PlateUp!
Patch Notes v0.18.0
Features:
- Franchise cards have been re-worked. A new set of franchise tier cards have been added which will benefit your run. These mostly affect the shop and economy to help in later franchise tiers. There are a total of 23 new cards to build your dream franchises with
- Added three new customer cards: Photographic Memory, Blindfolded Chefs, and Empathy.
- New appliances: Sharp Knife, Supply Cabinets, Cutlery and the Combiner
- Shoes: You can now purchase shoes (as an appliance). There are three kinds of shoes so far, but these are a bit of a test for more character customisation options later.
- There's now a first version of a main menu when you open the game. You can change the game's options, select your profile and choose multiplayer or single player. You can still change all these things in game as before, as well.
- Network modes have been renamed to "Private", "Invite Only" and "Open". In Private, nobody can join your game (although existing players will stay connected). In Invite Only, players can only join you over Steam if you send them an invitation. In Open, anyone on your friends list can join you. More mutliplayer admin support will be coming soon.
- Smart grabbers will now remember their settings after leaving practice mode, so you can use practice mode to configure them.
- Cards now show when they change your customer amounts
Balance:
- Franchise cards are now positives; they also give a significant customer increase so that each franchise tier should have more customers than the last.
- Variety is still a franchise card and has been biased to be more likely to come up, and can be taken multiple times. I might increase this bias if needed
- The current franchise tier cards have been changed to be available as normal cards (where applicable)
- Meat Stir Fry has been re-enabled (it was accidentally disabled)
- Messes now scatter slightly so it's harder to avoid them
- Added cheese as a burger topping (as a separate card)
Fixes/Other:
- Table indicators have been tweaked to make them a bit smaller
- Floor-layer appliances can't be placed under other appliances (for instance, you can't accidentally put a rug underneath a counter. You can still place things over floor-layer things. If you're holding a rug and want to put it under something, pressing drop twice will place it underneath)
- Fix a bug where customer indicators would not disappear correctly
- Kitchen tutorial now resets when the dish changes, even if currently open
- Improved handling of input when closing menus, which should stop things like accidentally picking up things when closing the menu
- Added a sound effect to the booking desk
- Fixed some sound bugs
- Made footsteps softer
- Fixed a bug where garage items could get stuck in the middle of the HQ
- Fixed a bug where layout previews would break when a player joined
- Fixed a bug where HQ appliances could become unusable
- Conveyor belts can no longer stack items together if two meet at the same time
- Fixed some clipping issues with the blueprint desk
- Fixed some navigation issues with the flowerpot
- Fixed a text issue with pizzas
- Fixed a bug with having too many blueprint desks causing blueprints to no longer spawn
- Fixed some UI bugs with the pause menu card view
PlateUp! Playtests June 17th - 20th
We cannot believe how many of you joined the last PlateUp! playtest - it was brilliant following your progress and hearing about your experiences on the Discord (https://discord.gg/E7YmSXtXWZ).
We're really happy to welcome you all back - along with a load of new people who have applied. So please enjoy unrestricted access to PlateUp! once again this weekend June 17th through June 19th. It will be ending at 12 BST, 14 EET, 7 EDT, 4 PDT on the 20th so be sure you do not miss out!
This may be the first time playing for a lot of people so if you have any questions, suggestions, feedback or even looking for a multiplayer session head over to our discord and people will be there to help. (Thanks mods!)
If you haven't signed up already you haven't missed out, simply request access during the weekend event to gain instant access.
We're happy to confirm that any progress you make in the playtest will carry over to the full release - details of which will be announced soon.
Thanks again for all the support - really looking forward to your questions and comments over on the Discord.
See you there!
Thanks,
Yogscast Games Team
PlateUp! Playtests begin
We know people have been asking for this, finally the wait is over the Playtest is open to the public for a limited time. This weekend June 3rd through June 6th. It will be ending at 12 BST, 14 EET, 7 EDT, 4 PDT on the 6th so be sure you do not miss out!
This may be the first time playing for a lot of people so if you have any questions, suggestions, feedback or even looking for a multiplayer session head over to our discord and people will be there to help. (Thanks mods!)
https://discord.gg/E7YmSXtXWZ
If you haven't signed up already you haven't missed out, simply request access during the weekend event to gain instant access.
If you missed this playtest, we're going to be making these a regular thing and I am happy to say that the next one is planned for 17th June through 19th June. If you want to be involved make sure you request access to the playtest so when it opens up you will be given access! Once you sign up you'll be invited to play in all futute playtests.
Thanks for all the support and I can't wait to see everyone enjoying it.
Thanks,
Yogscast Games Team
Development Update - Playtest v0.15
This update has been in the works a bit longer than the others, so there's quite a lot of changes. The main aim of this patch is to move franchises closer to where I want them to be for release. I think franchising is the last big system left in the game; once it's sorted, I anticipate the final push of development can focus on QoL, bug fixing and, of course, adding more dishes, cards and appliances!
Playtesters: this patch should come out for playtesters "shortly", but this is your pre-patch warning that this patch will not be restaurant-save compatible, so if you're midway through a run you should finish it off. Over the next few days I'll try and fix a few reported issues before the patch is released to playtesters.
Franchising
tl;dr: Getting to day 15 is easier, but building your franchises up is the aim.
Getting to your first franchise has been made easier, by dropping the base number of customers (day 15 in 0.15 is roughly day 12 in 0.14.1, ignoring the other buffs below). Franchise tier cards (for now there are only cards for tier 1 and 2) will now add increasing difficulty challenges. The first tier card now moves difficulty to slightly harder than 0.14.1 base. Going forward, I'm hoping to make it so that working up franchise tiers will be the primary challenge for experienced players; as you progress up a franchise you will add more cards, more tier-based challenges, but also have the option of designing your franchise through franchise buff cards. For now, there's only one franchise buff choice (which is the decoration buff, explained below), but I intend that the next patch will have a variety of these that let you build up characterful and different franchises each time
Shops and Days
tl;dr: "Decoration days" are now every 5 days, card days are still every 3 days. There's now a bar at the top of the screen that shows you what's coming up
Decoration days are now separated from card days. Card days are now every 3 days, and decoration days are every 5 days (day 15 is both). Day 5 is also special and is when you add a franchise boost. This should mean you have more money for decorations when they come up, and they'll come up less frequently so you get more normal shops (effectively there's now only two pre-franchise decoration days).
This also means you won't get a new challenge without also having the chance to buy new equipment. I've also tweaked how shops work, but to clarify the mechanics, this is the new version:
Decorations
tl;dr: You now pick a decoration theme and get decorations of that type. Decorations now apply restaurant-wide
Decorations have also been simplified. This was always the system that was hard to explain and lots of people were doing sensible things and getting no benefit, and not being told nothing was happening.
The key changes are:
This has lots of consequences; for instance, you can now "decorate" by buying lots of statues and putting them in a cupboard. I don't think this will be much of an advantage, but I might tweak this to prevent that if it becomes too dominant.
Going forward, decorations will also probably have theme-centric side benefits, so that each decoration has other benefits that might impact where you place it. There's a balance here between letting people decorate how they want their restaurant to look and adding gameplay consequences.
Desks
tl;dr: Two new desks, hopefully all so OP that you'll be pleased with whichever you get, but if not you can now change them via upgrading. Desks are also now manual.
After seeing how much everyone loved getting the discount desk, the blueprint desk has been removed. Wait, sorry, other way round.
The idea is that, instead of nerfing the upgrade desk, I've added two alternatives that should hopefully give the upgrade desk some stiff competition:
I hope that these should offer the chance for different playstyles that all feel very strong; the blueprint desk is probably still quite good, but the copying desk would be great if there was one particular appliance you wanted a lot of, for instance. The discount desk should also mean you can get high-value appliances easily, particularly with low-price dishes.
Sadly all things have downsides, and for desks, it's this: desks are now manual. You have to interact with the desk for a few seconds in order to cause it to act on one nearby cabinet. The main intention here is to make it so you have to have access to your office during the day. The duration might need tweaking, particularly in solo runs.
On the plus side if you can get them all, then the desks stack and you can have an infinite free blueprint printer, so it's not all bad. Cabinets now also have an indicator showing what type of desk they're affected by.
Booking Desk
tl;dr You can now post your PlateUp! any% times
One of the main problems I'm working on is how to balance the game between new/casual players and those of you who have played for more than a hundred hours (you know who you are!). It's really important to me that the game scales up and provides consistent challenge, but there's not much point in that if the game is too hard for people to get started. To help with this, the game is now easier (pre-franchise), and will probably continue to get easier as we approach release.
While franchises provide lots of difficulty increases, I don't want starting a new franchise to feel like a chore for experienced players. So, this patch introduces a new mechanic that lets you rush customers into your restaurant. For new players, you can entirely skip this mechanic and play as before. For players looking to jump into higher tiers, you now receive a (free) blueprint on day 1 for a booking desk. Interacting with the booking desk brings the next customer group into the restaurant instantly.
Changelog v0.15
Features
Balance
Fixes/Other
Patch Notes 0.13
Major Changes
Tutorial Systems
There are two new features to help people learn the game; an interactive tutorial (accessed by interacting with the ? in HQ) and practice mode (accessed via the ? during the day).
Practice mode lets you play in your restaurant without customers, so you can try new dishes/check if things are working as you like.
You can also now restart the game from the beginning of the day if you fail in the first three days.
Franchise Mode
This feature is a work-in-progress and is not well explained in game yet
Upon completing a run (getting past day 15), you now have to option to take your restaurants to the next level, by converting five of your cards into a franchise. Loading a franchise into the tray in the contracts room before starting a run will enable you to start the next run with those cards, to play on with increased challenge.
Take your franchise as far as you can by completing runs, but be careful; if you lose, your franchise will end.
Dish Rebalance
"Dish" options (the right-hand cards) now reduce the number of customers based on how hard the dish is, with dishes like Potato Salad and Stir Fry reducing most significantly. This means you can now pick a varied and challenging menu without having to deal with lots of customers
Name your restaurant
Interact with the sign at the door to rename your restaurant!
Full Patchnotes
Changelog v0.13:
Features:
- Info display: You can now see the expected number of groups for a day and the possible group sizes while designing your restaurant
- New layout: Diner. This small layout is designed for solo players and has one long serving hatch across the whole restaurant
- Added a tutorial: It can currently be accessed through the question mark in the HQ
- Added practice mode: You can now interact with the question mark at the front door of your restaurant to enter practice mode, where you will get no customers but can practice cooking
- Decor is now swapped rather than replaced. Using a decor change (wallpaper/flooring) in a room where you have previously applied a change will give you the old decor back, so you can reuse it
- The shop has been tweaked to be more playable. This is still a WIP but for the moment this change should prevent the shop being practically unusable a lot of the time.
Balance Changes:
- Rush amount reduced from 25% of day's traffic to 15%
- Queue patience now scales with the number of people queuing, so long queues are no longer managable
- Decreased base customer wait for food patience (90s -> 70s)
- Queue patience boosting table bonus is now capped at three tables. It also now scales much worse than before, so having lots of the boost is much less effective
- Slightly increased patience modifier for having 4 players (25% faster -> 15%)
- Taking dish cards now reduces the number of expected customers. Together with the increased difficulty tweaks, taking a dish versus a customer upgrade should be a more balanced choice
Fixes/Other:
- Fixed a bug that caused franchises to not be creatable when you took a contract
- Fixed a bug that prevented Startup Booster from boosting your startup
- Chairs are now toggled by holding to prevent accidentally switching them
- Fixed a bug that let you start the day while the end of day popup was spawning, which meant you could start the day with unopened parcels
- Fix bug where spaces wouldn't appear at the end of text inputs
- Improved handling when a player quits
- Fix bug where table bubbles would appear over other UI elements
- Fix bug where having lots of cards in the Active Cards view caused them to not display properly
- Added button prompts to pause menu
- Fixed a bug that sometimes meant you could get too many customers after loading a save
- Fixed some bugs involving loading franchise card sets
- Fix bugs with complex layouts not loading properly sometimes
- Dishwasher model replaced
- Fixed (some) bugs with the bar table (there are more to go!)
- Fixed potato derivatives not being storable
- Fixed decor not being saved/loaded
- Fixed decor not being offered in shops
Changelog v0.12.2:
Fixes/Other:
- Reimplemented player management system to (hopefully!) improve bugs to do with players/joining
- Fixed bugs with menus that required all players to agree, including fixing soft lock if a player left during a menu
- Site popups now show the location on the popup
- Pause popup now says paused
- Fixed bug with stir fry being cookable by adding raw veg
- Fix Painting taking up a whole tile
Changelog v0.12.1:
Fixes/Other:
- Fixed bug that made Steam not detect playtest correctly (which prevented multiplayer)
- Fixed missing name for bar table (still needs a proper description)
Changelog v0.12:
Features:
- Added Franchises
- Rebalanced the speed of the game to reduce length of a successful run
- You can now rename your restaurant
- You can now restart the day if you fail before day 4, with no penalty
- Added Extra Life appliance
- Improved active card view (still got some problems, though!)
- Rework customer scheduling
- You can now abandon your restaurant in the menu (requires confirmation from all players)
- Added some more cards (look out for long-range messes and even more Victorian Standards)
- Grabbers will no longer grab items that are undergoing processes, so you can grab things out of places like soaking sinks more usefully
Balance Changes:
- Rebalanced stir fry (should be much more manageable; burns much more slowly)
- Big changes to customer amount in line with above changes
- Service With a Smile card removed
- Informal Service card removed
- Tier 3 affordable decoration bonus is now Informal Service
- Tier 3 cozy decoration bonus is now Seat Without Clearing
- Napkins are now infinite
- Dish prices have been reworked to be more consistent
- All non-standard sinks no longer provide water
- Floor Buffer now lasts much longer
Fixes/Other:
- Fix bug preventing multiplayer with more than two people
- Fix bug causing messes underneath chandeliers/next to paintings from being cleanable
- Fix plating problems with some dishes making plates appear out of thin air
- Fix a bug that let you cut slices of bread at night
- Fixed a bug that let you start the day with unopened parcels
- Fix customers getting stuck on some furniture
- Fix queue patience boosts being too strong when queue patience decoration was in effect
- Fix items on conveyors having process bars when they shouldn't
- Colour choice is now fixed steps rather than picking a random hue
- Fix crash with connecting tables in a loop
- Fix crash when placing an appliance sometimes
- Fix arrow keys not working properly (movement and menus)
- Fixed a bug where you could be given multiple copies of an ingredient if you got two unlocks for it on the same day
- Made the day timer bar much bigger/central, probably to prepare for putting markers on it for things like rushes
- Fix a bug with sinks providing water when they shouldn't
- Fixed a bug that let you push yourself out the door by placing an appliance and be unable to get back into your restaurant
Twitch Integration:
- Fix case sensitivity in Twitch channel name and chat commands
- Names are now shuffled before being requeued (people who haven't visited are still first)
Update 0.9 - Decorations and (less) disconnects
Today I'm uploading version 0.9 to the playtesting branch, which comes with a few big new features and (hopefully) a few big bugfixes. I'll update the demo too soon.
Decorations
The main feature this week is a new decoration system. If you're a front-of-house player who has been watching all the cooking updates, this is the update for you!
You can now purchase decorations every three days which will provide nearby tables with boosts. Building a cozy pub, exclusive establishment or maybe you're focused on fast food? Decorate your restaurant with items of the same theme to gain big benefits.
Each decorative item gives points towards (or away from!) some themes. For every three points of a theme a table is affected by, it'll gain a level and a new benefit.
This update brings in five different decoration themes and a total of 12 new decorative objects!
This is very much a work-in-progress, so look out for lots more decorations to be added
(as a note, the old decorations are still in the game with their old benefits, although they'll be swapped over to the new system soon)
Layer-based placements
To support the new decorations, the game now supports layer-based placements. In short, this means you can now put rugs* underneath chairs, pictures on walls behind tables and hang chandeliers above tables.
(*while typing this I realise the "old" rug hasn't been set to go under things, so not that rug)
Card based XP
Experience gained is now based on the cards you've chosen. In practice all cards are worth the same, so it should end up being very similar to how it was before, but this means in the future choosing harder cards can give extra XP.
Table and chair interactions
Chairs now act as interaction proxies for their tables. In other words, if you want to interact with a table you can now interact with an adjacent chair instead. This mean less pushing customers off their chairs to take their order, which is nice.
Also, customers now tuck their chairs under the table when they leave, because really it was just impolite not to.
Bug fixes
Thanks so much to everyone in the Discord who has been reporting bugs, especially everyone sending videos of the completely perfect work-in-progress networking going wrong. There's definitely still some bugs with multiplayer (as expected!), particularly with 3 players, which I'm working on at the moment.
But if you've had a problem joining where the bar would fill and unfill or flicker, that should now be fixed in v0.9, together with a few other bugs.
0.9 Patch Notes
- Adds decoration system, with 4 positive and one negative decoration themes
- Adds 12 new decoration items
- Adds layer support for appliances, to allow placing things over/under/next to other things
- Chairs are now interaction proxies for their tables
- Chairs now tuck in automatically
- The game pauses again when any player has the menu open
- Fix bug with two players taking from a stack at once (I think) (thanks Kroc)
- Fix input queue bug that caused the game to be unjoinable for some players (thanks Anaxileah, SummerBorne and Kroc)
- Fix rotation bug that caused some appliances to not rotate appear to rotate when pressed (thanks Numerophobia)
- Fix rotating things off walls
- Fix candles lighting outside
- Demo version will now always provide all available dishes as options (i.e. you'll always get stir fry once you unlock it)
Update 0.8 - Too many cooks?
Good news! Today I'll be releasing update 0.8 for everyone (playtesters and demo users!). It's got lots of bug fixes, a new bit of content, and most importantly: native multiplayer!
Before we get into what's new, I highly recommend checking out this hilarious 4-person cooking stream from Briony.
Multiplayer
This is the big one! The game now supports multiplayer natively, which means you can play with your friends without using Remote Play Together. It should be more reliable and faster, and have a much smoother experience all round.
Multiplayer might have a few bugs at first, so please bear with it and report any problems you have on the Discord so I can get them fixed. Thank you!
I know how frustrating it is to not being able to join your friends, so I tried to design multiplayer to be as flexible as possible.
- The game supports connections over Discord and over Steam, so if one isn't working for you, you can swap to the other. Different players can simultaneously play over different services. For me, Discord has been quite patchy, so I'd recommend using Steam for the moment (although let me know if Discord works for you!).
- The game also supports hot-joining, so you can hop into your friends' games at any time, without them having to restart. You can also leave and join again if you have to go away for a bit.
- Up to four players can be active at once, but you should also be able to join your friends and spectate if it's already full.
- You can also join locally while playing online, as before. You can also have a friend join you locally while you're connected to someone else. In fact, you could even join a friend's server and then remote play with someone else so they can play, if you really wanted to.
I hope you enjoy playing multiplayer, let me know in Discord if you have any problems! There are a couple of caveats for the moment:
- Demo players can't join full game players. Sorry! This is unfortunately a limitation of using Steam; the two games (the demo and the play test) have different App ID numbers in Steam, so Steam doesn't let you play together.
- Starting the game from an invitation should work on Steam, but it's a bit patchy, so I'd recommend starting the game first and then accepting the invitation
- You can't (yet) kick people from your game, so play nice!
Bug fixes
Thank you to everyone who's playing the game, and thanks to everyone who reported bugs. I've tried to fix as many as possible, and there's a few big ones that should be gone now.
- The middle of the restaurant should now allow things to be placed there again; this also means you can't pick up the floor anymore
- Dish washers can no longer be loaded while they're on, because that's not hygienic
- UI elements shouldn't fall off the screen if you resize during the game anymore
- Customers are no longer fussy about where food is placed on big tables (and instead can get back to focus on throwing the food all over your restaurant)
Discord and Steam Rich Presence
I've also added support for Discord and Steam's rich presence, so you'll show up as ingame on both platforms. People can also see what phase you're in and if you have any free slots to join! There's lots of potential things to add there, so let me know what you'd like to see!
Stir Fry
All this netcoding has taken a lot of time, but I still wanted to squeeze in some more content to the playtest, so there's now a new dish: stir fry!
Stir fry is all about preparing in advance and cooking quickly. To make a stir fry, you have to add each ingredient into a wok and cook it briefly -- too little and you can't add the next ingredient, too much and you'll be in the sink, scrubbing!
Stir fry is unlocked after fish. If you've already played past that level, you should be given it immediately after you finish any restaurant.
Stir fry is also available to demo players, so if you've been craving some more plating-action, you can steak your way to stir fry and enjoy the new dish too!
Patch Notes v0.8
- Adds Steam and Discord multiplayer support (use the menu -> Multiplayer to allow people to join)
- Adds Stir Fry dish
- Adds Rich Presence support
- Adds current players panel (so you can see who is playing)
- Fix bug with background objects occupying spaces, mostly the ground occupying the middle tile (thanks Kroc, Anaxileah, SummerBorne, awesometanker and everyone else who reported this one!)
- Fix bug with conveyors stacking objects placed at the same time (thanks Kroc)
- Fix bug with placing dirty dishes into dish washers while they were running
- Fix bug with UI elements on screen resize
- Fix bug with trees blocking orders (thanks Anaxileah)
- Fix bug with large tables only accepting items in one place
- Improve card readability (larger, darker text)
Patch Notes v0.8.1 hotfix
- Improve networking stability in almost all cases
- Fix bug that randomly caused players with reasonable connections to be kicked for having bad connections
- Fix bug that caused day to start when no players were connected
- Fixed a bug with local player's name when running without Steam