Game Mechanic : The Radio

Recently I've added functionality for a radio. This will be used when working in larger stores with more than just 1 or 2 staff members or the layout requires one because it is inconvenient to shout back and forth across the store.

In the game it will provide you with a menu for controlling your associates actions. At the moment it only lets you call someone to go check out but I want to expand it into an option wheel that includes other functions like "Cleanup this area",  "Watchout for these customers", "Price Check", and other minor things that is just easier or faster then doing it yourself.

The biggest thing I like about the radio though is that it is a good method for delivering guidance to the player. I can picture other employee's or managers asking you to help checkout if everyone is busy, if an area needs attention, etc. Otherwise they would have to walk close enough to you so that their talk dialogue hopefully shows up in your field of view compared to always being visible.

It may not seem like an important part of the game, but when you want to get a bonus for customer service or some commission for selling special items, being stuck on a register or having customers complain about how the store looks can negatively influence your chances.

Progress 02-07-2014

So after sulking for a few days about the untimely death of my car's engine I've started working a bit more earnestly again on the project.

Firstly I've started a bit of work on prototyping the between shifts / main menu level "scene" aka your apartment. I've decided I wanted a 3D menu to go in hand with the basic settings menu that you can reach any time as a bit of filler / diversion between working. Right now it is just a basic ugly textured box with shapes that kind of look like a bed, door, closet, etc. However I want to give parts of it functions like going to the door lets you choose to go to work or playing with knobs on the stereo lets you change the game's volumes.

Standing outside of store with a test texture to see orientation.

I've also got checkout working though it is still buggy and I need to really work on making customers stand in line nicely / move up in line. Also I'm not sure if my prototype of the checkout process is how I want it so I might change how checking out works for the player. Right now it is completely automated when you or another employee stands at a register.

Lastly I've been working on setting up more parts of the customers trip through the store. They now spawn at exitLevel triggers outside of the front of the store, go about finding 3~12 items, head to the very back of the line, if an employee is checking out they head to the register 1 by 1 and buy items, then they leave and disappear from the magic void of where they came.

Since now I have a full cycle for customers I can now start working more on customer interaction such as the checkout process, let you stop them in the middle of their wanders to suggest they get more stuff, and start adding up customer metrics. Also I'll be adding a sort of level timer so that customer flow varies based on the time so that I can start setting up patterns and allow for opening and closing the store to happen.

Setup a domain and started a project

So for a simple development website and update tracker for my use as well as showing others how far I've come I decided to make a Blogger blog to host updates on. (hopefully weekly updates)

I've even decided to use a small amount of that tax money I'll be getting for a domain name "www.RetailSimGame.com" because nuts to trying to grab "www.RetailSim.com" from some visual design website.

As the first update for the first week here is a link to my album hosted on Imgur. A small highlight of something I really enjoy is the programmer art for the computer that you'll be able to do fun little online training courses on. I designed it as an arcade machine for giggles and the text on the screen is..

c:\hacksearch
... found!
c:\system32 is now deleted.

For the different store computers I'm planning on adding a few features. Which I figured would be more than just two items.

• Online Training; where you'll learn how to count to potato and some other optional stuff.

• Little 3~10 multiple choice questions like "1+1=? A)2" and "What is the most common computer issue? C)How to turn it on." 
• When I add skills (just small things to increase the speed of checking out / customer satisfaction / customers more likely to buy stuff you suggest / etc)

• View stats; such as customer traffic, average sale value, sales, customer satisfaction, etc.
• Better Customer Satisfaction will mean more customers will show up and they are a little more likely to buy more stuff.
• Lower Customer Satisfaction will mean the opposite, if a lot of people complain about you cursing at them the whole time they'll likely not come back.
• The other numbers like "Traffic, Transactions, Average Sale Price, Etc" just gives you numbers to beat, and the more you influence them the more likely you'll get a raise / etc.