The before and after shots of the waterfront really drove home how much work you're putting into this. Loving it! But yes, do take some time off if you're feeling close to burnout.
An idea for the tourists/npcs: give them a wallet and basic needs/wants. Then they can walk around the town fulfilling as much of their needs and wants as their wallet will allow! So they might stop at a clothing store to buy new clothes or stop at your restaurant. You could even have them change clothes or accessories as they shop! And the better your restaurant and the area becomes, the bigger their wallets and desires become.
That's a cool idea! Would definitely add to the "improving the town" aspect if the NPC's businesses are doing better over time. Reminds me of Roller Coaster Tycoon games.
love this idea! one of my favorite parts of rollercoaster tycoon was seeing the ncp's interact with the stalls, watching them buy up balloons and hats, such a nice touch. great idea for down the road :)
Idea is irrelevant, look at Kenshi which implemented shop systems and NPCs trading stuff, it's much easier to control this other ways (npc could just immitate life having specific schedule and you may affect it on progress)
Some ideas I've seen watching this are: 1. Maybe have the weather affect the types of food people want (ie. if it's cold/rainy, people are more in the mood for soup) 2. Look into Animal Crossing's feng shui system. It's also somewhat hidden, but you can get "points" based on the arrangement of your house 3. Akin to the Sim City's maybe have "natural disasters", or emergent events that can happen in your kitchen like an appliance breaking, a wait staff randomly overcooking food, dropping an order, belligerent customer, etc. Stuff that keeps things exciting 4. Sort of what you said maybe have a restaurant rank, which is gotten by attracting certain critics, which then unlocks more specialized appliances, so there's always an incentive to improve things other than just making money
Maybe as a player is increasing their restaurant, a demand of higher status clients will request additionally needs: Maybe a speak easy could be added or being able to buy a michelin star chef. Also, as a restaurant gets bigger and requires more staff, additional formal training may need to be required to keep the customers happy and they can display that in their satisfaction in chat boxes.
Definately! I will eventually start work on the Chef/Waiter hiring system where you can train them or sometimes be able to hire rare Chefs with different abilities.
An idea for the birds, maybe they could have nests scattered around the map and the player will have to find them to get eggs? Amazing job, and keep the good work up!
@@PixelArchitect Could there be a thing where like the seagulls snatch food from the civilians once in a while. Idk it just seemed funny and it'd be in character for them. Seagulls are renowned for being little sh!ts like geese
Little storylines on these npc balloons would be nice, some saying things that connect with others. Lines about the past of this world, and why it's that way today. Maybe some secret item or location that's only discovered if you see some NPC talking about it, and the chance of that speech appearing is low. Or a map to the item/location in a language that only a specific NPC reads to you if you become friends with it. I don't know if you've done this, but give a background to the helpers you can hire, even if it doesn't affect the gameplay at all, just to like each one a little more. About new animations, NPCs that water the plants, look at the smartphone, read a book (for example, he touches the shelf and the book appears in his hand, when he sits down it appears on the table). Just some ideas
Totally agree! I can make the NPCs comment on changes to the world as well as storylines related to the main NPCs to make the dialogues more unique and have some form of progression. I will eventually start work on the Chef/Waiter Hiring system where each staff member will have their own profile and skillsets. And sometimes maybe a rare Chef could pop up that you can hire :)
This looks so beautiful! A suggestion for restaurant customization that incentivizes players would be that things like decor and live music could make the atmosphere enjoyable, meaning that waiting longer for service doesn’t incur as much of a penalty. And I don’t know if the players have control over the prices of the menu but if they do maybe atmosphere can let you get away with higher prices. Overall, your game looks really slick!
That's a good idea! I think live music can play a big role in the restaurant. Had the idea of Jukeboxes as well, which could help if you are going for a "retro" vibe. Don't think I will allow price adjustments (just don't want players to spend too much time in the UI) but I'll definitely have a lot of price multipliers to reflect food quality, enjoyment, wait times etc.
@@PixelArchitect If you're looking to make live music it would be fun if there was some sort of optional customization to it. Whether it be actual instruments you tweak or bits you assemble in a jukebox to your own mix if you don't want to use the original songs. It would give players an extra gameplay aspect to tinker around with and would give the restaurants a more personal feel. Might also help spread the word of the game through players sharing their compositions.
@@andothermic_ I don’t know, I kind of agree with Noah that spending too much time doing different things can make you spend too much time in the UI. It’s important to nail the core aspects of your gameplay. Hiting performers can give players more things to do, but when you’re already hunting, foraging, decorating a restaurant, making a menu, managing service, and more that has to do with the restaurant throwing in a system of hiring specific performers is one more thing that needs to feel engaging. I do agree that just for customization I would love to hire a jazz band, my girlfriend would probably hire a rock band for her restaurant, but going to deep means more development to make sure you don’t add something half assed. Just my two cents.
@@PixelArchitect I know I'm 6 days late to this conversation but an interesting idea I saw from the Animal Crossing Direct was being able to change the sounds of a house (as in adding a constant background noise like construction work or something). I think that could work really well for the player's restaurant. They could purchase a music box that plays ambient background noise, like that of rain or a forest, (this would be different from a jukebox because it wouldn't play music), that way the player can have more customization to the atmosphere of their restaurant.
Here is an idea: It would be cool if you had to buy your furniture from the local town, alowing you to gather exotic funiture from exotic locations. Another part of that would be that you have to store all your furniture if a physical location, and 'removing' stuff simply tells the waiters to move it into storage, where other ingreadients could also be located.
Yes, I think it would be cool to have like an "IKEA" type store as well as a luxury furniture shop. I think some special furniture pieces can be created with the help of NPCs as well
It’d also be cool if there was a travelling merchant type deal that’d sell exclusive items that just help enhance the aesthetic with more specific and exotic items. Things like statues, mini waterfalls, exotic flower bouquets or bonsai trees.
Salad bars and buffets could be really good options for breaking up the sea of tables and requiring the player to think strategically about placement. Those would be dramatically different from the normal gameplay though so not sure that's an option you want to pursue. Teppanyaki tables might also be an interesting idea to integrate. A slightly larger table with a smaller number of higher-paying guests and a dedicated chef that serves them. Waiters would still have to deliver drinks and things like soup/salad. You could also potentially have a style system where each decorative object has several keywords attached to it. The more of a specific keyword you put in your restaurant the stronger that element is. Maybe a restaurant that's decorated in pastels appeals to a more youthful clientele? It could be that by combining keyword/themes and menu choices you could potentially influence the number of guests that visit. For example, people aren't going to be very interested in a Japanese themed restaurant that sells French food. Those were just ideas that popped into my head so I have no idea how good they actually are or how difficult they would be to implement. I'm already excited for this game and I'm excited to see what ideas you come up with! It's obvious that you've thought a lot about the genre and how to improve it.
This has got to be one of the coolest games I’ve seen, especially since it’s not being produced by some major company or huge organization. The way ty narrate your devlogs and experiences going through it is so cool, and I’ve learned a lot from watching this journey. Keep doing what you’re doing with the game!
Suggestion for the random npc's: if possible randomize their animation speed by a tiny amount like 5-10 percent if possible, making them not all walk in sync. Edit: the UI changes are great and I'm curious about the appliance system, cool idea!
i can't believe the amazing progress you've made, the UI in particular looks amazing!! love the addition of chat bubbles, really adds a certain polish/visual eye candy haha. this has been such a treat watching these videos. you put so much care into not only ur game but also ur videos, i'm sure it takes a long time to put these dev logs together. can't wait for the next video, keep up the amazing work!! u are truly inspiring
Your game is looking really good! Its enjoyable to hear your narration while going over the things that you have done, improved, changed, and future ideas. I wish you the best, keep going!
Your attention to detail amazes me!! I know Chef RPG is definitely worth the wait with each devlog I watch. Extremely excited for this :) Keep doing what you do but don’t forget to rest!! :)
I really hope the fog gets an upgrade but apart from that this looks amazing. Something I've been waiting for is a dinamic shadow system, your game is so beautiful and exploits colors and shadowing so greatly but i feel pain when the character walks near an amazing building but the shadow is still the same, a low gamma black. Hope you do something about it. Good luck, loooing forward to this game. Shader may help with if
Glad you are liking the progress! I might try a non-pixel art mist for a smoother look. I agree the current one does look a bit jarring haha. I have an idea for a simple method of doing dynamic lighting for characters. I'll test it out down the road and see if it works with the rest of the scene. Just don't want to have the need to do it for the rest of the objects as well, cause it may end up taking too much time.
Love all the progress and I can't wait for the release! Please remember to take breaks too, you have loads of people here supporting you! I was really excited when you mentioned Restaurant City, since customizing the restaurant was my favourite part of the game. Perhaps some decorative items that affect gameplay could be items that affect only a few tables closest to them. Also! Having many customization options is always fun, it doesn't matter (to me, at least) if they have no gameplay effect :)
Really appreciate it! Haha yeah definitely need to balance work life a bit better, since it's a pretty long development process. Glad you like the customization ideas!
Its so cool to see how much this has developed over time! the effects animation in the dock adds so much atmosphere. One idea for restaurant customization; So far it looks like all the tables are 4-tops. When i worked in a diner, managing seating during brunch was insane. One persons job was just to seat people and maintain a wait-list for large groups. It might be an interesting mechanic to have different sized tables and and customers come in parties that all have to sit together. Then the player has to balance having different sizes of tables, or prioritize small or large parties- small groups cycle through quickly so you can serve more ppl, but large groups spend more per person, but require a lot of attention. Also maybe some kinds of seating can be shared by solo/pairs of diners, like counter tops.
The way you were talking about the restaurant style, reminded me of the rainforest cafe. Would be awesome if you had some themes items for people who wanted to take that approach. From formal restaurant to diner style with maybe some random themes thrown in like wild west or rainforest
The art is so good, and it was really interesting hearing your thought process! One idea for making the restaurant more interesting: have decor have an influence on the customer mood or the price of the meal. Like some customers want a moody corner surrounded by plants and a screen to give them privacy, so they're more impressed by the ambiance. Maybe you could also have themed items -- like if you serve seafood you can have impressive aquarium tanks (with fish you catch?!) and it gives a boost to people who order seafood.
Maybe signboard could have some neon light feeling or led lights shining/flickering/chasing lights to make it pop out more. The waves line could be slightly curved to make it more realistic in water waves than a straight line and maybe moves slower. The water splashes on the floor and roof is quite little as it is pouring quite heavily, might add more of the splash effect to reflect the heavy rain. maybe a little water drizzing down from the roof edge to the ground like real roof did. Rain water drop in the water should have a ripple effect instead of a splash with water moving out in a small circle enlarging with multiple lining before disappearing. Maybe during rainy day NPC carries some sort of umbrella/raincoat? restaurant design can also include sofas (some cafe uses sofa instead of normal chair). Just some thoughts.
Great work! Regarding the restaurant customisation, I was reminded of the old Rollercoaster Tycoon games. There, at least for me, a lot of fun was in building the "appliances" (coasters) and environment (decor) from basic parts (e.g. there was no house but wall and roof pieces). In the restaurant, it might be fun to think about such "composable" pieces as well so players can get creative. For instance, maybe there is a pipe system instead of single brewery appliances (might fit the steampunk theme well, too) or connectable "wall" pieces like flower pots, carpets, interior walls, fountain/water pieces, maybe even table pieces, etc. Subscribed on Kickstarter and looking forward to seeing the next update! :)
Really appreciate it! I totally agree. Placing individual items may not be too interesting but being able to connect objects may offer more room for creativity. I'll probably get around to playing Factorio eventually cause it looks like they did a really good job with that. At least I think I can implement a simple version of it for the restaurant
Wild idea that maybe has been mentionned... But for very lategame, a mechanic that would be awesome would be the ones you see in japanese restaurants with the tiny ''rivers'' and boats floating on them, bringing food to the table through a ''conveyer'' river system throughout the restaurant. You could make it so that there's a bar section with such system going on for very endgame goals! There could even be a Tech to repair it when it breaks randomly every once in a while
The fact that you came from an Architecture background and you created this gives people like me hope. I’m also studying Architecture and currently learning unity in one of my classes. I can’t believe how far you’ve taken this masterpiece within your studies. I’ve always wanted to do some sort environmental game design despite the degree I’m aiming for. I’m looking forward to seeing more updates! I appreciate the hard work and effort.
This is by far the best indie game i've seen on devlogs (and i've watched MANY!). So full of life, style, charm, so detailed ... Never ceases to impress me. You're a 10/10 dev. Keep it up
Those moving signs and advertisements are gorgeous: they add so much vibrancy to the town without being terribly intrusive!! I love the seagulls, the shading, the appliances, the new UI, everything!!! It's truly beautiful! If I had one suggestion, though, it would be to include some of the old keyboard controls with your new customization/building system for the restaurant interior! Having the option to drag and drop is perfect for adding items, but having a simple keyboard control for deleting items/putting them away is far less mentally tedious for me! When I play games like these, it can get annoying having to drag items to put them away, especially if there are lots of tiny items. Maybe there's a way to toggle the controls between the two styles? If it's not possible, that's completely fine; it's just a nitpick!! I'm unbelievably excited for this game and I've pledged to the Kickstarter! Can't wait to see more from y'all, and I hope y'all are taking care of yourselves!! :D
A cool idea for customizing your restaurant , you can set it as an outdoor restaurant or multiple floor restaurant, even we can make a top floor restaurant which will be open roof or some kind of open feel and you can customize it by adding light and decoration
YES TO THE FOG IDEA!! I love that extra challenge sometimes (definitely not all the time) but if it was super infrequent, but super challenging and fun I think that is so cool
This might already be a part of the game, but I think it would be interesting to have the ability to create a specific kind of restaurant, like a coffee shop, ice cream parlor, etc. as you advance through the game and develop kind of a specialization. You could then maybe even collect rare ingredients for your specific menu items, like coffee beans or a rare sugar or something and even get upgraded machines to make more versions of your product.
Yes, currently there are 5 restaurant modes - restaurant, pub, confectionary, social house, and Teahouse. Definitely worth developing this system further to have more unique gameplay for each one. Appreciate the ideas!
@@vagabundorkchaosmagick-use2898 Would prefer to not have an 18+ rating on this game XD I originally wanted to put in a casino room but apparently that will get you a 18+ rating.
Loving the development, congratz! When you mentioned the incentive for building decorative objects and a hidden stat, an idea that popped into my mind was to have a radius for the object to affect, like the points in ISLANDERS (if you're familiar). Just a suggestion! :D Congratulations again, every time I see that a video was posted I smile and gather a cup of coffee to watch it!
First of all I jus want to tell you that I love how you are improving everything and also after I saw this last video I have some ideas that I think they could be too cool if they were in the game: The firs one is related with the weather and the food, so in this way the weather or season could affect the kinds of ingredients or supplies that you can get for the dishes , for example there is a time of the year when is forbidden to consume certain kind of octopus because at that time is when they are breeding, or another example is with the sturgeon and the caviar that it has a specific season just before the springs ends to catch the fishes and extract the roe, lastly the part of the seasons could affect in a mayor way for example in the winter could be a shortage of ingredients and trigger a hard mode so you might need to figure how to make it to the end of the month by hiring special fisher that knows a secret of how to to fish when there are low temperatures in the ocean or knows about a specific zone where there is no ice in the water that affect the shoal of certain kind of fish And the are more ideas but i think that I might wrote a lot so I do not want to be rude or anything but if you read this and you are interested may be I can send you a message by twitter so in that way I do not spam you here with a lot o text
Really like your ideas! Currently I've planned to have different ingredients available depending on the season and maybe even the weather, but haven't done too much research into specific ingredients yet. Yes it would be cool if winter created a lot of barriers and it's harder to gather ingredients. Feel free to message me on Twitter. Always down to chat design :)
Dude! really love the progression from where you started of! I think having the full customization, it really gives off the players creativity when they play. So not only just customizing the restaurant, customizing your food is another level for example! thou looking thru all this, is really lot of work.
It would be interesting to add restaurant events that can happen randomly, like maybe a staff member messes up a dish or a food critic visits and depending on how well you react you can get more or less popularity or something
I love how you reply and heart potentially helpful comments for your game, I'm rooting for you and I'm hoping I'll be able to play it on release! Wishing the best man! Also, I'm an aspiring engineer that's interested in games so you've been an inspiration for me. I'll be on alert for new devlogs or timelapses!
Been receiving a lot of helpful feedback the past couple months. Sometimes if you work on a project too long, it's easy to get tunnel vision, so it's nice to hear what others see. Glad you are liking the progress!
you could be able to place external kitchen islands in the middle of the restaurant where chefs can prepare food as a spectacle for everyone to see, like is sometimes done in sushi restaurants. You could arrainge tables around it and sacrifice a chairs pots on that side for a better customer experience.
Yes I was thinking of something like that actually, since the travel distance to the fridge can become long for bigger restaurants. Would be interesting to have multiple kitchens scattered throughout the scene and parts where the chef can deliver the food right to the customer without a waiter
You have no idea how excited I am for this game, your skills and style is just impressive and inspired me to start pixel art so thank you sm for your amazing work
I am currently a student who feels lost on my chosen course/field. You don't know how much you and your videos fuel my urge to pursue game designing. I know it is a hard job to do but watching your videos makes it look so easy. I just wanna thank you for being an inspiration to me. You are doing a great job by the way!!! The game is awesome and will surely buy it once its out.
Love how everything is coming together, with all the new changes it feels like you brought life into the town. The new Ui looks great, I like how it doesn't take up the whole screen like it did before. But the first thing I thought about adding more things to the restaurant so it's not a sea of tables was a lobster tank. Especially so close to the sea, fresh seafood is a must. And if I remember correctly Cafeland had so much objects to add to your Cafe to keep it interesting. Also I love the hidden stats for furniture and decoration, it's a Stat that no one would have to look out for to play the game. Also since the Kickstarter is looking around November, you should definitely take a nice break for the holidays and enjoy that break into the next year.
Fish/lobster tanks are a cool idea. I guess a luxury version of it would be some sort of aquarium system. I'll definitely add more and more furniture down the road, even after the release :)
Adding a feature where you take parts of the NPC pop-ups and randomize their wordage, so that they don't always use the same exact phrases. Also make the pop-ups contextual. Like "Look, honey, as Seagul!" when near a seagul and replacing "honey" and "seagul" when necessary.
This is looking like a fun and interesting game! I really like some of the ideas that other people have pitched in the comments for the restaurant gameplay, but I also feel like exploration will play a huge part in Chef RPG. This may or may not have been discussed in another video, but I think that it is super important to make the open world fun and engaging. Chefs that are foraging just like you, fun collectibles and eye- catching paths, exciting ways to get around, changes in weather, and even hints of lore in the environment can make a game world feel much more “lived in.” Of course, you can experiment with your own concepts and take inspiration from other games. This is just an idea!
Thanks for the feedback and totally agree :) This is a nice opportunity for us to experiment with architecture and create some really interesting places to explore :)
I was so happy to see another update! I love how it's coming along so far, and your attention to detail regarding immersive towns and preventing stale restaurant gameplay seem really promising. I'm excited tor this to be a game I would want to spend all my time playing. Also, I was so happy to hear someone mention games like Restaurant City and Habbo Hotel. In Restaurant City I had gotten items like a claw machine (while they waited) and conveyor sushi bar (alternative to a regular table) my customers could interact with. I've enjoyed games that have more for customers to interact with / letting their experience be less linear and more involved. Like setting up a waiting area or accounting for customers who want to-go foods like baked goods. I know waiting mechanics in restaurant city and other games felt really tedious though, so I think it's better as a bonus rather than a requirement. I would love to see tourists stand at certain items, like billboards or phone booths. Some could briefly stop near trash cans. I would love to see crowds huddle around certain things, some people walk in a group together (2-6 people maybe?), and some people travel solo. I'm glad you're taking a break if you're feeling burnt out. This game looks wonderful, amazing work!!!
Dude....I am soooo excited for this. You've also taught me so much more about pixel art. You've especially helped me with my Pokemon gym pixel art piece. Great progress! It's coming along nicely!
Suggestion/ feedback idea! In most restaurants people go together to eat. This means that you should have groups of people that take similar paths and also wants to eat in close proximity with each other. This means that a restaurant should have a wide array of seating solutions for small groups, and bigger groups. For instance you might want to have some smaller tables that only fit 2-3 people and some bigger ones for bigger groups. Different restaurant types could encourage different sized groups as well. Cafes could encorage groups of 2 for instance.
An easy(i think) upgrade for the restaurant aesthetic could be the possibility to make longer tables and variant positions and types( like tables with sofas on the wall side and chairs in the opposite side or VIP areas). And maybe u could have random events like :partys, weddings, etc..
wow just discovered this project and it looks amazing! you inspire me to make a game! one idea that would be cool for the NPC dialogue boxes would be different languages. having some NPC's say things in a variety of languages would make the people all feel more unique, maybe even have different characters confused by others speaking a foreign language or having conversations with eachother in there own language. it could be a rarer or later game thing thing as well like when you said the towns gain more and more tourists. looking forward to funding this on kickstarter!
I've seen chef/restaurant games that encourage aesthetics and make them necessary, they do this by having a "patience" system where customers have a higher level of patience when waiting for food when there are higher aesthetic levels. This helps buffer the increased difficulty of having a higher number of customers to serve
Wow!! When you mentioned Restaurant City almost cried! I really loved it! Sad is not longer available I think. About the NPCs: I like when NPCs have strange dialogue. Those are things I remember from Sims 1 when you got random calls. Also recently in Champion Island where there is an NPC with a long dialogue explaining what he thinks about life. Those dont require much movement and can take part in some side quests maybe. I really like that nostalgic but futuristic look it has. I was wondering if we are going to have some Onsen haha!!
WOW this game is looking more and more real every update you give out! I can't wait for the Kickstarter, I hope it goes well, definitely give yourself a break once you get it out. (just not too long of one pls). Good luck with everything! P.S. I know you said you would be changing some of the animations but my biased opinion is the animation of NPCs slapping the table as they wait for their food is already perfect and should be kept.
An idea to deter just making a sea of tables and chairs and like the hidden style stat you mentioned you can possibly add a cramped stat or something similar where customers and critics don't like how packed the restaurant is with so many tables
What would really really do it for your scene dynamics is varying the lighting. I love how some of your scene's look lit but the light itself is very static. Those open restaurants on the dock are an awesome opportunity for it. Also some smoke coming out of the restaurants would be awesome.
Nice project sir, also I like the reference to the song "Dans le port d'Amesterdam" from Jacques Brel in the soundtrack. Good luck with your project sir and thank you for sharing your knowledge with us !
I really like the style stats approach, but as someone else mentioned, feels like there needs to be a way of having ambiance/atmosphere interact with other customer satisfaction stats as well. For example, booths are bigger than tables and reduce capacity but people will pay more for privacy; same goes for banquet tables or private rooms. Small decor items that you mention like plants, art, candles at the tables, etc. are sometimes not as important as minutia like quality of the silverware, dishware, linens, or the occasional coat of fresh paint/renos. Customers can be variously happy in the same dining room as well, like by proximity to other guests, not getting a window seat, or being too close to a poorly-placed bathroom or front door (especially in a rainy and foggy coastal Canadian city like mine hehe). I also notice staff and NPCs can walk through each other, but arranging a restaurant to reduce bottlenecks, serving times, collisions, and staff dissatisfaction are interesting (and real-world!) challenges. Nevertheless, this is looking amazing and love hearing you discuss the philosophy of your approach in the videos! Keep up the amazing work!
For the Michelin Star for example, they don't only judge the food, but everything: - It's good? - It's look good? - The place is well decorated & coherent with the food served - The service is good (How the waiter is dressed, polite, intrusive, etc.) It could be an inspiration for spice a little bit the restaurant management part
I know this is an oddly specific detail but if there's a scene where multiple water pumps are visible at once, maybe have them move at slightly different speeds (or with the starting frames a bit offset from each other)? It just caught my eye as a bit jarring at 4:50 to see two fast objects perfectly in sync! Its a sort of deliberate, meticulous precision there you wouldn't normally see in a cozy area- like how the streetlights in an older area flicker to life one by one is part of the charm
About the gameplay loop of the end game in your restaurant: It would be delightful to see different layouts for the restaurants, something that happens in real life is that you get a two storied restaruant, or other more intrincate layouts. And another small detail that would be interesting to implement is the seating distance of customers, adding to that you could try and give "personalities" to the tourist npcs, so some of them are noisier, and you have to seat them furthe apart, and the posher ones could be more affected by the noise of the restaurant. But as I see it, the game looks promising, good job, hope to see the launch soon!
Thanks and appreciate the ideas! I was already considering a two-story restaurant so might implement it in the future. And different NPC personalities is definitely worth looking into too!
I think something simple to add would be giving tourists specific places they can stop and look at the scenery, sort of like the system that the birds have. Having them randomly stop/start gives more variety but doesnt make too much sense and could lead to players being boxed into an area by accident. maybe tourists linger near big buildings or vendors (but not right in front of them, of course, so the player can still get inside)
i really like the idea of a style system to incentivise making a beautiful restaurant ! the frequency of text popping up above the people in the restaurant feels a little bit too chaotic and cluttered to me? maybe instead of randomly, the guests maybe have a chance to talk a certain amount of time after getting their meals? then it would be more staggered since i dont think they would all get them all at once. i think its fun for the popups to stay random in the kitchen since restaurant kitchens are always kind of loud and busy i really like the little details of the seagulls and signs and i love the look of the character dialogue sprite when talking to the Fish King at the beginning of the video!! the very big and stylized pictures of the npcs are a fun touch that add a lot of depth and character and i think it contrasts nice with the simpler pixel sprites of their overworld representations. it reminds me of stardew valley talk sprites that show up when you talk to the characters! those are always my favorite part of interacting with npcs since it gives them a lot of life and personality
Really glad you are enjoying the new features! And yes, all of the text popping up may be a bit much, especially if there's a ton of people. I think the frequency can definitely be lowered, or triggered by certain events.
Hey ! I'm the character designer 😄 Thank you a lot for your comment about the dialogue box, it makes me feel like I made a good job hehe ! I hope you'll enjoy the other npcs and their unique animations, thank you for your support 😄
An idea for the customization of the restaurant: to allow the player to including some sort of music for the restaurant, like a pianist in the middle of the restaurant or like a band or something like that, it could even affect the customers satisfaction level of the food as it could raise it or lower it depending on the quality of the music that’s being played
nice progress! my ideas: -food delivery system where the ressources for the game are delivered, at the beginnkng just on a small pushing cart and the player has to sort it into the storage toom, later on trucks and assigning employees to the tasks - 'genre'.. for say snack bar, fast food, fine dining etc. - combined with the genre thing food critics that judge the food, service quality, restaurant look etc to motivate players mindfully design the establishment and also have the rating impact the amount of customers - being able to design or let chefs create new dishes, just so the separate component sprites will combine and have different ratings, altough this would be a lot of work to implement i suppose
I think just making the npc interact with the world is all you need. Have random times where certain shops nearly have a line of people out the door because its so busy or maybe construction workers just like fixing a light inside a building or even some days where a road/path is blocked off because its getting repaired. Just try adding as much life as possible, the game is already looking great but a lively and interactive world would be insane so that way gameplay is never repetitive
Lineups and crowds at shops sound like a great idea. Currently there is a plan that some parts of the town start out deteriorated and are slowly repaired. Some shops open later on in the game to give the town a progression. Appreciate the ideas!
@@PixelArchitect That is awesome. Game is looking fantastic! (your probably do not need this advice but anyways) Just remember that the longer you take the better it will turn out and I promise the community will always be here alongside with you. Just take your time and don't ever let this be something that feels like work you know? If you begin to feel stressed or annoyed then please feel free to take a break! As I said, keep up the work. Insanely excited to see everything you create, even if that won't be for another 5 years haha!
A cool idea for customizing your restaurant would be setting the light level and even changing the color of the lights. So if you want a darker restaurant with a lot of neon signs, or a brighter more endearing restaurant, that would be possible
You could have it so that patrons leave feedback/review the restaurant/ leave tips, depending on how good of an experience they had . Aesthetics and atmosphere could play a part in this. that would be a good incentive for the player to invest in pretty furniture and customize their restaurants with only aesthetic elements. hire live performers that change the music playing in the restaurant, add a kiddie area where kids can play etc. You should also add an option to add different tiled sections to the floor, maybe the area behind the counter could have a different tile, the traversal aisles could have a different tile. just to help out with the monotony of the one tile repeated everywhere.
Amazing game! The colour contrast of the harbour gives me a very cosy (and retro) feeling that makes me want to explore around, added to my steam wishlist straight away! It's also quite impressive that you manage to make so many different NPCs (chapter starting from 4:32) for the game, I wonder if you have to manually draw all of their close sprite sheets (plus haircuts, faces, etc.) one by one and create an animator for each NPC with different sprite sheet, or is there a smarter way that makes you achieve this a bit quicker? I am also trying to make a small 2D game on Unity for my portfolio and am struggling to make too many NPCs as I had to manually draw all the sprite sheets for each one of them which is far too time-consuming... For the same purpose, I want to make the game scene a bit more vivid by adding more activities for the NPCs, but very quickly realise that involves lots of manual drawing of new action animations. At the moment I made a general execution movement (which is basically raising arm for 1 sec XD) that at least the NPCs have some movement response upon the arrival of activity position, but that's probably not good enough for a commercial game like urs...
I think it would be fun if the characters were unable to walk through each other. It would add a layer of difficulty in placing the tables in the restaurant, that way the player would have to be careful when customizing. Great work so far!
Really impressive work! You really made the outside world come alive! The stores still look sort of abandoned though. Maybe it’s an idea to sometimes see silhouettes of people in front of the windows, or people looking out the window, or lighting changes, etc. I think that would tie the stores better with the outside world. You said the UI has been improved due to a better color contrast. I can see what you mean with respect to the tiles with the products, but I do feel the dark background of the old design brings more focus to the items, whereas the yellow background demands more attention, thus taking some focus away from the items. I think the menu design looks a lot better now, but I might reconsider the color contrast between the items and the background. I thought the beige and dark blue was a really pleasant color palette. But I have to admit, the new more colorful UI does look more vivid. I think you might be able to combine the best of both versions for an even better UI. I really like your idea of creating unique appliances for the kitchens! I think your town’s concept of slightly downtrodden mixed with tech could be of great utility there to come up with some wacky innovations.
Glad you are liking the progress :) Totally agree with your points about the storefronts and the UI. I think some animations in the windowfronts can make the scenes more lively. Something to add to the list I guess. Thanks for the feedback!
An idea for the restaurant & decoration gameplay: Since you can change the restaurant from a Café to a Restaurant, a Pub etc., you could make the decorations give bonuses (boni?) to satisfaction/tips/... based on what kind of restaurant you are currently running. You could have a fine dining restaurant, where you need to have nice decor & less tables, so it's not too crowded - but the visitors will spend more money. Or you can have a pub, which simply accomodates a lot of customers, but doesn't need a lot of decor. Also, the different types of restaurant could have different opening times. E.g. If you want to go socializing in the eveningy you should open the restaurant as a café around noon/afternoon. A café open at night would not make much sense. The same could go for waiters & clothing. Fine dining needs nice clothing and the waiters will expect higher salary. Another fun thing might be a pub/nightclub, where you would need to make space for a dancefloor, to further differentiate the different restaurant types. I think you get the gist of it and probably have more and better ideas than this, but I wanted to share nontheless :D I wish lots of fun developing and hope for a successful demo! :)
Thanks for the tips and I can definitely try out some of these ideas :) Totally agree that gameplay varieties for different restaurant modes would be cool, and add a lot of replayability.
You should try to make a bike shop, it could sell bike to you and when you have a bike your can go through the map faster and enter a new part which is a called the bike park this could have anything you want in there
Some random NPC ideas: *A specific NPC tells jokes. *NPCs react not only to you, but to other NPCs. *NPCs stop and ask something to another NPC, and the later either knows or doesn't ("where can I find burgers?" "Next to the Sailor Statue" "Thanks!") *An NPC quotes classic works of poetry (Rimbaud, Verlaine, Shelley) *An NPC wears a different hat everytime, but you recognize him because he always wears the same clothes or makes some snarky remark about the smell of fish or something. *Tourists speak in different languages, like Spanish, Farsi, or even Nahuatl, which would be pretty cool! *NPCs buy and sell items at stores, creating deficit and surplus of random items. *One NPC tells a short story; every time you find him, he tells two or three paragraphs in front of an audience. You can read/listen or ignore. *One NPC always wears a black t-shirt with a different black metal band logo (it can be just a doodle).
What if, in the restaurants, you made decor items with localized buffs? As in, a statue or fish tank that raises the style Stat for a limited block area? Amazing job, this is such a lovely youtube find and I'm really impressed with the project and your work. Great job guys!
The before and after shots of the waterfront really drove home how much work you're putting into this. Loving it! But yes, do take some time off if you're feeling close to burnout.
An idea for the tourists/npcs: give them a wallet and basic needs/wants. Then they can walk around the town fulfilling as much of their needs and wants as their wallet will allow! So they might stop at a clothing store to buy new clothes or stop at your restaurant. You could even have them change clothes or accessories as they shop! And the better your restaurant and the area becomes, the bigger their wallets and desires become.
That's a cool idea! Would definitely add to the "improving the town" aspect if the NPC's businesses are doing better over time. Reminds me of Roller Coaster Tycoon games.
love this idea! one of my favorite parts of rollercoaster tycoon was seeing the ncp's interact with the stalls, watching them buy up balloons and hats, such a nice touch. great idea for down the road :)
Love it!
Idea is irrelevant, look at Kenshi which implemented shop systems and NPCs trading stuff, it's much easier to control this other ways (npc could just immitate life having specific schedule and you may affect it on progress)
You can use maslow’s hierarchy of needs for this!
Some ideas I've seen watching this are:
1. Maybe have the weather affect the types of food people want (ie. if it's cold/rainy, people are more in the mood for soup)
2. Look into Animal Crossing's feng shui system. It's also somewhat hidden, but you can get "points" based on the arrangement of your house
3. Akin to the Sim City's maybe have "natural disasters", or emergent events that can happen in your kitchen like an appliance breaking, a wait staff randomly overcooking food, dropping an order, belligerent customer, etc. Stuff that keeps things exciting
4. Sort of what you said maybe have a restaurant rank, which is gotten by attracting certain critics, which then unlocks more specialized appliances, so there's always an incentive to improve things other than just making money
Maybe as a player is increasing their restaurant, a demand of higher status clients will request additionally needs: Maybe a speak easy could be added or being able to buy a michelin star chef. Also, as a restaurant gets bigger and requires more staff, additional formal training may need to be required to keep the customers happy and they can display that in their satisfaction in chat boxes.
Definately! I will eventually start work on the Chef/Waiter hiring system where you can train them or sometimes be able to hire rare Chefs with different abilities.
@@PixelArchitect awesome!! 😃
An idea for the birds, maybe they could have nests scattered around the map and the player will have to find them to get eggs? Amazing job, and keep the good work up!
That's a nice idea! Totally forgot about collecting eggs haha
@@PixelArchitect Maybe they could even drop edible bird's nest as a rare premium ingredient.
@@burpburp710 That's a good idea!
It could also be interesting if animals that close to ingredients you are collecting steal and eat them if the item is on the ground for too long
@@PixelArchitect Could there be a thing where like the seagulls snatch food from the civilians once in a while. Idk it just seemed funny and it'd be in character for them. Seagulls are renowned for being little sh!ts like geese
Dude, this game just keeps getting better and better! I’m loving all these features.
Little storylines on these npc balloons would be nice, some saying things that connect with others. Lines about the past of this world, and why it's that way today. Maybe some secret item or location that's only discovered if you see some NPC talking about it, and the chance of that speech appearing is low. Or a map to the item/location in a language that only a specific NPC reads to you if you become friends with it.
I don't know if you've done this, but give a background to the helpers you can hire, even if it doesn't affect the gameplay at all, just to like each one a little more. About new animations, NPCs that water the plants, look at the smartphone, read a book (for example, he touches the shelf and the book appears in his hand, when he sits down it appears on the table). Just some ideas
Totally agree! I can make the NPCs comment on changes to the world as well as storylines related to the main NPCs to make the dialogues more unique and have some form of progression.
I will eventually start work on the Chef/Waiter Hiring system where each staff member will have their own profile and skillsets. And sometimes maybe a rare Chef could pop up that you can hire :)
This looks so beautiful!
A suggestion for restaurant customization that incentivizes players would be that things like decor and live music could make the atmosphere enjoyable, meaning that waiting longer for service doesn’t incur as much of a penalty. And I don’t know if the players have control over the prices of the menu but if they do maybe atmosphere can let you get away with higher prices.
Overall, your game looks really slick!
That's a good idea! I think live music can play a big role in the restaurant. Had the idea of Jukeboxes as well, which could help if you are going for a "retro" vibe. Don't think I will allow price adjustments (just don't want players to spend too much time in the UI) but I'll definitely have a lot of price multipliers to reflect food quality, enjoyment, wait times etc.
@@PixelArchitect If you're looking to make live music it would be fun if there was some sort of optional customization to it. Whether it be actual instruments you tweak or bits you assemble in a jukebox to your own mix if you don't want to use the original songs. It would give players an extra gameplay aspect to tinker around with and would give the restaurants a more personal feel. Might also help spread the word of the game through players sharing their compositions.
I want to add on this! I think it'll be cool to be able to customise a stage area for the live music, maybe even hire performers?
@@andothermic_ I don’t know, I kind of agree with Noah that spending too much time doing different things can make you spend too much time in the UI. It’s important to nail the core aspects of your gameplay. Hiting performers can give players more things to do, but when you’re already hunting, foraging, decorating a restaurant, making a menu, managing service, and more that has to do with the restaurant throwing in a system of hiring specific performers is one more thing that needs to feel engaging.
I do agree that just for customization I would love to hire a jazz band, my girlfriend would probably hire a rock band for her restaurant, but going to deep means more development to make sure you don’t add something half assed.
Just my two cents.
@@PixelArchitect I know I'm 6 days late to this conversation but an interesting idea I saw from the Animal Crossing Direct was being able to change the sounds of a house (as in adding a constant background noise like construction work or something). I think that could work really well for the player's restaurant. They could purchase a music box that plays ambient background noise, like that of rain or a forest, (this would be different from a jukebox because it wouldn't play music), that way the player can have more customization to the atmosphere of their restaurant.
Here is an idea: It would be cool if you had to buy your furniture from the local town, alowing you to gather exotic funiture from exotic locations. Another part of that would be that you have to store all your furniture if a physical location, and 'removing' stuff simply tells the waiters to move it into storage, where other ingreadients could also be located.
Yes, I think it would be cool to have like an "IKEA" type store as well as a luxury furniture shop. I think some special furniture pieces can be created with the help of NPCs as well
@@PixelArchitect Oh, and a craftsman! Support local economy!
It’d also be cool if there was a travelling merchant type deal that’d sell exclusive items that just help enhance the aesthetic with more specific and exotic items. Things like statues, mini waterfalls, exotic flower bouquets or bonsai trees.
Salad bars and buffets could be really good options for breaking up the sea of tables and requiring the player to think strategically about placement. Those would be dramatically different from the normal gameplay though so not sure that's an option you want to pursue. Teppanyaki tables might also be an interesting idea to integrate. A slightly larger table with a smaller number of higher-paying guests and a dedicated chef that serves them. Waiters would still have to deliver drinks and things like soup/salad.
You could also potentially have a style system where each decorative object has several keywords attached to it. The more of a specific keyword you put in your restaurant the stronger that element is. Maybe a restaurant that's decorated in pastels appeals to a more youthful clientele? It could be that by combining keyword/themes and menu choices you could potentially influence the number of guests that visit. For example, people aren't going to be very interested in a Japanese themed restaurant that sells French food.
Those were just ideas that popped into my head so I have no idea how good they actually are or how difficult they would be to implement. I'm already excited for this game and I'm excited to see what ideas you come up with! It's obvious that you've thought a lot about the genre and how to improve it.
This has got to be one of the coolest games I’ve seen, especially since it’s not being produced by some major company or huge organization. The way ty narrate your devlogs and experiences going through it is so cool, and I’ve learned a lot from watching this journey. Keep doing what you’re doing with the game!
Any good spectacle needs live music. A band in the middle of the dining room! That'd surely attract and repel customers.
Definitely worth implementing! One of the restaurant options is a pub, so would be great to have live music in there.
Suggestion for the random npc's: if possible randomize their animation speed by a tiny amount like 5-10 percent if possible, making them not all walk in sync.
Edit: the UI changes are great and I'm curious about the appliance system, cool idea!
i can't believe the amazing progress you've made, the UI in particular looks amazing!! love the addition of chat bubbles, really adds a certain polish/visual eye candy haha. this has been such a treat watching these videos. you put so much care into not only ur game but also ur videos, i'm sure it takes a long time to put these dev logs together. can't wait for the next video, keep up the amazing work!! u are truly inspiring
Your game is looking really good! Its enjoyable to hear your narration while going over the things that you have done, improved, changed, and future ideas. I wish you the best, keep going!
You can incentivize placing decorations by having them have a significant impact on customers. I know I love seeing a large fish tank in restaurant.
Your attention to detail amazes me!! I know Chef RPG is definitely worth the wait with each devlog I watch. Extremely excited for this :) Keep doing what you do but don’t forget to rest!! :)
I really hope the fog gets an upgrade but apart from that this looks amazing. Something I've been waiting for is a dinamic shadow system, your game is so beautiful and exploits colors and shadowing so greatly but i feel pain when the character walks near an amazing building but the shadow is still the same, a low gamma black. Hope you do something about it. Good luck, loooing forward to this game. Shader may help with if
Glad you are liking the progress! I might try a non-pixel art mist for a smoother look. I agree the current one does look a bit jarring haha.
I have an idea for a simple method of doing dynamic lighting for characters. I'll test it out down the road and see if it works with the rest of the scene. Just don't want to have the need to do it for the rest of the objects as well, cause it may end up taking too much time.
Nice pfp
I really want to play your game! His proposal is very original. And I love roleplaying and food. So look what a wonderful combination! hahaha
Love all the progress and I can't wait for the release! Please remember to take breaks too, you have loads of people here supporting you! I was really excited when you mentioned Restaurant City, since customizing the restaurant was my favourite part of the game. Perhaps some decorative items that affect gameplay could be items that affect only a few tables closest to them. Also! Having many customization options is always fun, it doesn't matter (to me, at least) if they have no gameplay effect :)
Really appreciate it! Haha yeah definitely need to balance work life a bit better, since it's a pretty long development process. Glad you like the customization ideas!
Its so cool to see how much this has developed over time! the effects animation in the dock adds so much atmosphere. One idea for restaurant customization; So far it looks like all the tables are 4-tops. When i worked in a diner, managing seating during brunch was insane. One persons job was just to seat people and maintain a wait-list for large groups. It might be an interesting mechanic to have different sized tables and and customers come in parties that all have to sit together. Then the player has to balance having different sizes of tables, or prioritize small or large parties- small groups cycle through quickly so you can serve more ppl, but large groups spend more per person, but require a lot of attention. Also maybe some kinds of seating can be shared by solo/pairs of diners, like counter tops.
I thought the last version was so good already and now seeing you improve it even more amazes me sm ! I can’t wait
The way you were talking about the restaurant style, reminded me of the rainforest cafe. Would be awesome if you had some themes items for people who wanted to take that approach. From formal restaurant to diner style with maybe some random themes thrown in like wild west or rainforest
The art is so good, and it was really interesting hearing your thought process! One idea for making the restaurant more interesting: have decor have an influence on the customer mood or the price of the meal. Like some customers want a moody corner surrounded by plants and a screen to give them privacy, so they're more impressed by the ambiance. Maybe you could also have themed items -- like if you serve seafood you can have impressive aquarium tanks (with fish you catch?!) and it gives a boost to people who order seafood.
OMG I LOVE THE FOG AT THE BEGINNING
Maybe signboard could have some neon light feeling or led lights shining/flickering/chasing lights to make it pop out more. The waves line could be slightly curved to make it more realistic in water waves than a straight line and maybe moves slower. The water splashes on the floor and roof is quite little as it is pouring quite heavily, might add more of the splash effect to reflect the heavy rain. maybe a little water drizzing down from the roof edge to the ground like real roof did. Rain water drop in the water should have a ripple effect instead of a splash with water moving out in a small circle enlarging with multiple lining before disappearing. Maybe during rainy day NPC carries some sort of umbrella/raincoat? restaurant design can also include sofas (some cafe uses sofa instead of normal chair).
Just some thoughts.
Great work! Regarding the restaurant customisation, I was reminded of the old Rollercoaster Tycoon games. There, at least for me, a lot of fun was in building the "appliances" (coasters) and environment (decor) from basic parts (e.g. there was no house but wall and roof pieces). In the restaurant, it might be fun to think about such "composable" pieces as well so players can get creative. For instance, maybe there is a pipe system instead of single brewery appliances (might fit the steampunk theme well, too) or connectable "wall" pieces like flower pots, carpets, interior walls, fountain/water pieces, maybe even table pieces, etc. Subscribed on Kickstarter and looking forward to seeing the next update! :)
Really appreciate it! I totally agree. Placing individual items may not be too interesting but being able to connect objects may offer more room for creativity. I'll probably get around to playing Factorio eventually cause it looks like they did a really good job with that. At least I think I can implement a simple version of it for the restaurant
Wild idea that maybe has been mentionned... But for very lategame, a mechanic that would be awesome would be the ones you see in japanese restaurants with the tiny ''rivers'' and boats floating on them, bringing food to the table through a ''conveyer'' river system throughout the restaurant. You could make it so that there's a bar section with such system going on for very endgame goals! There could even be a Tech to repair it when it breaks randomly every once in a while
The fact that you came from an Architecture background and you created this gives people like me hope. I’m also studying Architecture and currently learning unity in one of my classes. I can’t believe how far you’ve taken this masterpiece within your studies. I’ve always wanted to do some sort environmental game design despite the degree I’m aiming for. I’m looking forward to seeing more updates! I appreciate the hard work and effort.
Really appreciate it! Nice to hear from a fellow architecture student :)
Being able to follow your progress is so amazing! I can feel the love and hard work you poured into it.
This is by far the best indie game i've seen on devlogs (and i've watched MANY!). So full of life, style, charm, so detailed ... Never ceases to impress me. You're a 10/10 dev. Keep it up
Woah this looks even better than the old map! I love watching you and the game progress, I’m super excited : )
Those moving signs and advertisements are gorgeous: they add so much vibrancy to the town without being terribly intrusive!! I love the seagulls, the shading, the appliances, the new UI, everything!!! It's truly beautiful!
If I had one suggestion, though, it would be to include some of the old keyboard controls with your new customization/building system for the restaurant interior! Having the option to drag and drop is perfect for adding items, but having a simple keyboard control for deleting items/putting them away is far less mentally tedious for me! When I play games like these, it can get annoying having to drag items to put them away, especially if there are lots of tiny items. Maybe there's a way to toggle the controls between the two styles? If it's not possible, that's completely fine; it's just a nitpick!!
I'm unbelievably excited for this game and I've pledged to the Kickstarter! Can't wait to see more from y'all, and I hope y'all are taking care of yourselves!! :D
A cool idea for customizing your restaurant , you can set it as an outdoor restaurant or multiple floor restaurant, even we can make a top floor restaurant which will be open roof or some kind of open feel and you can customize it by adding light and decoration
3:59 Unity's particle System! 🦒
YES TO THE FOG IDEA!! I love that extra challenge sometimes (definitely not all the time) but if it was super infrequent, but super challenging and fun I think that is so cool
This might already be a part of the game, but I think it would be interesting to have the ability to create a specific kind of restaurant, like a coffee shop, ice cream parlor, etc. as you advance through the game and develop kind of a specialization. You could then maybe even collect rare ingredients for your specific menu items, like coffee beans or a rare sugar or something and even get upgraded machines to make more versions of your product.
Yes, currently there are 5 restaurant modes - restaurant, pub, confectionary, social house, and Teahouse. Definitely worth developing this system further to have more unique gameplay for each one. Appreciate the ideas!
@@PixelArchitect How about opium den? XD
@@vagabundorkchaosmagick-use2898 Would prefer to not have an 18+ rating on this game XD I originally wanted to put in a casino room but apparently that will get you a 18+ rating.
@@PixelArchitect Fair! The game looks pretty friendly. Great work!
Loving the development, congratz!
When you mentioned the incentive for building decorative objects and a hidden stat, an idea that popped into my mind was to have a radius for the object to affect, like the points in ISLANDERS (if you're familiar). Just a suggestion! :D
Congratulations again, every time I see that a video was posted I smile and gather a cup of coffee to watch it!
Glad you are liking the progress :) I'll look into that game, haven't tried it yet haha
First of all I jus want to tell you that I love how you are improving everything and also after I saw this last video I have some ideas that I think they could be too cool if they were in the game:
The firs one is related with the weather and the food, so in this way the weather or season could affect the kinds of ingredients or supplies that you can get for the dishes , for example there is a time of the year when is forbidden to consume certain kind of octopus because at that time is when they are breeding, or another example is with the sturgeon and the caviar that it has a specific season just before the springs ends to catch the fishes and extract the roe, lastly the part of the seasons could affect in a mayor way for example in the winter could be a shortage of ingredients and trigger a hard mode so you might need to figure how to make it to the end of the month by hiring special fisher that knows a secret of how to to fish when there are low temperatures in the ocean or knows about a specific zone where there is no ice in the water that affect the shoal of certain kind of fish
And the are more ideas but i think that I might wrote a lot so I do not want to be rude or anything but if you read this and you are interested may be I can send you a message by twitter so in that way I do not spam you here with a lot o text
Really like your ideas! Currently I've planned to have different ingredients available depending on the season and maybe even the weather, but haven't done too much research into specific ingredients yet. Yes it would be cool if winter created a lot of barriers and it's harder to gather ingredients.
Feel free to message me on Twitter. Always down to chat design :)
Dude! really love the progression from where you started of! I think having the full customization, it really gives off the players creativity when they play. So not only just customizing the restaurant, customizing your food is another level for example! thou looking thru all this, is really lot of work.
Your artstyle is absolutely amazing. Especially the talking heads are perfect.
Hi, I'm the character designer, I made all dialogue's portraits ! Thank you for your comment ☺️✨
It would be interesting to add restaurant events that can happen randomly, like maybe a staff member messes up a dish or a food critic visits and depending on how well you react you can get more or less popularity or something
2:36 okay so Bike Red is red but why is Bike Blue green? haha
jokes aside this game looks really cool and i cant wait to see more of it! :D
I love how you reply and heart potentially helpful comments for your game, I'm rooting for you and I'm hoping I'll be able to play it on release! Wishing the best man!
Also, I'm an aspiring engineer that's interested in games so you've been an inspiration for me. I'll be on alert for new devlogs or timelapses!
Been receiving a lot of helpful feedback the past couple months. Sometimes if you work on a project too long, it's easy to get tunnel vision, so it's nice to hear what others see. Glad you are liking the progress!
you could be able to place external kitchen islands in the middle of the restaurant where chefs can prepare food as a spectacle for everyone to see, like is sometimes done in sushi restaurants. You could arrainge tables around it and sacrifice a chairs pots on that side for a better customer experience.
Yes I was thinking of something like that actually, since the travel distance to the fridge can become long for bigger restaurants. Would be interesting to have multiple kitchens scattered throughout the scene and parts where the chef can deliver the food right to the customer without a waiter
You have no idea how excited I am for this game, your skills and style is just impressive and inspired me to start pixel art so thank you sm for your amazing work
Really appreciate the kind words! Best of luck starting pixel art :)
I am currently a student who feels lost on my chosen course/field. You don't know how much you and your videos fuel my urge to pursue game designing. I know it is a hard job to do but watching your videos makes it look so easy. I just wanna thank you for being an inspiration to me. You are doing a great job by the way!!! The game is awesome and will surely buy it once its out.
This town looks really in-depth. It's clear you've put a lot of thought into it. Amazing stuff!
Don't burn out man, you seem to be so close and this is such cool work you're doing! Hang in there!!
Love how everything is coming together, with all the new changes it feels like you brought life into the town. The new Ui looks great, I like how it doesn't take up the whole screen like it did before. But the first thing I thought about adding more things to the restaurant so it's not a sea of tables was a lobster tank. Especially so close to the sea, fresh seafood is a must. And if I remember correctly Cafeland had so much objects to add to your Cafe to keep it interesting. Also I love the hidden stats for furniture and decoration, it's a Stat that no one would have to look out for to play the game.
Also since the Kickstarter is looking around November, you should definitely take a nice break for the holidays and enjoy that break into the next year.
Fish/lobster tanks are a cool idea. I guess a luxury version of it would be some sort of aquarium system. I'll definitely add more and more furniture down the road, even after the release :)
Always exited for your videos! It’s coming along beautifully ✨
Adding a feature where you take parts of the NPC pop-ups and randomize their wordage, so that they don't always use the same exact phrases. Also make the pop-ups contextual. Like "Look, honey, as Seagul!" when near a seagul and replacing "honey" and "seagul" when necessary.
That's a good idea! Could be interesting to implement NPC groups that walk together, and they can communicate with each other.
There's an old man sitting on a bench with a bird next to him. A pretty girl walks past.
"Look seagull, a honey."
@@_Thorondor Haha that's pretty good. Think I can add that in
This is looking like a fun and interesting game! I really like some of the ideas that other people have pitched in the comments for the restaurant gameplay, but I also feel like exploration will play a huge part in Chef RPG. This may or may not have been discussed in another video, but I think that it is super important to make the open world fun and engaging. Chefs that are foraging just like you, fun collectibles and eye- catching paths, exciting ways to get around, changes in weather, and even hints of lore in the environment can make a game world feel much more “lived in.” Of course, you can experiment with your own concepts and take inspiration from other games. This is just an idea!
Thanks for the feedback and totally agree :) This is a nice opportunity for us to experiment with architecture and create some really interesting places to explore :)
I was so happy to see another update! I love how it's coming along so far, and your attention to detail regarding immersive towns and preventing stale restaurant gameplay seem really promising. I'm excited tor this to be a game I would want to spend all my time playing. Also, I was so happy to hear someone mention games like Restaurant City and Habbo Hotel. In Restaurant City I had gotten items like a claw machine (while they waited) and conveyor sushi bar (alternative to a regular table) my customers could interact with. I've enjoyed games that have more for customers to interact with / letting their experience be less linear and more involved. Like setting up a waiting area or accounting for customers who want to-go foods like baked goods. I know waiting mechanics in restaurant city and other games felt really tedious though, so I think it's better as a bonus rather than a requirement.
I would love to see tourists stand at certain items, like billboards or phone booths. Some could briefly stop near trash cans. I would love to see crowds huddle around certain things, some people walk in a group together (2-6 people maybe?), and some people travel solo. I'm glad you're taking a break if you're feeling burnt out. This game looks wonderful, amazing work!!!
Dude....I am soooo excited for this. You've also taught me so much more about pixel art. You've especially helped me with my Pokemon gym pixel art piece.
Great progress! It's coming along nicely!
Glad these videos have been helpful!
Suggestion/ feedback idea! In most restaurants people go together to eat. This means that you should have groups of people that take similar paths and also wants to eat in close proximity with each other. This means that a restaurant should have a wide array of seating solutions for small groups, and bigger groups. For instance you might want to have some smaller tables that only fit 2-3 people and some bigger ones for bigger groups. Different restaurant types could encourage different sized groups as well. Cafes could encorage groups of 2 for instance.
An easy(i think) upgrade for the restaurant aesthetic could be the possibility to make longer tables and variant positions and types( like tables with sofas on the wall side and chairs in the opposite side or VIP areas). And maybe u could have random events like :partys, weddings, etc..
wow just discovered this project and it looks amazing! you inspire me to make a game! one idea that would be cool for the NPC dialogue boxes would be different languages. having some NPC's say things in a variety of languages would make the people all feel more unique, maybe even have different characters confused by others speaking a foreign language or having conversations with eachother in there own language. it could be a rarer or later game thing thing as well like when you said the towns gain more and more tourists.
looking forward to funding this on kickstarter!
I've seen chef/restaurant games that encourage aesthetics and make them necessary, they do this by having a "patience" system where customers have a higher level of patience when waiting for food when there are higher aesthetic levels. This helps buffer the increased difficulty of having a higher number of customers to serve
That's a good idea! There is currently a patience system in this game, though I didn't think of linking the aesthetics to it. Worth a try!
Wow!! When you mentioned Restaurant City almost cried! I really loved it! Sad is not longer available I think.
About the NPCs: I like when NPCs have strange dialogue. Those are things I remember from Sims 1 when you got random calls. Also recently in Champion Island where there is an NPC with a long dialogue explaining what he thinks about life. Those dont require much movement and can take part in some side quests maybe.
I really like that nostalgic but futuristic look it has. I was wondering if we are going to have some Onsen haha!!
WOW this game is looking more and more real every update you give out! I can't wait for the Kickstarter, I hope it goes well, definitely give yourself a break once you get it out. (just not too long of one pls). Good luck with everything! P.S. I know you said you would be changing some of the animations but my biased opinion is the animation of NPCs slapping the table as they wait for their food is already perfect and should be kept.
An idea to deter just making a sea of tables and chairs and like the hidden style stat you mentioned you can possibly add a cramped stat or something similar where customers and critics don't like how packed the restaurant is with so many tables
What would really really do it for your scene dynamics is varying the lighting. I love how some of your scene's look lit but the light itself is very static. Those open restaurants on the dock are an awesome opportunity for it. Also some smoke coming out of the restaurants would be awesome.
More dynamic lighting is a good idea. I'll implement more variation down the road. Thanks for the feedback!
Nice project sir, also I like the reference to the song "Dans le port d'Amesterdam" from Jacques Brel in the soundtrack.
Good luck with your project sir and thank you for sharing your knowledge with us !
I really like the style stats approach, but as someone else mentioned, feels like there needs to be a way of having ambiance/atmosphere interact with other customer satisfaction stats as well. For example, booths are bigger than tables and reduce capacity but people will pay more for privacy; same goes for banquet tables or private rooms. Small decor items that you mention like plants, art, candles at the tables, etc. are sometimes not as important as minutia like quality of the silverware, dishware, linens, or the occasional coat of fresh paint/renos. Customers can be variously happy in the same dining room as well, like by proximity to other guests, not getting a window seat, or being too close to a poorly-placed bathroom or front door (especially in a rainy and foggy coastal Canadian city like mine hehe).
I also notice staff and NPCs can walk through each other, but arranging a restaurant to reduce bottlenecks, serving times, collisions, and staff dissatisfaction are interesting (and real-world!) challenges. Nevertheless, this is looking amazing and love hearing you discuss the philosophy of your approach in the videos! Keep up the amazing work!
The dock was nothing short of breathtaking.
Very excited for your Kickstarter and this game in general.
So excited to play this game so much is look super cool
very beautiful. But as you know, it's all about the depth and gameplay, I hope your game has it cause I can't wait
wow massive improvement on the visual!.. great job!
It's looking great! Excited for the Kickstarter.
For the Michelin Star for example, they don't only judge the food, but everything:
- It's good?
- It's look good?
- The place is well decorated & coherent with the food served
- The service is good (How the waiter is dressed, polite, intrusive, etc.)
It could be an inspiration for spice a little bit the restaurant management part
Yes definitely :) All of these should play a factor in the customers' experience. Just wanted to make a lot of different paths to succeed as a chef
I know this is an oddly specific detail but if there's a scene where multiple water pumps are visible at once, maybe have them move at slightly different speeds (or with the starting frames a bit offset from each other)?
It just caught my eye as a bit jarring at 4:50 to see two fast objects perfectly in sync! Its a sort of deliberate, meticulous precision there you wouldn't normally see in a cozy area- like how the streetlights in an older area flicker to life one by one is part of the charm
About the gameplay loop of the end game in your restaurant: It would be delightful to see different layouts for the restaurants, something that happens in real life is that you get a two storied restaruant, or other more intrincate layouts. And another small detail that would be interesting to implement is the seating distance of customers, adding to that you could try and give "personalities" to the tourist npcs, so some of them are noisier, and you have to seat them furthe apart, and the posher ones could be more affected by the noise of the restaurant. But as I see it, the game looks promising, good job, hope to see the launch soon!
Thanks and appreciate the ideas! I was already considering a two-story restaurant so might implement it in the future. And different NPC personalities is definitely worth looking into too!
Dude this looks amazing! Congrats on getting ur ideas off the ground
I think something simple to add would be giving tourists specific places they can stop and look at the scenery, sort of like the system that the birds have. Having them randomly stop/start gives more variety but doesnt make too much sense and could lead to players being boxed into an area by accident. maybe tourists linger near big buildings or vendors (but not right in front of them, of course, so the player can still get inside)
i already know im gonna obsesse over this
when it comes out
i really like the idea of a style system to incentivise making a beautiful restaurant ! the frequency of text popping up above the people in the restaurant feels a little bit too chaotic and cluttered to me? maybe instead of randomly, the guests maybe have a chance to talk a certain amount of time after getting their meals? then it would be more staggered since i dont think they would all get them all at once. i think its fun for the popups to stay random in the kitchen since restaurant kitchens are always kind of loud and busy
i really like the little details of the seagulls and signs and i love the look of the character dialogue sprite when talking to the Fish King at the beginning of the video!! the very big and stylized pictures of the npcs are a fun touch that add a lot of depth and character and i think it contrasts nice with the simpler pixel sprites of their overworld representations. it reminds me of stardew valley talk sprites that show up when you talk to the characters! those are always my favorite part of interacting with npcs since it gives them a lot of life and personality
Really glad you are enjoying the new features! And yes, all of the text popping up may be a bit much, especially if there's a ton of people. I think the frequency can definitely be lowered, or triggered by certain events.
Hey ! I'm the character designer 😄 Thank you a lot for your comment about the dialogue box, it makes me feel like I made a good job hehe ! I hope you'll enjoy the other npcs and their unique animations, thank you for your support 😄
@@PoumiRaku amazing work!! im looking forward to seeing more (-: 💖
You could add aquariums for the restaurant. These can have a funktion, e.g. live lobsters that can be fished out or just aesthetical.
An idea for the customization of the restaurant: to allow the player to including some sort of music for the restaurant, like a pianist in the middle of the restaurant or like a band or something like that, it could even affect the customers satisfaction level of the food as it could raise it or lower it depending on the quality of the music that’s being played
nice progress! my ideas:
-food delivery system where the ressources for the game are delivered, at the beginnkng just on a small pushing cart and the player has to sort it into the storage toom, later on trucks and assigning employees to the tasks
- 'genre'.. for say snack bar, fast food, fine dining etc.
- combined with the genre thing food critics that judge the food, service quality, restaurant look etc to motivate players mindfully design the establishment and also have the rating impact the amount of customers
- being able to design or let chefs create new dishes, just so the separate component sprites will combine and have different ratings, altough this would be a lot of work to implement i suppose
I think just making the npc interact with the world is all you need. Have random times where certain shops nearly have a line of people out the door because its so busy or maybe construction workers just like fixing a light inside a building or even some days where a road/path is blocked off because its getting repaired. Just try adding as much life as possible, the game is already looking great but a lively and interactive world would be insane so that way gameplay is never repetitive
Lineups and crowds at shops sound like a great idea. Currently there is a plan that some parts of the town start out deteriorated and are slowly repaired. Some shops open later on in the game to give the town a progression. Appreciate the ideas!
@@PixelArchitect That is awesome. Game is looking fantastic! (your probably do not need this advice but anyways) Just remember that the longer you take the better it will turn out and I promise the community will always be here alongside with you. Just take your time and don't ever let this be something that feels like work you know? If you begin to feel stressed or annoyed then please feel free to take a break!
As I said, keep up the work. Insanely excited to see everything you create, even if that won't be for another 5 years haha!
this game is just flat out gorgeous you have talent my friend keep it up :)
Cannot wait for billboard city!! Can already tell it's going to look sweet
maybe some paneling for inbetween the tables as well, so you can break up the space more.
Also a restaurant in a blimp would be a nice dynamic and matches your studio Ghibli themed atmosphere.
Holy crap you are talented. Keep it up, looking super good!
really cant wait to back the kickstarter!
This looks so freaking sick bro!
A cool idea for customizing your restaurant would be setting the light level and even changing the color of the lights. So if you want a darker restaurant with a lot of neon signs, or a brighter more endearing restaurant, that would be possible
It's a very cool idea! I can look into it
You could have it so that patrons leave feedback/review the restaurant/ leave tips, depending on how good of an experience they had . Aesthetics and atmosphere could play a part in this. that would be a good incentive for the player to invest in pretty furniture and customize their restaurants with only aesthetic elements. hire live performers that change the music playing in the restaurant, add a kiddie area where kids can play etc.
You should also add an option to add different tiled sections to the floor, maybe the area behind the counter could have a different tile, the traversal aisles could have a different tile. just to help out with the monotony of the one tile repeated everywhere.
Amazing game! The colour contrast of the harbour gives me a very cosy (and retro) feeling that makes me want to explore around, added to my steam wishlist straight away! It's also quite impressive that you manage to make so many different NPCs (chapter starting from 4:32) for the game, I wonder if you have to manually draw all of their close sprite sheets (plus haircuts, faces, etc.) one by one and create an animator for each NPC with different sprite sheet, or is there a smarter way that makes you achieve this a bit quicker?
I am also trying to make a small 2D game on Unity for my portfolio and am struggling to make too many NPCs as I had to manually draw all the sprite sheets for each one of them which is far too time-consuming... For the same purpose, I want to make the game scene a bit more vivid by adding more activities for the NPCs, but very quickly realise that involves lots of manual drawing of new action animations. At the moment I made a general execution movement (which is basically raising arm for 1 sec XD) that at least the NPCs have some movement response upon the arrival of activity position, but that's probably not good enough for a commercial game like urs...
I think it would be fun if the characters were unable to walk through each other. It would add a layer of difficulty in placing the tables in the restaurant, that way the player would have to be careful when customizing. Great work so far!
Really impressive work! You really made the outside world come alive! The stores still look sort of abandoned though. Maybe it’s an idea to sometimes see silhouettes of people in front of the windows, or people looking out the window, or lighting changes, etc. I think that would tie the stores better with the outside world.
You said the UI has been improved due to a better color contrast. I can see what you mean with respect to the tiles with the products, but I do feel the dark background of the old design brings more focus to the items, whereas the yellow background demands more attention, thus taking some focus away from the items. I think the menu design looks a lot better now, but I might reconsider the color contrast between the items and the background. I thought the beige and dark blue was a really pleasant color palette. But I have to admit, the new more colorful UI does look more vivid. I think you might be able to combine the best of both versions for an even better UI.
I really like your idea of creating unique appliances for the kitchens! I think your town’s concept of slightly downtrodden mixed with tech could be of great utility there to come up with some wacky innovations.
Glad you are liking the progress :) Totally agree with your points about the storefronts and the UI. I think some animations in the windowfronts can make the scenes more lively. Something to add to the list I guess. Thanks for the feedback!
An idea for the restaurant & decoration gameplay:
Since you can change the restaurant from a Café to a Restaurant, a Pub etc., you could make the decorations give bonuses (boni?) to satisfaction/tips/... based on what kind of restaurant you are currently running.
You could have a fine dining restaurant, where you need to have nice decor & less tables, so it's not too crowded - but the visitors will spend more money. Or you can have a pub, which simply accomodates a lot of customers, but doesn't need a lot of decor.
Also, the different types of restaurant could have different opening times. E.g. If you want to go socializing in the eveningy you should open the restaurant as a café around noon/afternoon. A café open at night would not make much sense.
The same could go for waiters & clothing. Fine dining needs nice clothing and the waiters will expect higher salary.
Another fun thing might be a pub/nightclub, where you would need to make space for a dancefloor, to further differentiate the different restaurant types.
I think you get the gist of it and probably have more and better ideas than this, but I wanted to share nontheless :D
I wish lots of fun developing and hope for a successful demo! :)
Thanks for the tips and I can definitely try out some of these ideas :) Totally agree that gameplay varieties for different restaurant modes would be cool, and add a lot of replayability.
You should try to make a bike shop, it could sell bike to you and when you have a bike your can go through the map faster and enter a new part which is a called the bike park this could have anything you want in there
Wow this is amazing, keep up the great work!
Looks so alive, and it looks amazing.
Some random NPC ideas:
*A specific NPC tells jokes.
*NPCs react not only to you, but to other NPCs.
*NPCs stop and ask something to another NPC, and the later either knows or doesn't ("where can I find burgers?" "Next to the Sailor Statue" "Thanks!")
*An NPC quotes classic works of poetry (Rimbaud, Verlaine, Shelley)
*An NPC wears a different hat everytime, but you recognize him because he always wears the same clothes or makes some snarky remark about the smell of fish or something.
*Tourists speak in different languages, like Spanish, Farsi, or even Nahuatl, which would be pretty cool!
*NPCs buy and sell items at stores, creating deficit and surplus of random items.
*One NPC tells a short story; every time you find him, he tells two or three paragraphs in front of an audience. You can read/listen or ignore.
*One NPC always wears a black t-shirt with a different black metal band logo (it can be just a doodle).
What if, in the restaurants, you made decor items with localized buffs? As in, a statue or fish tank that raises the style Stat for a limited block area? Amazing job, this is such a lovely youtube find and I'm really impressed with the project and your work. Great job guys!