I wanted to share the work I've been doing on the world economy and markets, but it's just not ready yet, so have a showcase of the new front-end to tide you over.
Market Changes
Makets are now affected by the world economy, with prices being adjusted by world events. Working on this has been slower than I wanted, and there are a lot of concerns arising as I work through stuff.
Busy Work Worries
The main concern I'm having is how much busy work is required to keep player's vending machine business operational. At the start of the game, Keiko works as a one woman operation. She needs to do everything herself. Buying stock, keeping the truck running, purchasing vending spots and maintaining the stock count of those spots. All the while dealing with repayments of crushing debts.
I think the player should feel overworked at the start of the game, but I am concerned about burning players out with busy-work. I'm attempting to speed up certain interactions to try to lessen this through simple changes such as doubling the capacity of the shopping basket, and allowing players to hold input to vacuum up items from shelves or dump items into vending machines.
I'm keen to keep friction out of these mundane tasks, and only applied to the truck maintenance and logistics of the business.
Profit Woes
Currently, earning enough from vending machines with all this busy work isn't rewarding enough. Especially with the amount of debt Keiko can have hanging above her head. I'm hoping this is a number balancing issue, though I've a few solutions I'll try implementing.
I'm planning to have the base mark-up of goods be 50%.
Goods should have a quality spread, with quality 1 (cheap), quality 2 (more expensive) and quality 3 (very expensive), giving players to grow their earning potential as they bank more cash.
Region specific wholesalers who provide a consistent base markdown of goods specific to that region, but only sell in bulk.
This should allow me to progressively reward the player whilst reducing the amount of busy work involved.
The plan for the late-game remains to allow players to hire positions to automate this process, so they can become a wealthy play-girl who tends to her trucks.
Keiko Costumes
I've started adding in some costumes for Keiko. These are currently only visual, but I plan to have the amount of pockets Keiko has tied to the impracticality of the outfit. Each outfit will be unlockable through the game, sharing narrative lore to the player as they unlock them.
I'm working hard to try to get this major overhaul out to Patreon's before Christmas. It would be good to get it out and testing on it before then but I'm not entirely confident I can get all these elements working together before then.
Anyway, have a nice weekend all!Greg