are stationary objects and posting your truck inside them forever will mean that you're limiting yourself to a certain area. In a way you'd be sacrificing your mobility for extended range of influence.
Food Parks evolve over time through their individual quest lines. It's a fun little addition to reward those of players who like to see some incremental changes and additions to the way they're playing the game. While you can still use some of your trucks to target several other areas in the city that your parks do not cover, some of the trucks can be used to generate steady income while gradually enhancing the park to some legendary status.
What's your strategy when it comes to Food Truck Parks? Are you solely relying on them or do you prefer to individually approach each truck and each part of the city?
