We've made some small changes to the demo build based on the community feedback:
Improved stability of the game engine
Fixed the Customers irregular spawns during different day cycles and after game loads
Improved Customers optimization on the city map
Bowl ingredient branches adjustments (two ingredients branches need to be valid now)
Better engine optimization when making the connections between ingredients/appliances in truck
UI refresh rate optimization
Visual adjustments to certain city locations (HQ)
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.
Play Food Truck Empire Demo now @ Steam's Cooking Fest! 🍔
Hello Emperors! 🍔
Play free Food Truck Empire Demo right now! 🔥
We're super happy to let you know that you can now play the FREE demo of Food Truck Empire!
In this particular demo you'll be able to start off your very own Food Truck company - you'll create its branding, create and customize your first Food Trucks and do everything in your power to feed the hungry masses of the city.
We'll be giving you a lot of freedom to achieve your goal - you'll be the one to decide about the ingredients, the recipe and the equipment of your truck. You'll be free to scout out the preferences of your potential customers and decide about the ever-changing (they're mobile after all!) placement of your trucks. Even they themselves will bend to your will as you'll be the one to customize their exterior to even the tiniest little detail! Stickers, colors, accessories and props - use whatever you feel necessary to ensure that your truck looks just amazing!
Take control over your own Food Truck company - buy trucks, equip them with all kinds of appliances, ingredients and assets. Craft your food, hit the streets, feed the masses - make sure that the whole city is fed! In the demo version of Food Truck Empire you can already enjoy multitude of fun in-game features like creation of automated food assembly lines, designing and customizing your own food trucks in and out, strategizing the best placement for your tracks and responding to the needs and preferences of customers.
We hope that many of you decide to check out our demo and enjoy themselves while creating super tasty dishes and feeding the city masses. At the same time we just cannot wait to hear back from you regarding how much you liked the game - we've always put extra emphasis on our connection with players and testers and the opinions matter to us a lot. Especially now, with the new demo, we hope to hear from you about the gameplay you can experience in the game and how you like our revamped reviewing system.
But there's more!
To celebrate the Cooking Fest we're adding a new dish to our Food Truck - Food Bowls! Together with hamburgers they're going to be available for you to create in the free demo.
Keep in mind that we're planning to have a whole diverse set of different kind of meals and foods that you'll be able to create in the full version of the game. Burgers and Bowls are going to be available in the demo but they will become part of the overall grand set of available meals in future.
At the moment though you not only can enjoy a tasty bowl of your favourite ingredients but we've also created a matching set of stickers that you can use for your food trucks to make customers instantly understand what type of food can they expect from your truck. Go nuts with all the colorful stickers - mix and match them to achieve a unique result!
To celebrate the launch of our demo we'll be holding a contest on our Social Media where you can win yourself some cool prizes! Make sure to follow the contest instructions that you will find on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram tomorrow.
The gist of the contest is to write a review of a dish you've eaten recently (preferably from a Food Truck but it doesn't have to be!) - we want to read your reviews and perhaps enrich our diet here at Lichthund! The most creative review will definitely get our attention!
And finally - for those of you who cannot play the game at the moment or want to connect with us in a more direct way - the gameplay stream straight from the demo is currently already live on Steam. Don't worry if you didn't catch the beginning - the stream will loop and you'll be able to watch it again on your own terms!
We'll be showcasing all kinds of features and mechanics avaialble in the demo as well as going through the tutorial part of the content! You can't miss it!
⚠️ 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.
New FREE Demo is coming to Steam on November 11th during Cooking Fest! 🍜
Hello Emperors! 🍔
We’re thrilled to announce that the new FREE Food Truck Empire demo will be launching on Steam on November 11 - during the upcoming Cooking Fest! 🍲🚚
Come and join us during Cooking Fest to play FREE demo of Food Truck Empire!
📆 Mark your calendars for Cooking Fest on Steam - November, 11th - and stay tuned for more details but get your aprons ready—your Food Truck Empire journey awaits!
🍔 Dive into a true world of Food Trucks! You'll manage your own culinary empire, experiment with recipes, and strive to become the ultimate food truck master. Whether you're a seasoned chef or just hungry for a new adventure - this game is something that will tickle your fancy!
🥗 Craft your own dishes and win over your customers! Experience food crafting where you can design and perfect your own recipes with automated assembly lines - all within your cozy food truck. Experiment with ingredients and cooking techniques to craft dishes that keep customers coming back for more!
⭐ Get 5 Stars Reviews from everybody! Choosing the right ingredients is key to impressing customers and earning 5-star reviews! Mastering different demographic-based flavor combinations will make all the difference in building your food truck's reputation and creating dishes that everyone raves about.
🚚 Customize your truck however you see fit! A range of customization options await to make your food truck truly your own. From colors, decorations, and accessories to stickers and even your own drawing, you can style your truck to reflect your personality and attract more customers.
💻 Research new technologies and grow your empire! Improve your food truck’s efficiency and customer experience by researching new exciting technologies and ingredients. And don’t miss out on leveling up food truck parks, each offering fresh opportunities and challenges to grow your business empire even further.
⚠️ Developing 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.
We all know that reviews are very important for any business venture that wants to become successful - after all without them there's no way your Food Truck will ever become famous! As that is the case we've worked extra hard on making sure that our reviewing system is extra clear and intuitive and today we'll talk a little bit about how that system works and the eternal struggle of balancing and fun that stems from it!
Let's jump into it!
As you might know we've been extensively playtesting our game throughout the last few months. If you ever asked yourself why the short answer to that question is because we believe that through your feedback we can grasp the very best idea for how our game should tackle all kinds of ideas that pop inside our heads. Throughout the playtests we've been also checking with you on the state of the reviewing system available in the game - the way the customers behave after eating your burgers and the scores you receive informing you about the quality of the burgers you've created and how your customers liked them.
It is through playtesting that we've discovered and understood that we need to find the right balance between relaxing gameplay, fun and cozy feeling of the game and the level of challenge presented within the game. How hard should it be to create the right burger? Short answer is "just enough to keep you entertained but not enough to make you annoyed".
And as such we've embarked upon a journey of finding the right reviewing system that concluded with finding just the right system that encompasses ease of access, understanding and fun we've strived to achieve.
Do you know that we used to have hearts to symbolize culinary preferences of our customers? It was, however, a bit too complicated - you aimed at having ingredients with the most numbers of heart but then the number was multiplied by some other factors and yadda yadda yadda - it was way too much for a simple and fun system!
After several discussions and feedback sessions with our community we decided on something different - a simple and elegant way of having stars be the main hero of our reviews.
Now when you'll play through the game you will notice that each of the client demographics available in the game have their culinary preferences neatly presented with a short but sweet information on how your star score will change if you decide to use them. Simple, right?
Let's take a look at tourists, for example, one of the demographics that are available in our game - just by looking at their demographic tab you will immediately see that they'd prefer to eat fruits or sea food and they really dislike vegetables. You don't have to spend too much time analyzing complicated graphs - one glance is enough to more or less understand the tastes of that particular demographic. Now you can enter your truck and craft the recipe that's gonna work exactly for them.
Our new system is also better at supporting strategists who'd prefer to minmax their trucks to offer meals that could potentially be of interest to several groups of customers. When no math is involved aside from counting the stars (and yes, you can say we'll be counting stars 🎵in this game!) it gets easier and simpler to check out whether the dish you're currently working on might also work on several other categories. Not to mention that you can always simply check the dish and see how it compares across all clients in the city at any time!
There are all kinds of things that can impact the number of stars you will get. Each ingredient has several tags that your customers might be looking for but that's not all. The processes your food will undergo can also influence the score. The overall flavor of the dish will often be more important for some people than some actual ingredients. And of course - the speed of meal preparation can also be taken into account - you've got your work cut out for you! Or... you'll cut it out yourself in the truck!
All ingredients can only hold up to 4 tags at the same time - sometimes you will however notice that there are ingredients who have only 2 or 3 tags present! That's a great opportunity to add some tags via all kinds of cooking processes! They have their own tags and products that undergo the particular process will receive the tags coming from the process. Even the ingredients who already got 4 tags are not exempt from this mechanic - they will however lose some of the tags they used to have before the process happened.
Serving speed and overall flavor of the dish, as we've said, also impacts the dish and how your customers will feel about them. As we continue the development we're also thinking about adding further interesting tags that will definitely influence the way you enjoy yourself in the Food Truck Empire. Who knows - some of the further levels might actually force you to keep pondering on the processes and ingredients you used and if it wouldn't be better if you didn't use them or changed the configuration of your automated assembly line existing within your food truck.
Join Food Truck Empire Open Playtests now @ Gamescom Asia! 🍣
Hello Emperors! 🍔
You can play Food Truck Empire Open Playtests version right now! 🔥
We're super happy to let you know that you can now yet again join the open playtests of our Food Truck Empire!
This particular version of our game sports further quality of life and engine stability improvements that we were able to introduce to the game thanks to the feedback we've received from all players! We hope to get even more feedback now during Gamescom Asia from all of you and we're quite excited to hear what you think!
In order to join the playtest:
Navigate to our Steampage
Click on the green button "Request Access"
You should receive the access to the tests almost instantly
Download and play the game
Here's a short list of some of the changes we've introduced: 🔔 We have completely revamped the way the customer review system works in the game. 🔔 Customers have received new preferences. 🔔 Changes have been made to research tree. 🔔 Changes have been made to tutorial prompts. 🔔 Some changes have been made regarding how pipelines and meal assembly works within the Food Truck. 🔔 We have improved the stability of the engine.
Take control over your own Food Truck company - buy trucks, equip them with all kinds of appliances, ingredients and assets. Craft your food, hit the streets, feed the masses - make sure that the whole city is fed! In the demo version of Food Truck Empire you can already enjoy multitude of fun in-game features like creation of automated food assembly lines, designing and customizing your own food trucks in and out, strategizing the best placement for your tracks and responding to the needs and preferences of customers.
We hope that many of you decide to check out playtest version of our game and enjoy yourselves while creating super tasty dishes and feeding the city masses. At the same time we just cannot wait to hear back from you regarding how much you liked the game - we've always put extra emphasis on our connection with players and testers and the opinions matter to us a lot.
But there's more!
To celebrate Gamescom Asia and our new playtests we're holding a contest on our Social Media & Discord where you can win yourself some cool prizes! All you have to do is participate in the playtests of Food Truck Empire and follow the contest instructions that you will be able to find on our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and our Discord.
The gist of the contest is basically to suggest us what new type of dish should we introduce to the game - write your answer along with your reason in the comment on our Social Media or Discord and you're in. The most creative answers will definitely get our attention and it's possible that we will actually introduce that dish in the further development.
And finally - for those of you who cannot play the game at the moment or want to connect with us in a more direct way - the gameplay stream is currently already live on Steam. Don't worry if you didn't catch the beginning - the stream will loop and you'll be able to watch it again on your own terms!
⚠️ 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.
New Open Playtest for Food Truck Empire is coming @ Gamescom Asia! 🍜
Hello Emperors! 🍔
We're happy to announce that we're coming to Gamescom Asia with yet another chance for you to participate in our Open Playtests! 🔥
Gamescom Asia is a fantastic opportunity to check out a plethora of amazing games and Food Truck Empire is joining the ranks! As always we try our best to bring some cool things your way and this time it's going to be another opportunity to playtest Food Truck Empire. We've changed some things, fixed more bugs and worked on the stability of our game - we're hoping you'll enjoy yourself with our game and we'll have a chance to listen to your voices and opinions about our game!
Keep in mind that if you played any of our previous open playtests some things have changed since then!
Here's a short list of changes: 🔔 We have completely revamped the way the customer review system works in the game. 🔔 Customers have received new preferences. 🔔 Changes have been made to research tree. 🔔 Changes have been made to tutorial prompts. 🔔 Some changes have been made regarding how pipelines and meal assembly works within the Food Truck. 🔔 We have improved the stability of the engine.
So you're in for a new treat if you join in!
We'll be also starting a new contest and you're more than invited to join it! There are going to be some cool rewards to win so make sure to follow our social media as the contest will be announced there tomorrow!
Of course you can also check out our gameplay stream to see how Food Truck Empire currently loks in action - make sure to visit the stream, say hi and ask us any questions you might want - we'd love to connect guys and learn more about your ideas and suggestions and we're often checking chat replies to discuss with you!
⚠️ 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.
Development Log #11 - Customizing your food truck! 🎨
Hello there, Emperors!👋
Phew, the last few weeks were super busy for us all at Lichthund - day by day we've been introducing bigger and smaller changes, we've hosted two Open Playtests and we've been to a bunch of different cool events! We haven't even had time to have a proper sit-down with y'all and talk about customization that you might have already checked out during playtests!
Let's fix that!
What's one of the most important things regarding building a brand? Making sure that you look the part! Customization was one of the tools that you've demanded the most and for a good reason - it's always nice to drive a truck looking just the way you want it to look or be able to change the look when you get bored of it. Customization was one of the priorities for our team and believe me when I say that we've spent many chats and discussions about the direction we want to take with it. Currently we're happy to say that our customization tool should indeed allow you to create trucks full of personality resonating with your own unique personal style!
Truck is on display, you know what to do - start clicking everywhere and see what kind of visual makeover can you give to your mobile work station! We've categorized the options you have at your disposal into several categories - trust me you'll want to go into each of them and change some things.
Take a look at the list of options available in the truck customization:
Parts
Roof Props
Trim
Accessories
Colors
Decals
Drawing
Your first steps will probably be all about changing the overall shape of your truck. We're giving you several options in that regard and you'll be mostly interested in "Parts", "Roof" and "Trim". Those three options will let you change some of the shapes of your truck. Imagine yourself walking through a dark alleyway and suddenly seeing a truck's dark silhouette... don't worry, trucks don't rob people but they do offer tasty food! Anyway - that particular silhouette will look differently depending on your choices made right in these three tabs.
We have several options awaiting you in the tabs - and as we are still working on the game and the changes you might expect them to change in numbers and possible options. I'm particularly proud of the roof options - they are very distinct and easily identifiable so your food truck will be recognizable even from a larger distance!
Accessories will let you add some extra elements to the walls of your truck. A single sleek speaker to let everyone audibly know that you're driving nearby? A handy neon-lights to illuminate the night and transform your truck into a beacon of hope for all hungry midnight-dwelling partygoers? Browse, select and use them as you see fit!
Keep in mind that accessories' colours can also be modified to better suit your chosen truck theme. Experiment with them to find the right look for your truck!
Last but definitely not least we've got options related to colours - painting, drawing, decals and stickers! Colors can easily influence the atmosphere and mood of your customers - and we know that we all have our own favorites when it comes to them. Through these options you'll be able to enhance the overall mood of the truck and the vibe it gives off.
We do however know that sometimes too much is not good - that's why when it comes to painting we're giving you the option to choose whether you want to stick to an easier, less complicated choice and select the overall color pattern/use simple color scheme edition options or dive into deep and tackle advanced color scheme editing options. Just keep in mind that we're using the word "advance" for a good reason - you'll literally be able to edit tens out of tens of different parts of your truck!
Decals and stickers will add something extra to the visuals of your truck - we've created several super cute stickers that you can freely use on many parts of your truck. I absolutely adore them but I wonder which one of those showcased before do you like the most?
Also - for those of you who are artistically inclined we also included the option to directly paint on the truck. We know, we know, it's risky business, you can after all literally draw ANYTHING and we know what that means but just do remember that customers will also be able to see your creations! 😂
How do you like our customization options?
Make sure to let us know your opinion in the comments! If you think our customization lacks some specific options or maybe if you'd like to see something specific included - head to the comments and let us know!
Food Truck Empire - Second Open Playtest is live now! 🔥
Hello Emperors! 🍔
Second round of Open Playtests for Food Truck Empire is live now! 🔥
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles Fest is already going on and as large parts of our game deal with trucks (oh, the surprise!) we couldn't have missed it! In Food Truck Empire you will customize, equip and manage a fleet of Food Trucks ready to serve tasty dishes to hundreds of hungry customers! Now here is where you come in - as our playtests are currently live you can jump into the test version of our production and check it out yourself. Yes, right now, as we speak!
📆 Open Playtests Live Period: 16.09. - 23.09. How to join the test: 1. Navigate to Food Truck Empire Steam Storepage. 2. Scroll down a bit until a green button with "Request access" becomes visible. 3. Click on that button! 4. You should receive an access in a matter of few minutes. 5. Play it!
⚠️ We're currently still working on the game and day by day we introduce new changes, updates and features to our creation. What we do need, however, to make sure that our game is as fun as it could possibly be is your feedback! We need to know as much as possible about your feelings regarding our game - were the tutorial clear and concise? Did you like the features available in the game? Was there anything you seem is lacking and should definitely be included in the game? Make sure to let us know!
⚠️ Your feedback is important and you can send it to us via these possibilities:
Join our Discord and tell us your thoughts about the game!
Send us a bug report via in-game option or through mail.
We hope to see you participate in the playtests. Keep in mind that at this point your feedback is absolutely crucial. We're making this game for you and we want to hear from you - that makes it all worth it!
Second Open Playtest starts on 16 September - sign up now!
Hello Emperors! 🍔
We're happy to say that second round of Open Playtests for Food Truck Empire is starting very soon during Planes, Trains, and Automobiles Fest! 🔥
As part of celebration for the new upcoming Steam Fest we're opening a second round of Open Playtests for all interested players. Once again we invite you to play the test version of the game and let us know your thoughts and suggestions! 📆 Open Playtests Live Period: 16.09. - 23.09.
If you hadn't have the chance to try our Playtests last time - this is your chance to fix that!
We've spent extra time on updating our game to ensure that stability of engine is on a higher level. After several fixes we do hope now that for those of you who reported issues with launching the game this will mean a better chance of checking out our game!
Interested? Great! Remember to sign up for the playtests on Steam right now!
How to do it? It's easy! 1. Navigate to Food Truck Empire Steam Storepage. 2. Scroll down a bit until a green button with "Request access" becomes visible. 3. Click on that button! 4. Wait until the playtest becomes available on Monday and enjoy yourself with another peek into our upcoming game!
⚠️ Keep in mind that what you will see is still only a part of what we're working on! Still, we would love to hear back and gather as much feedback as possible from you guys, so we can make sure that we know what direction should we take with our game and to ensure that no bug will escape the mighty hand of justice!
⚠️ Your feedback is important and you can send it to us via these possibilities:
Join our Discord and tell us your thoughts about the game!
Send us a bug report via in-game option or through mail.
We hope to see you participate in the playtests. Keep in mind that at this point your feedback is absolutely crucial. We're making this game for you and we want to hear from you - that makes it all worth it!
Are you excited for PAX West? We definitely are stoked to be here! 🔥
We're currently at PAX West and it is amazing to have a chance to meet some of you guys at this great gaming event! If you're also here make sure to check us out, we're inside Expo Hall at the Indie Games Polska stall!
But don't think even for a moment that we're forgetting about those of you who are staying cozily at homes - Playtests are up right now as we speak and the Playtest Stream is going to start very soon - we hope you'll join us there!
Make sure you check them out as our playtests will conclude on September, 6th!
🚚 We'll be showcasing some of the customization options for our food trucks but if it's the first time you're hearing about Food Truck Empire - don't you worry, we'll also take another dive into tutorial and first few in-game moments to bring you up to date with what we've already prepared!
⌚ The stream starts at 16:00 PM CEST! Don't worry if you can't exactly make it - after it ends the gameplay will loop giving you the extra chance to check it out!
🎮 Wanna take part in Food Truck Empire Playtest and check the game yourself? If you haven't done so yet make sure to give it a go! Remember- all you have to do is click on the green button "Request Access" on our Steam Page!
💥 Or you might want to join our contest and win some cool rewards including 20EUR Steam Gift Card - read about the rules on our Discord server right here!
