The time since our last update has seen another slew of bug fixes, performance upgrades, new art assets, and a few new features. Heck, we even added the basis for a bunch of new AI activities.
Don’t forget to wishlist us on to get the most recent announcements about new updates, release dates, and news
Dirtiness & Maintenance
We decided it was time to get a little dirty. When a guest or staff member uses certain objects like couches, stoves, or dining tables its maintenance level decreases. So, you’ll need to hire a janitor to keep things clean.
Dirty appliances can decrease the quality of any food/drink produced there and it will even increase the likelihood of a critical failure like fire. Keeping your furniture and machinery well maintained will be a key factor in running your hotel empire.
Dirty or unmaintained furniture will be more likely to give a guest a negative experience when used. And in addition to that, the overall cleanliness of a room is also tracked. For example, if a guest is at a clean table but all other tables in the room are dirty it will still affect their experience. So make sure your rocking resort doesn’t turn into a dirty dive too quickly!
A different type of ‘mess’ has also been implemented. If guests are unable to make it to the bathroom in time, they will end up soiling themselves and leaving a big mess on the floor for some unfortunate janitor to clean up. This system will eventually be expanded to include vomit and other messes that guests will create like general rubbish.
New AI Activities
We added a bunch of new guest and staff activities. Guests can now get a massage at the spa, go gambling, go to the gym and relax on couches in the lobby or any public areas in the hotel. Staff will now give massages, attend the poker tables, and will periodically clean facilities/furniture and repair machinery.
New Art Assets
As with previous months, we have been adding new art assets into the game. These include new floor textures, kitchen assets, rugs, decorative walls & fences, paintings, casino objects, & garden beds/boxes.
Fixes
We continue to polish and squash bugs. Below is a list of the majority of these changes.
Don’t forget to follow/wishlist us on steam to get the latest information about Hotel Magnate or join us on our Discord Server or follow us on twitter!
Changes:
Introduced a new noncollisional furniture type that allows the player to place certain objects “inside” other objects. These include items like rugs or columns and will eventually be expanded to include more modular decorative items that the player could use to create unique shapes/decorations
New AI activities: Gambling, Massage, Exercise, Relaxing, Cleaning, Repairing & Soiling Self
Range of new furniture items and furniture item reworks
New floor/wall textures + removal of some older textures that don’t fit art style
Staff hiring menu will now open and filter for the first needed staff type of the facility you opened it from
A series of UI fixes: Adding in more tooltips, tidying up save game/load game menu
Made balancing adjustments to how some needs are increased/decreased
When placing furniture, after rotating the object the next object you place or when you move that object, it will use the same rotation
Bug Fixes:
Guests now pay for their rooms
Default room price for a bedroom category not displaying has been fixed
Fixed issue where an objective will complete when reception desk is placed outside of the reception facility
Fixed an issue where multiple & incorrect rewards would show up on the completed objectives reward popup
Bedroom Category’s average quality slider now updates correctly
Fixed an issue where guest experiences weren't showing up in the guests review
Fixed some issues where guests were not calculating experiences correctly, resulting in mostly negative experiences
Fixed some animation issues where characters were facing the wrong direction and using the incorrect animations
Room income is now correctly updated in the Room/Facility UI menus
Fixes to the main menu budget panel not displaying certain expenses
Fixed issues where deleting a facility or furniture item related to the current objective/alert wouldn't update the UI/popup
When locating a facility, the camera will now move to the same location instead of choosing a random position inside that facility each time
Some fixes that stop guests from accessing areas they aren’t supposed to have access to
The player’s cash is now serialised correctly
The players progress with the games objectives is now serialised correctly
Some fixes to the bug report form system where we suspect some reports are not being sent correctly
Update #34: February
Hello Fellow Magnates! This was a month of polish and bug fixing! Last month we ended up delaying our latest version (v0.6.1) so that we could fix a few bugs surrounding serialization. As a result of our testing, we identified a whole bunch of other features that needed polishing and fixing. Along with these fixes, we also began implementing a lot of the new furniture assets we have been posting in the last couple of months
Art:
While most of this last month’s work focused on small fixes, we were able to begin implementing the new artwork which we have been showcasing on our discord and Twitter recently. This is the culmination of our efforts to reshape the game’s art style and direction.
AI Improvements:
We have had a lot of small AI improvements and bug fixes but also a few big improvements as well. The first being how guest needs increase/decrease, Guests will now sleep at more realistic times (night-time) and won’t go do activities (like take a shower or use the toilet) until the threshold for that need is reached. Guests and staff will now also display an emoji showing how they feel about something they just did, ate, or interacted with. This should help the player identify if there is anything that is causing their guests to be unhappy
Bug Fixes:
This last development cycle saw the largest amount of bug fixes yet. We developed a couple of different debugging tools that helped us accomplish this. We’re now able to record the exact actions taken when building walls/rooms. We also added a temporary console command menu where you can enable a debug mode and get access to more backend information for guests/staff in live builds. These tools will help us better manage our workflow as we continue to improve on systems. You can check out our changelog below.
If you have any questions, feedback or just want to talk please join us on our discord! And don’t forget to Wishlist us on Steam if you haven’t already
Changelog:
New Furniture
New “Blue Moon” Set
Bar
Variety of restaurant tables
Host Stand
New “Diner” Set
Variety of restaurant tables
Host Stand
New “Basic Diner” Set
Variety of restaurant tables
New “Pink Dream” Bathroom Set
Toilet
Sink
Bath
Shower
2 New receptions
Jukebox
Massage Table + Stand
2 New Sets of Couches
4 New Beds + revamp of Old Beds
12 New Paintings/Frames
AI
Fixed some staff pay-related issues (staff can become unhappy/happy depending on their pay)
Guests/Staff now spawn more spaced out instead of on top of each other
Fixed Spa attendant behavior not working
Decreased the speed at which needs increase at
Guests are much more likely to sleep at night/appropriate times
Guests now use the correct minimum quality in evaluating their rooms and experiences
Characters now display emojis above their heads to communicate their current mood/experience
UI
Guest/Staff Activities now display a more user-friendly name instead of a backend one
Alerts/Objectives now animate open/close/hover
Alert/Objectives sizing and color fixes
Staff UI now displays an emoji representing their happiness
Guest UI now displays an emoji representing their mood
There is now a popup that tells the player when they have completed an objective and gives a reward
Player can now zoom the camera much closer
General UI fixes (sounds, animation, sizing)
Bug Fixes
Saving/loading
Fixed issue where guests are not selectable after loading
General Saving/Loading bugs
Increased Stability
Showing the correct amount of stars for an average rating of previous meals
Fixed issue with building walls on outer edge causing errors
Fixed an instance of the bug where the ground/flooring breaks
Fixed an issue where you could not overwrite a save
Made furniture reachability a factor in whether a facility is functioning or not. (A kitchen with its equipment being inaccessible will now be ‘nonfunctioning’)
Fixed Maintenance person not spawning correctly (missing body parts and stuck in the carpark)
Fixed pausing/unpausing issues where leaving some UI menus would unpause the game when the player had previously set it to be paused
Cant place furniture on Guests or Staff now
Reduced the speed of the max fast forward to help prevent issues with characters pathfinding at that speed
Fixed issues where you couldn’t filter the furniture selection menu
Fixed UI issue where you couldn’t close the furniture moving menu with “ESC”
Fixed some guests having two “guest types”
Fixed Guests leaving earlier than they should
Fixed Guests using the incorrect stay length
Fixed an issue where guests would sometimes spawn when none of the facilities had staff employed
Update #33
Hello fellow Magnates! We hope you’ve had a great start to the year! We’re excited to share some of the strides we’ve made and some of our future plans. We’ve seen progress in building a new restaurant food/menu system, analysing our building/architecture system and creating new furniture assets.
Restaurant/Menu System
One of the main focuses of this past month have been developing our restaurant and “food system.” You will be able to decide what exactly goes on your restaurant’s menu! Every item will have different attributes which means some guests will prefer some dishes over others. On top of this depending on what your cook is skilled in they will prepare some food better than others. So it will be best to match your menu up to what skills your staff have and what kind of menu would appeal to your guests, all while having it at a desirable quality and cost.
New Furniture
We’re happy with the character models now, so have been doing a lot of work in creating new furniture models that match our desired art style. A lot of the current furniture are placeholders and aren’t really consistent with each other and what we want the game to look like. Below are a few shots of the many pieces being worked on!
Architecture system designs
This last month we have seen quite a few bug fixes (fixing saving & loading, floor bugs & wall texture scaling). We also implemented new wall & floor textures that match our new art style, and we have started a big analysis of general usability issues we have with the system. A big influence in this analysis process has come from player feedback and we have been able to identify some key issues.
SOME OF THESE MAIN PROBLEMS WE AIM TO ADDRESS ARE:
Being able to build a straight wall without it snapping to segment points in another wall
Being able to place a window or door anywhere along a wall instead of it snapping to wall segments
Stopping windows from moving the location of walls or snapping incorrectly.
We plan on fixing these issues in the next month as long as we don't run into any unforeseen issues.
If you have any questions, feedback or just want to talk please join us on our discord!
Update #32 Connecting Loose Ends
We’ve been putting up drywall and spackling holes in our systems during our AI renovation. We rolled up our sleeves and focused on our core gameplay loop (spawning, guest reviews, marketing campaigns, hotel ratings), implementing our new and improved character models, getting serialisation working again, more localisation work, and the start of our audio implementation. We think you’ll like the changes.
Don’t forget to wishlist us if you haven’t already. You will be notified of any updates, releases or sales in the future.
Gameplay Loop
We’ve had most of the base systems for the core gameplay loop in place for a while, but as we decided to do an AI rework a few months ago, it temporarily broke a few of these systems, or at least how they interacted with each other. Now that the new AI has had most of its kinks ironed out we’ve begun re-implementing the various systems that weren’t playing nicely at first.
As a whole we gave the game a good spring cleaning, cutting out the cobwebs of systems that didn’t contribute to making Hotel Magnate a fun tycoon game. Some of this work included reimplementing marketing campaigns, guests making reviews, generating proper hotel star ratings, and spawning guests correctly based on these other systems.
To help guide a new player we also implemented the first steps in our objectives system. This is where the player is given quests or objectives that will help direct the player into getting a hotel up and running with rewards along the way. On top of objectives we are also implementing an Alerts system where the player will be notified of any critical issues the hotel has like inaccessible furniture or a broken facility.
New Character Models
We know that we’ve talked a lot about this element in previous updates and twitter posts but it will be well worth it. Guests and staff form a big part of the game so it is worth getting it right. After a lot of designing, reworks, and testing we’re happy to be implementing this iteration of characters into the game.
We’ve introduced a wide range of clothing, accessories, and hairstyles. We cleaned up the skeleton of the models so they can be animated easier, and overall made the models appear more consistent with our art style even with tweaking their adjustable blendshapes.
The base guest looks can be changed by adjusting their age, weight, fitness & gender. If you combine this with the number of skin tones, hair, clothing & facial features, you end up with the possibility of 1000’s of different looking characters.
Serialisation (Saving & Loading)
It’s been a hard task to re-implement as it involves every system in the game, it takes quite a while to dive into every aspect of the game and make sure it will be saved/loaded correctly, but it seems we’ve done it. Just like the gameplay loop, serialisation was heavily affected by reworking the AI system and we couldn’t fix it until the new AI system was complete.
We are not only excited to get this back in the hands of our alpha players, but to also use it for ourselves. It will allow for much quicker testing of systems as we won’t have to rebuild a hotel everytime we want to test something
Art Style, Audio & UI
Alongside our character and furniture modelling, one of our artists has been creating concept art to help direct our art style. This concept art has been extremely important and helpful in our process. The main focus of all our art work from now on is new furniture as we are quite happy with our character designs for now. Below is some screenshots of some of the concept work
We have also begun adding in audio, you will now be able to adjust different volume levels from the settings menu. Currently we have only implemented UI audio and will be moving to everything else shortly. The current sounds are a work in progress and many will change over time as we test and gather feedback.
Alongside adding these sounds to buttons & menus we have also begun adding more UI animations and transitions. Both the audio and animations will make using the menus a much more pleasant and enjoyable experience.
Join us on our discord server where we would love to hear any of your feedback or just to have a chat. Thanks for reading and we hope you have a great festive season!
Changelog:
Added in some click/hover sounds to sections of the UI
Added in animations for sections of the UI
Management menu layout improvements & bug fixes
New character models implemented
Serialisation(saving & loading) re-implemented
Hotel Star Ratings & Guest Reviews implemented
Alerts/Notifications implemented
Objectives/Goals Implemented
Update #31: October
Hello fellow magnates! Hope your October was as enjoyable and productive as it was for us! We’ve made a lot of progress with lots of small changes and improvements. We have implemented a localisation system so we can start translating the game into other languages, made more guest model variations and added more staff models, improved some of our animation transitions and animation bugs, improved staff/guest AI activities and a lot of work fixing and adding new features to parts of our UI that were identified in our last build
Don’t forget to wishlist us if you haven’t already. You will be notified of any updates, releases or sales in the future
Localisation & UI Improvements
We have added in a localisation system to be able to translate the game to other languages. The system is in place and we have begun translation into a few languages.
Currently, we are going to translate the game into German, French, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Russian & Portuguese. If you would like to request another language be included, come join us on our discord server and voice your opinion, we are always very happy to hear what people have to say whether it be a language request or an idea for a feature
While we implemented the localisation system we also took the opportunity to add more tooltips to the various menus to assist in understanding the different buttons and screens. We also made some small visual adjustments with some changes in colour and a new default font which are both assisting in creating visual consistency and readability which are core to a usable user interface.
Another small change that is assisting with readability is our layout changes to lists of guests, staff & facilities. We also made it so that every second entry is a slightly different colour as you can see below. If you have any feedback, please come join us in our discord!
Following up with our changes in our in-game UI we also applied the same design ideas to our start menu. As well as the in-game UI the design will probably evolve over time.
[previewyoutube="Pjk6DBZykSg;full"]
Character Model Variations
This last month has also seen more work in creating character variations like different haircuts, clothing & staff models. This is an ongoing progress and we aim to have these models and variations implemented into our live builds within a month. Here is an early look at one of the bartender models
AI Activities & Animations
We have seen a bit of progress improving some of the AI activities like kitchen orders, this is where a guest orders a meal at a restaurant and a chef prepares and cooks the meal. As mentioned in previous update posts this is the most complex sequence of AI tasks involving many different systems and both guests and staff. The progress made was mostly solving a few edge cases like when an order is cancelled either by deleting some furniture, firing staff or deleting the facility. We also had to find a solution to having multiple staff members working on different orders using the same furniture (stoves).
Along with improving our AI activities we also improved the animation transitions and a few animation bugs. There were quite a few instances where the characters would sink into the ground for a split second in between different animations or would be playing an animation at the incorrect time. Most of these have been fixed but there are still a few more instances still present, it is an ongoing process in finding these and fixing them especially as more of these AI activities are implemented and our new character models and animations are added.
Linux Build
We are finally happy to be able to include Linux builds into our releases from now on! So if you are a linux user, we would love to get your feedback and help in finding any Linux specific bugs. We will also be looking into getting a Mac build available very soon.
Thanks so much for keeping up with development! Don’t forget to drop into our Discord or follow us on twitter to get more involved!
Update #30 September
Hello fellow magnates! Every hotel needs guests and we spent a good amount of time spicing up the system that will bring unique party loving backpackers and gambling grannies (along with their opinions) to your future resort.
Guest Moods & Tags:
We implemented the base system of guest moods which plays a huge role in determining a guests decisions, experiences and reviews. Depending on a guest’s mood they will be more likely to pick more or less expensive items at a restaurant, bar, or gift shop.
Guest tags are personality traits, moods or preferences that affect behaviour. Some examples of guest tags are gambler, fitness junky, party lover, gluttonous, and chillaholic which all affect a guests behaviour in different ways mostly by increasing a guests need for something. For example, the gambler tag will make a guest want to gamble more. Guest tags also provide the base definition of the guest type for example the tags backpacker, thrill-seeker, vacationer, or executive business. These all define the base needs of the guest. Each guest type then has a different set of spawn chances for the other types of tags, for example, a backpacker guest will be more likely to spawn the party lover tag and less likely to have the gambler tag.
Tags will also be associated with furniture, items, and food. For example, a table might be modern, wooden & luxurious. Some guests may have a tag like “loves modern” which will make them happier when they encounter an object that is modern.
Character Blendshapes:
Our new and improved characters have seen more work after identifying some issues with the animation rig and increased the level of detail on the models. The biggest improvement was adding more values to adjust the look of character models with the ability to adjust a characters gender, weight, fitness & age. All these values can be adjusted on a scale, meaning we have a very large range of combinations that are possible. Below is some examples of this in practice (These examples are without any textures, clothing or hair)
UI:
Following on from the previous month we have been implementing our improved UI. We have reduced the number of menus a player has to go through to perform actions and merged a whole bunch of menus to be more concise and reachable. These changes will make it a lot easier for players to get a hotel started and running. There is still a lot of work that needs to be done on the UI side, we want to gather more player feedback and identify more pain points people find in their gameplay going forward to continually improve the look, feel and flow.
These are still very much a work in progress but we feel they are a vast improvement on what we had before. If you have any feedback or ideas please feel free to @ us on Twitter or jump into our Discord community
Changelog v0.5
CHANGES:
Total rehaul of Guests + Staff. Resulting in better behaviour and animation Implemented a whole new user interface with far better interactions and flow, making it easier to get a hotel started Added & improved ambient occlusion Fixed some issues with deleting walls Fixed settings menu
KNOWN ISSUES:
There are still sections of the UI missing tooltips Some elements of the UI are not active and won’t display any information/are interactable Unfortunately due to the new AI, saving and loading will not work on this release Characters can spawn with some odd skin/hair colours and with the incorrect clothing/uniform
Update #29 August
Hello fellow Magnates! We’re happy to report we’ve made even more improvements on our new AI backend, UI implementation, and character animations.
UI Improvements
We’ve continued to improve the UI, in particular the Facility, Staff & Guest menus. Previously you’d have to select a room and then pick a facility or facilities that the room would contain. This was done over two different menus (one for the room, one for the facility). The new design combined these into one.
The old menu used text placeholders that helped us develop what needed to be in the system. Now we are able to focus on creating a more simple and easy to navigate experience for the player by utilizing more icons and cleaner layouts.
Below is a sneak peek at the Staff and Guest information menus that you will see when selecting a character. Bare in mind the colours are still a bit of a work in progress and will change over time.
AI Activities
Our improved AI system is steaming ahead with lots of new functionality for bringing more life to your ultimate hotel. In last month’s update we talked about how this new system will allow us to easily create more activities for guests and staff. Characters will now do things like go to the gym, sleep, eat, and etc.
The most complex of these activities is going to be a restaurant. A guest will go to the restaurant, be assigned a seat, then wait for a waiter to take their order. At this point a chef will receive the order in the kitchen, start to gather the required ingredients/resources, prepare the food, then cook it. This whole time the guest will be waiting and if they’re not alone will try to start conversations with other guests. Once the food is ready, it will be placed at the “serving station” in the kitchen, where it will sit until a waiter will take it to the guest. The guest eats the meal and then pays. This whole process is very involved and requires a lot of planning for edge cases like if the player removes any of the furniture involved or if the activity is interrupted or canceled at any point.
Some objects are now also carryable. Guests and staff will be able to pick up certain things and move them to other places, like a meal from the kitchen to the table. It will also make it possible for guests to pick up random objects like plants and art, move them somewhere else, or even steal them!
Animations
Jay has been working hard to add more animation variations including ones for different body types and genders. He has also been cleaning up the character models, making new textures and improving old animations like walking.
Again as we are in the midst of our new AI integration, there unfortunately won’t be any new builds or hotfixes released with this update.
Thanks so much for keeping up with development! Don’t forget to drop into our Discord or follow us on twitter to get more involved!
Update #28 July – AI & Roadmap
July’s a wrap, folks! This month has seen a big leap forward with regards to the game’s visuals, UI/UX, and our AI backend. We have also put together a rough release roadmap for your eyes only! Things may change, as they often do, but this will give you a better idea of our goals.
Visual Upgrades:
As has become standard, you can expect some visual improvements to many aspects. The main two being the addition of ambient occlusion and an outline effect for when the player selects a character or piece of furniture.
The outline effect in particular is crucial for providing some much-needed visual feedback to the player, both for interactivity and visibility. Without proper visual and audio feedback, everything would feel pretty flat. This approach allows players to more easily see what they have selected, even behind other objects. Here’s an example of the tech:
Ambient occlusion really makes shadowy regions pop in a more realistic manner by simulating how light interacts with objects in a scene that would typically not receive much lighting as a result of their proximity to other objects. It adds a ton of depth to the scene that a typical direct lighting pass wouldn’t be able to produce. We’ve used it before, but Unity broke it and now it’s back. Here’s a comparison!
AI
We’ve done a complete overhaul of our AI system. Our previous system was more of a placeholder while we tested and fleshed it out. During the implementation of more complex AI behaviours and after some feedback from our helpful community, we identified numerous issues that needed to be resolved. The previous system had to take far too much into account and be spread across many different systems, which lowered stability and required longer development for any new AI behaviours. The main focus of the redesign was to abstract a lot of the work we had done and make it more reusable and lightweight.
We’re very happy with the progress! It’s far more structured and scalable. New functionality can be added with less of a chance of accidentally breaking something. We can even take guest groups/families into account, which wasn’t possible before. This means guests will be able to form groups with friends or strangers (new friends) and do activities together instead of wandering the hotel alone.
Roadmap
Below is a rough release roadmap that we’ve been putting together to give people a better understanding of our current plans. We know there have been some delays and we apologise to everyone who were hoping for it sooner! Our team has grown substantially and we are working better than ever.
You can find a more detailed roadmap HERE that will be updated with more information over time.
As we are in the midst of our new AI integration, so there sadly won’t be any new builds or hotfixes released with this update.
Thanks so much for keeping up with development! We hope these little blogs are always informative and give you a better look into what’s been happening behind the scenes. Don’t forget to drop into our Discord to get more involved!
Update #27 June
Woah, another month has flashed on by, and what a month it has been for us! We have fixed many of the issues that came up, fleshed out the gameplay loop, and made plenty of improvements to our game art/art style.
New Team Members
We are very excited to formally introduce two of our latest team members, Jay & Mareike! Both bring a wealth of knowledge, expertise, & drive that will help take this project to new heights.
Mareike is a 2D/3D Artist from Germany that has worked at a few startups and indie studios after her studies, before becoming the new Art Director and UI / UX Artist at Bastion Interactive.
Jay is a German game developer who worked as a freelancer and generalist for various indie games in the last few years, until he joined the Hotel Magnate Team to focus on character art and visual effects.
Characters
Jay has been very busy with a total overhaul of our characters. We weren’t quite happy with our previous models and felt they didn’t really fit into our desired art style and lacked the ability to create enough variation. Jay has been able to rework our models with the new ability to easily change the gender, age, weight, & muscularity of all our models on a scale/slider using blendshapes.
This means we can easily change these values as we please, creating a huge variety of unique guests / staff. On top of this, we also have a large range of haircuts, clothing, and features like eyebrows to add some variation to these otherwise hairless, naked individuals. It’s also now possible to easily change the colours of any of these items, or even add overlay textures to create striped shirts, tattoos, or logos on shirts. The icing on the cake is that it is all on the same animation rig! This allows us to easily modify the models and re-use a lot of animations without having to do any retargeting. Score!
New Art Style
Mareike has been cracking away at developing a new and more consistent art style for us to adhere to. This will flow onto influencing everything from our UI, characters, furniture, & buildings. We unfortunately won’t be showing anything off until it’s further along in development.
Main Gameplay Loop
One of the larger advancements since our last update is the work done on improving our AI. Considering that the previous update saw the introduction of our new guest AI, there’s been a load of fixes to bugs that were picked up by the community and reported to us. As an extension of this, we have put in a lot of work in implementing what we call the main gameplay loop. This is essentially the process of a guest checking in, evaluating the quality of their stay, submitting a review, ensuring the review affects your hotel’s overall rating, and then what kinds of guests will show up next.
There are many subsystems within this overall loop, like room/food pricing, the guest hotel experience, and the effectiveness of marketing. It all affects the loop in some way. To elaborate, the guest experience system records how much a guest enjoyed their stay. It records all of the positive and negative experiences based on a guest’s sensitivity to different things, then generates an end result of their overall experience.
Having a great meal: that’s a plus! Being set on fire: unpleasant! This is combined with an evaluation that the guest performs on their room, which compares the price they paid to the actual quality they received. The combination of these different criteria channels into a guest’s overall rating of the hotel.
These systems are the culmination of a ton of work on various aspects. The core gameplay loop is a massive step towards making a great game. Once we have it nailed, we can refine it into a proper diamond. Stay tuned for more news and keep posting over on our Discord!
Only display staff hiring categories for staff that are capable of working in your hotel
Improved characters usage of doors
Improved character navigation/pathfinding
Guests now pay for some services
Removed some requirements for bedrooms to work
First iteration of Core Game Systems implemented
Hotel Rating
Overall Guest Reviews + Guest Reviews
Suppliers
Delivery staff/deliveries
You now choose what quality to market/advertise a room as with a slider in the room category menu
Add vehicles to the road
Rescaling of a portion of furniture objects (Still more work to be done)
Added Emojis to express a guests experience
Bug Fixes:
Fixed Doors not being selectable
Doors + Windows can now be sold again
Fixed the non-paintable sections next to doors
Fixed bug where deleting a wall segment with a door on it caused saving errors
More fixes around the problem where the entire floor breaks (still a few edge cases we are trying to find that cause this)
Fixed bug where merging rooms can cause saving errors
Some Tooltip fixes
Fixed the input issue where typing letters while naming a room/facility will affect the camera and hotkeys for other menus
Fixed some time issues where the gametime would keep continuing while the game should have been paused
Fixed a navigation issue where guests couldn’t walk outside the buildable area, meaning if the player built right up to the edge of the map some areas were not accessible
Known Issues:
Still some instances of the floor breaking from very obscure and hard to pinpoint actions when building walls
Could be some issues with pausing time in certain menus
Loading the guest overview UI for the first time doesn’t initialise properly
Update #26 May - AI update
Hello again! We hope you’re all keeping well and staying as sane as any hotel manager is reasonably expected to be. We’ve made some more progress that we’re excited to share with you! The latest pre-alpha update which will be released later this week includes the introduction of guests and staff, which are equally concerning prospects for the smooth operation of a business.
Guest & Staff AI
We’re launching our guest and staff AI right at you in this upcoming public build. It’s the first step, so expect it to be a bit basic and buggy. You’ll be able to hire staff, assign them to work in different facilities, set room pricing, and watch guests come in and share their opinions about your hotel (in whichever form that may be).
https://gfycat.com/ifr/AcademicClutteredAntelope
UI
The majority of menus and management screens that weren’t available in our previous builds will be made available. After all, it’s difficult to manage a hotel without management tools. Some of them are in a bit of a raw state and lack polish. We’ve hired a smart new individual to review our UI/UX and make improvements, though! This will take a bit of time, but it’ll be worth it in the end to make everything more fun to interact with.
You will also have the ability to filter furniture items by category to more easily find what you’re looking for. This is a majorly requested feature, so we’re very excited to roll it out for everyone. We’ll be expanding it in the future, but enjoy the new functionality in the meanwhile!
Bonus pic of some new windows & doors
New Camera
A new camera controller has found its way into the game, which’ll improve how you move around the map. New controls, shortcuts, and smoother movement/transitions will make it feel just right. The added goodies also include post-processing and lighting tweaks.
What’s Next?
Our next move is to improve and expand on the AI behaviour system, add in more furniture variants, improve/add character animations, enhance the menus, simplify some of the processes like hiring staff, hammer in more music/audio, and increase stability (bug fixes).
Pre-Alpha Build:
Our latest pre-alpha build (0.4) was meant to be released at the same time as this post but unfortunately due to a couple of bugs that we want to fix the build won't be released for a couple of days. Access to our Pre-Alpha is only available to those who backed one of the tiers with the “Alpha” reward or who have purchased the founders edition from the crytivo website. The build will be released by Wednesday the 27th of May. The release will be announced on our Discord, Twitter and Kickstarter page and can be downloaded from the crytivo website, so stay tuned!
