Initially, this update only included new tablets. However, along the way a bit more stuff has been added. This combined with the new partnership with Iceberg Interactive, the brand new publishers of the game, has resulted in a longer development period than originally intended.
Let’s have a look at the new content:
--- Tablets ---
As mentioned, tablets have been added to the game. More precisely, 60 of them. Tablets are part of the Mobile Devices category, which falls under the electronics departments. The new addition of tablets means that it should now be possible to run a specialized electronic store focusing mainly on Mobile Devices or Computers. The electronics department was lacking in content, so I am aiming to correct this with today's and future updates. That’s right, more articles will be added in the future.
As a category, Tablets are priced in between Computers and Phones.
--- Logo designer ---
The system of importing your own logos to the game has always been a bit confusing and buggy if you used more than one. So instead of trying to fix this, it was much easier to make a completely new system! You can now import logos directly from the main menu, and let the system handle the files and the weird names they should be given. This system should make it a whole lot easier to customize your stores to your liking.
If it works as it should without unexpected issues, I plan to use the same system to customize posters and signs inside your stores in the future. So please do let me know your feedback!
--- New calendar ---
After adding all the days, weeks and months to the game, I found out that the calendar didn’t support this system, and had a lot of bugs. So like the logo designer, it was easier to create a new system. The calendar now focuses on the week ahead, instead of an entire month, which is quite some time in-game and probably included too much information.
--- Applications ---
The applications were also an old remnant from a system created two years ago. So instead of pinned photos lying on your desk, it now has proper applications. From these applications, you might also learn something about the person before conducting the interview, allowing you to save time when looking for the right employee for your store.
--- Other bugs ---
I have also spent some time solving a whole lot of bugs. Of these, the most significant fixes are: - When you fired an employee, you were unable to move away from the board. - Renegotiating a wage made you unable to use the advertising table. - The lot info board in corporation mode now shows the correct amount of employees. - Fixed collision on some articles and freezers. - Some colors did not update correctly when designing your displays. - Staff wouldn't go to a specific register when placed too close to a wall. - Cancelling while adding/removing articles from the display actually cancels the display. - Tooltips added to various buttons. - Beverages can now be sorted by supplier when selecting those. - Updated translations from community translator and fixed a few typo’s
--- Translations ---
The translations are also, as always, making progress with each update. I can’t thank you enough for helping me translate the game into your language.
This is the current progress so far:
This is it for the current update! I hope you will enjoy the changes. If you encounter any bugs please don’t hesitate to let me know so that they can be fixed.
King of Retail has teamed up with Iceberg Interactive!
Dear Retailers!
There is exciting news for King of Retail.
Over the last months, I have been talking to the Iceberg Interactive team. This is a company specializing in game publishing, and they loved King of Retail enough to want to partner up.
So what does this actually mean. First of all this brings some professionalism into the project. Up until now the game, and everything regarding it, has been done as I see fit and believed was right in that moment, but since this is the first game I have been working on, everything has been learned by trial and error. This means that I have learned a lot, but also that lot of time has been spent focusing on some wrong aspects of the game. In this regard it’s nice to team up with a team of experienced publishers, who behind the scenes already have helped me a lot in improving the way I work, as well as helping me in optimizing the project structure of the game itself. They will also assist in lots of various tasks that takes up a lot of my time and I hardly know anything about, which prevent me spending time on the stuff that I actually want to do, which is working on and improving the game itself, making your King of Retail experience even better.
What it DOESN’T mean is that King of Retail will become a totally different game. I am still the person behind the game, and I will still be the one working on it on a daily basis. Instead they will assist in providing feedback and testing, as well as helping me finding resources to assist me in the development where this is needed. Again, helping me to divert my workload to work on improving the game. And if I have a question or a problem, I now have access to an army of kind and competent people, which is in high contrast to having to find a solution to everything myself.
This allows for possibilities that I didn’t dare dream of when I started working on the game, and the daily work already now feels “larger” as compared to working alone day in and day out. So I am as motivated as ever to work on the game and I can’t wait to see the future of King of Retail.
And look! They even helped me with this new and cool logo for my company.
Check out their exciting array of games, which King of Retail also now is a part of.
https://www.iceberg-games.com/
I hope you approve of the new changes, and I know you can expect a lot of interesting stuff to happen in the future.
Until next time - happy sales.
Cheers Daniel
Letter to our retailers (10)
Dear retailers!
It's been over a month since the last update came out, so it's about time you get some information about what the time has been spent on.
----- Tablets -----
As promised, electronics need to be expanded further. So some of the time has been spent making tablets, which is an item to be sold along with the mobile devices, so there is a little more content in this category. My goal is for these items to be available next week.
----- Bug fixes -----
I have also fixed a few bugs and will probably fix a few more before I release the next update.
Selling your lot in corporation games actually sells your property.
There was a problem that when you sold your property it was not removed, but it still gave you the money from the sale. Basically, it could give you infinite money, but I'm sorry to say that is no longer possible.
Calendar corrections
The calendar had to be completely redone due to several things. It was created for the original system without weeks and months, so all months were therefore 31 days in the calendar, which caused the calendar to show wrong things occasionally. It also did not support switching to a new year, so year 2 showed no events or anything in the calendar.
----- Holidays & new surroundings -----
Unfortunately, I can not lie to you, I also take time off from time to time. So I have taken 2 weeks holiday from everything that has to do with working at King of Retail. It has been nice just to clear my head, and it also means that i get new thoughts and ideas, and that I have been able to return to the game with fresh motivation.
In addition, I have also moved to a new office. Up until now, I have been sitting at home when working on the game, and the challenge of working from home is that one can often be distracted by other exciting things. So to give me +1 in surroundings and professionalism, I chose to move out of my home. In addition, it is also very nice to see other people during the working day :-D
----- ????? -----
I know that over the last month, information has been a bit sparse. And there is a good reason. Most of the time last month is spent on something completely different. Something I have not dared to talk about before that I was sure it happened. It now has, but I can not yet say what it actually is. It will be announced later this month. But I can say for me it's big, it's exciting, and that the future of King of Retail looks promising.
That was all for now. So keep an eye out for a new update which (hopefully) arrives next week, and look out for the announcement. Remember that you can still help translate the game at translate.kingofretail.com, and also feel free to join our Discord server at https://discord.gg/fckN6bE.
So until next time then, happy sales.
V. 0.10.2 is ready - You need a phone?
Dear Retailers Another update is ready for you!
As Electronics are receiving some much needed attention, the articles will be added in packs as they are being completed. This makes for shorter development periods, but also lesser content in each update.
--- Category changes ---
First of all a new subcategory has been added. Mobile Devices is a new entry under the Electronics segment. This will in future contain items such as phones, tablet as well as other smartunits and various accessories. This is what will be fleshed out with new articles over the next few patches, such that Electronics in general will contain a lot more and be as comprehensive as the other categories. Peripherals has for a long time only contained a few amount of mice and nothing else. This was not enough to sustain a high level category on its own fits better as a part of under Computers. So from now on these articles will feature here instead. For corporation players, this means that articles from Peripherals now are affected by your Computer reputation. Mobile Devices have then in turn replaced the Peripherals, so those of you who have gotten a great reputation with Peripherals will now be able to sell a lot of Mobile Devices immediately.
--- Phones ---
For starters the new category will contain a total of 60 phones from the 3 suppliers PearEasy, LED-D and Firestorm.
These are priced quite a bit below computers but are still the second most expensive category in the game. So compared to Peripherals, it already now contains more articles, as well as it should be easier to run a store / concept only selling these items.
--- Other minor changes ---
- Enlarged images
To be able to distinguish between articles, an enlarged image will now show up each time you cursor is above an article within the menus. This being ordering, placing, statistics and every other menu containing an article.
- Article spacing
The articles in the Computer category now needs a little more space between them on the displays. It looked kind of wrong having 6 highend computers crammed up against each other. This space will present them better, but you will of course not be able to have as many on display simultaneously. This is also done to balance Computers out a bit, since they generate far too much income compared to the other categories.
- Complimentary sales
Moving these categories around caused an issue to the customers article calculations. Usually, when a customer takes an article, they receive a penalty for that category, which reduces their desire to pick an article again. But now where the expensive computers, and the much lower priced mice are at the same category, it made for a system where you would actually earn less when also selling mice on top of computers.
So now complimentary types is introduces. So when buying a computer, the desire to buy a mouse is barely changed and vice versa. This should hopefully increase sales for articles that support each other.
At the moment there aren't really any other articles who are considered complimentary, but when accessory types arrives for the various categories this will allow for more dynamic play and interesting choices.
This was it for this update. I will head back and create some more articles.
Also, join the discord server at: https://discord.gg/fckN6bE
Until next time. Happy sales
Update 0.10.1 is out "Got something to drink?"
Dear Retailers!
A month has gone by since the last release, but now a new update is finally available.
--- Beverages ---
Since the entry of the groceries, i promised to add various drinks to the game. So this month has been about designing bottles, bottles and more bottles. This has resulted in over 170 new articles that will enter the game.
They are spread out in 4 types. Wine, Beer, Soda and Liquor. All of them are in the low luxury, however wine and liquor are quite high compared to the other grocery articles as well as being priced a bit higher. This makes for some articles in the "Groceries" category that allows for a higher income, compared to the existing ones. Feedback indicated that it was relatively hard to make a "Groceries" department survive in the long run, so hopefully this will help making it easier to run a supermarket.
--- Displays ---
The new articles also comes with a few new displays. 3 in total.
Two of them are specific, made only for adding bottles to them, while the larger one is a general type display, which can also be used for other items.
--- Bugfixes & Balancing ---
General programming has not been in focus for this update. However there has still been some issues which has been fixed.
- Staff not meeting for work. There were issues where staff wouldn't show up for work. Apparently when assigning their schedule, if you clicked to the left of the opening hours this hour would be recorded as the meeting hour. But since this was before the store opened, they would never meet for work. They should now meet as desired.
- Problems of proceeding past tutorial. When opening a new store, there is the basic tutorial of what to buy. If you hide the UI by menu or TAB, this screen was no longer focusable by the mouse, and made it impossible to end the day. This has also been fixed as well as making the "End Day" button available, so it will also be possible to skip this entirely.
- Register speed. The speed at the registers have been adjusted again. Some articles were processed way to fast (some as quick as 0.1 seconds), making it possible to clear giant queues in no time. So this has been adjusted back a bit, and in general making it take a bit longer to process a customer.
--- Translations ---
Translations are also making slow and steady progress. To help with translating, go to: https://translate.kingofretail.com/
--- Up next ---
Now it is time for... more articles. Electronics was added a long time ago, however it has been left alone and with far too few articles. The reason for this was the sizes of general electronic products made it difficult to come up with articles and categories that would fit together. But with the introduction of shelf and autofitting displays this is no longer a problem. So now it is time to fill up this category with lots of new items. What items that will be specifically i do not know yet. But i promise it will be a welcome and interesting addition.
I will also aim to add these articles in smaller intervals so when a pack is ready, it will be uploaded as soon as possible.
This was it for now. Feedback is as always welcome. Also, join our discord at: https://discord.gg/fckN6bE Until next time. Happy sales.
Letter to our retailers (8)
Dear Retailers!
It's time for a little newsletter :)
--- Since the last patch ---
It's been roughly two weeks since the latest larger patch was released and it has been well received. However ss programming is like a giant spider web, where pulling in one string affects another string somewhere else, i always get extremely nervous around each update, since there is always bound to be some bugs slipping through. For instance, adding indivdual days for each store, influenced what wage the HQ managers require, as well as what mood the staff has however only in loaded games. So even though i test a lot together with the beta testers, there is always bound to be some bugs that slip through in each release. So i try to fix all incoming bug reports as soon as possible, meaning several smaller patches has already follwed fixing various bugs.
Unfortunately a few save games were affected by some of the initial bugs, which in turn affected the mood of the staff, as well at the managers at the HQ. However these games can still be saved by nursing your staff back into good mood.
I apologize for any inconveniences these bugs might have caused, and I am off course very interested in knowing about bugs that still exist, so we can get rid of these too.
--- On the way ---
As promised, the next two patches will focus on adding more articles, and this one adding drinks to the Groceries. And these are the articles made so far.
There will also be added sodas, liquor, milk, juice, water, and yes, also BEER. (Many of our german players have been rather vocal about wanting this also) Then a few displays to the new articles off, then some balancing, and it should be good to go.
There should hopefully be around 120 ~150 new articles who will enter this category.
--- A new artist ---
I can also proudly say that i have received an extra pair of hands to help making the game. Two times a week, a friend of mine will stop by. He han an interest in 2D and 3D graphics, but never really got started on it, so this is a perfect way go get going. As he is learning everything from scratch, he will start with some simpler tasks such as adding some much needed new logos to the game, before hopefully being able to assist with making new articles for the game.
--- Translations---
Various translations are also making good progress.
It is a tremendous help, and a big thanks to all of you who take your time to translate all of these sentences. To help out, go to: https://translate.kingofretail.com/
Also feel free to request a language that is not on the list, if you would like it to be available in your local language. Do that here on Steam, or join the game's discord at: https://discord.gg/fckN6bE
That's it for this newsletter, i will head back and make some more articles. Happy sales :-)
Hotfix uploaded
Dear Retailers
A few bugs unfortunately slipped through the last update.
- When loading a game HQ managers start with 0 optimism. They will now load as usual. Unfortunately already affected managers continue with their last saved value.
- Customers whislte and leave, when a register is closed which they are not in queue for. They will now behave as usual, and go to another register if the one they were heading to is closed.
- Staff will not require large wages when returning to a store after a lot of days. Already affected staff will keep their wages, however will most likely not ask for a raise for a long time.
- Pressing ESC when editing a schedule caused the HUD to lock schedule. It should now work as requested.
- An issue switcing your managers name for a customers should no longer be possible.
I am sorry for the inconveniences these bugs might have caused to your game experience. Thank you for the reports, and if other issues arrive, let me know and i will try and fix it as quiskly as possible.
Version 0.10.0 is released "The Weekday Manager"
Dear Retailers
The next version is finally out and ready for you to play. First of all i will apoligize for the elongated development time of this update, but i moved to a new location last month and had to work a lot to make it a liveable home.
However on the good side, i will from next week be getting some extra help making the game from a friend who wants to learn how to make graphics. His job will be to add content in various areas, and in general help with the time consuming tasks, such that i can better focus on the programming itself. So hopefully it will be a good addition, allowing to add new and interesting things to the game.
The Admin team has also been expanded on the discord with two new members who have been so kind to help out answering your questions, and keep a great atmosphere, and they are doing a great job at it.
But now to the update.
--- The week ---
The main focus of this update has been to introduce the week, meaning that we now have days and months instead of just a simple day counter. And this brings a lot of new interesting things to the game.
--- Staff scheduling ---
You can now set the schedule of each staff for the individual days of the week including assigning days off and different roles on each day. So it possible to tailor a complete schedule that will make the store run smoothly from day to day.
-- Customer flows
The week also allows for different customer flows for each day. So farmers might prefer to shop on a monday, where the techies goes shopping on thursdays instead. And in the weekends everyone has a completely different shopping pattern compared to the workdays. So it's up to you to learn the different patterns and set up the store accordingly.
-- Opening hours
Because of the different customer flows you might also want to keep different opening hours for your store so this is also possible now.
--- New Hud ---
The main HUD in the store has also received an overhaul, to make it a bit more modern looking compared to the old one. This new hud also allows for some new features which you have requested.
--- First Person View ---
It is now possible to play the game from a first person view. Feedback on how this mode han be improved is very welcome.
--- Hiding the HUD ---
It is also now possible to hide the hud, for those of you who want to take better screenshots of your stores.
--- General Overhaul ---
The remaining screens has now been converted to the new style, and a few of them has received an overhaul.
--- Stats ---
The stats system has also changed. The previous one caused lagging in longer games because of some bad code structure. So while doing this overhaul, some new features have been added.
The customers will now give you feedback of their experience while shopping at your store through customer reports. It is also now possible to see what each segment perfers in a more understandable way. Finally you can also see the shopping stats for the segments on each day. So hopefully these tools will make it easier to make decisions on what to do. All of this can be found on your computer in your office.
--- Minor Updates ---
Besides this, other features have also been added.
--- Minimum Storage Sytem on articles ---
You can now adjust the desired amount of articles used by the Minimum Storage Info directly on the articles using the Edit Article menu
--- Customers Queuing ---
There have been lots of complaints regarding the queuing of the customers. They should now be more intelligent, and spread out to the various registers.
--- ABC locations ---
Have you got some articles you want to get rid of, or want more sales of that high earning item? Then make the customers see this as the first thing when they enter your store. You can now add focus on various articles in your store. The closer a display is to the store front, the more interesting it will be for the customer to look at.
--- Register speed by article ---
There were some balancing issues regarding selling groceries. As these are low priced items, the customers will now take more of each. However this then added longer queues at the registers. To combat this, the amount of time it takes to process an article now also depends on the luxury of that item. So selling a food item at the register, will now be faster than selling a computer. In future more will be added to balance out various categories.
--- Corp Applications ---
The applications you receive will now be based of your HQ level. So when obtaining a bigger HQ, you will most likely get better applicants.
--- Bugs ---
As always lots of bugs have been corrected, and a lot new has most likely entered. Thanks to all of you who have beta tested the game, and provided feedback.
--- Menu centering ---
There were some issues with ingame menus having weird offsets on other resolutions than the standard 1920 x 1080. This should have been corrected, and menus should now appear on top of their respective inventory.
--- LMB missing once in a while ---
There have been a longstanding issue with LMB suddently not registering when placing items. I can't get this to happen myself, so can't track it down. However i have tried to fix some of the areas that might cause this, but if it continues to happen i am very interested in hearing about it.
--- What's next? ---
So with this update out, what are the upcoming plans?
-- The stand by period ---
As always after a large update, there is a "Stand By" period, meaning i don't do larger changes for a week or so, but instead stand ready to fix bugs that might arrive, such that a fix can be made and uploaded quickly. So a few minor patches might arrive during the upcoming week.
--- More articles (And this time it's true) ---
It was the meaning that more articles should have been added this patch. However a lot of feedback indicated that it was a huge task managing the staff each day on larger stores. Therefore the only solution to this was to add a complete week such that you could add fixed days off for your staff, so that it would be more automated. But with this out of the way, it is time to add articles as promised. There will first be added various drinks, to round off the groceries category, and after that all attention will go to expand electronics. This will probably happen over two several patches, but work on this will start tomorrow.
This was the info regarding this update. Please do let me know of bugs, balancing issues, thoughts or great ideas. Also feel free to join our discord at: https://discord.gg/fckN6bE
Letter to our Retailers (7) - The Weekday
Dear Retailers!
It has been some time since the latest newsletter, and the even the world has changed since then.
WIth all of this happening as well as some other stuff, i decided to take a few weeks off, with minimal work on the game to get everything sorted again. This is also why the newsletter hasn't been out for an extended period.
However there has still been work, and lots of new things to tell about :-)
--- V 0.9.4 ---
A few minor updates has been released, mainly focusing on removing bugs, and making a few optimizations.
Primarily there was a bug affecting the bigger stores, where staff preferred filling articles over unpacking, resulting in them not unpacking at large stores where there are always something to fill. This has been changed around, so that they prefer to unpack over adding. At some point the job / task system will be reworked completele, as it doesn't allow for complete control of your staff which should be possible.
The latest update also added some new articles to the Groceries category, making it possible to sell various cleaning items.
--- Up Next ---
Since then work has revolved around one of the community's greatest requests, the implementation of a "week", and this brings on a whole new set of features. Note that this is still work in progress, and not a part of the official game yet.
--- Staff Planning ---
First of all, it will be possible to plan the entire workweek for all of your staff. This includes individual day schedule, days off, and various roles for the specific day.
--- Opening Hours, and variying customer flows ---
To accompany this it is also now possible to make various opening hours for each day. However this would not add anything if all days are similar. So now there will also be a different amount of customers for each day, with some days busier than others, which affect how much staff you need for a given day as well as when to do your promotions. The days will also have a varying flow of customers, so at Mondays the rich people might shop late in the morning, and on fridays closer to the evening instead.
The plan is also to add some more statistics to the computer to help you analyse these new things.
--- Updated HUD ---
To do this, the HUD needed to be able to also contain weekdays. And since it... could look better, i decided to give it an overall upgrade.
It also contains some new features.
--- Keybindings ---
There will now be keybindings to control simple things like the speed.
--- Hide UI ---
There will be a button to hide the UI, for those who want to take better screenshots. This can also be toggled with tab.
--- First Person Mode ---
It will be possible to view the game from your characters point of view.
--- Other UI updates ---
In general lot of the menus have been updated to the new look, which is done for two reasons. 1. The old UI looked from it was made in the late 90's (The new isn't perfect but hopefully it looks more modern) 2. Much of it was made from the beginning of the game, where lots of errors and bad practices where used due to our lack of knowledge, so it has also been to upgrade this which allows for much easier changes in the future.
There will probably still be some remnants left of the old UI, but will also be changed. And at some point the entire Main Menu will receive a likewise overhaul, as this also could be improved a lot.
----------
So this is what has happened since the last update. The next articles that will enter the game, is various drinks, and after that the electronics will receive some much needed attention.
Until next time, happy sales.
0.9.0 is released for Mac. Small UI update for windows.
Dear Retailers A minor update is released :)
Mac realeased
We finally got the Mac version up and running, meaning you also have access to the latest major update.
We still haven't fully solved the issue with exporting to Mac, meaning that updates may be a few days delayed. We will still work on this issue, and hopefully be able to bring updates simultaneously.
-----------------------
Minor UI update
We have also received feedback that the new UI is a bit too overwhelming, and that some of the functionalities aren't too obvious, and that you miss some of the old functionalities. So we have made some changes that should improve this in the most essential areas.
- You can select colors on the inventory before buying. - On displays you have the option to edit all locations at the same time (like before), or to micromanage them individually. - You are again shown how many items remains to be unpacked from the storage.
Feel free to tell us what and how you think the UI can be improved further, as the next period will be dedicated to adjust various things according to the feedback you give us regarding the latest update.
-----------------------
Customer entry update
Customers did also not enter the store at random, making the start of a store even harder. This has also been corrected.
Due to what is mentioned above, this update will be published within the next days for Mac also.
