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30 December 2022
Celebrating the highlights of 2022 🎉
Hello, 👋
As I sit here surrounded by twinkling Christmas lights and half-eaten cookies (survivors from last night’s Business Heroes playthrough), I can’t help but feel grateful as I reflect on the past year.
Developing Business Heroes has been a wild ride, full of late nights and early mornings, triumphs and setbacks, and more coffee than I care to admit.
But it’s all been worth it.
There’s nothing quite like the thrill of seeing your dream slowly but surely, morph into reality.
And for this, I am grateful to my Wife, Reshma, and the Visionaries Team, Hongjing, Motawea, My, and Busayo, for helping to make the game what it is today.
So, as we wrap up 2022 and prepare to ring in 2023 in a few hours, here’s a look back at some of the fantastic improvements made to the game this year.
2022 Q1: Missions, Events, and Multiplayer Financials
The first quarter saw us implementing the Missions System, which doubles as a tutorial and allows new players gradually discover functionalities in the game.
Players step into young Master Lee’s shoes to overcome challenges and experience some truly satisfying victories.
We also added the Events System, which enhances the game’s replayability.
And let’s not forget the crucial improvements to the financials and accounting in multiplayer. Thanks to them, players can now compete based on company value.
2022 Q2: Customer Path Fixing, Banking, and Humour
In April, we successfully improved the efficiency of the pathing system by enabling customers to find the shortest path to a food stand from any point in their journey across a location.
We also implemented the banking system to allow players to take loans at rates based on their debt-to-equity ratios.
Finally, we added Customer Monologues, a humourous feature that helped bring the game to life. It gives players a deeper understanding of the people they serve and adds an emotional connection to the game.
2022 Q3: Bankruptcy, Customer Queues, and Tooltips
One of the major additions we made in Q3 was the implementation of bankruptcy accounting. This was a crucial addition to the game as players can now drop out when they can’t repay their debts.
We fixed a bug that caused customers to pile into each other in front of a food stand.
We also made critical improvements to the game’s user experience, including implementing tooltips to provide players with helpful information on various gameplay elements.
We put a lot of time and effort into deciding what information to surface for players and how best to present it. So, seeing it come to life was a genuinely emotional moment for us.
2022 Q4: Notifications, Business Tips, and Animations
We immediately started implementing feedback from our October test by redesigning the notifications section. It’s now easier for players to stay up-to-date on important feedback and updates about their business.
We also introduced the Business Tips section to provide players with valuable advice and guidance on how to succeed in real-world business.
We ended the year by adding some exciting new animations to the game to provide an extra layer of humour and engagement.
In total, we produced 52 new builds this year. It’s been incredible, and we couldn’t have done it without your support and encouragement.
Thank YOU for being a part of the Business Heroes community.
I can’t wait to see what the future holds, and we can’t wait to share the finished game with you.
2023: Demos and Pre-Order
We will continue to focus on player feedback and improvement as we conduct more tests and release more demos.
We will finish setting up our shop, and you will officially be able to Pre-order the game. You can take a sneak peek here.
Cheers to another great year of building, growing, and succeeding together! 🥂
Don’t forget to Wishlist the game if you haven’t: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1429080/Business_Heroes_Food_Truck_Simulation/
Live Long and Prosper 👋,
Kunal & the team
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Food truck owners expect to face a variety of challenges daily. But perhaps one of the biggest challenges they face is terrible weather. Keeping the truck open and customers satisfied can be extra demanding when it’s freezing or pouring outside.
This episode is about how we designed the game’s weather system to simulate city-specific weather conditions.
The Challenge
As you know, there are several major cities in the game. To improve the player experience and game difficulty, we had to ensure that each city’s in-game weather mirrors the historical weather conditions of their real-life counterpart.
Getting this right was quite the challenge. 😅
Solution
We first tried to implement a replica of historical weather conditions in each city. But we quickly realized this would pose a problem with replayability as players would eventually find our data source 😨 and have an unfair advantage on the leaderboards.
So we decided to discard this method. 🚮
Our second and final approach was to use the normal distribution and the average temperature and precipitation values in a city to generate the weather condition. For example, let’s take Washington, DC, as a case study.
Below is the actual data for Washington, DC:
By taking the average temperature as a mean and using a standard deviation of one, we randomly generated the temperature to fit within the high and low ranges. The Box–Muller transform was particularly useful here.
This method helped us account for the rare occurrence of a very high 🥵 or very low 🥶 temperature, which happens in reality. Similarly, for the precipitation, we used the average as a mean and a standard deviation of two to generate the amount of rain 🌧️, which directs the cloud volume. ☁️
Result
You can observe a clear jump ⬆️ in averages as we move from month to month, which shouldn’t be so. To resolve this, we employed weekly peak averages instead of monthly, which made it work as intended.
Below is a yearly temperature simulation for Washington DC for the morning 🌅, afternoon 🕑, and evening 🌆.
The simulation for the rain/cloud below is for the mornings alone in Washington, DC. As you can see, most mornings, there is a light shower or an overcast, followed by sunny conditions and light rain.
We think this method strikes the right balance between fun 🕺💃 and computing requirements. 💻
In-game impact
The presence of rain ☔ and snow 🌨️ reduces the outdoor population in the game, thus reducing the number of sales possible during the period, just like in real life. You can always invest in upgrades to reduce the impact of weather on your business.
However, it might not be a profitable investment if your chosen customer segment is not big enough. It will take strategic thinking 🤔 and astute decision-making to discern the best time for such an investment.
That’s it for this episode!
Don’t forget to join our community to get these behind-the-scenes specials delivered directly to your inbox. Plus, we’ve got other exclusive perks waiting for you.
Live Long and Prosper 👋,
Team Visionaries
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14 December 2022
Why I sometimes don’t go jogging 😒
Greetings, 👋
The alarm from my mobile phone interrupts the pleasant silence in my study to remind me that it’s time to head out for my evening jog. The melody is soothing, and I let it continue for a bit.
I really should get up from this desk and go for that jog.
As I push my chair back to stand up, I get an email from the team asking me to review the latest version of the game’s notification system.
During our last playtest, many testers experienced difficulties navigating the system. The team has been working hard at redesigning it since then.
Notifications System Overview
You can think of the notification system as the player’s business dairy. It automatically logs, in real-time, all essential activities in their business including:
- Customer interaction and employee performance
- Current loans and short-term debts
- Food truck upgrades
- Marketing
- Inventory and cost of goods sold
- Events
Everything the player needs. It’s all there. The notifications help to keep track of all the moving parts of a business across the city.
This is how it looked before:
Problems with the old design
After watching different testers struggle to find and use the notifications section during the alpha test in October, I knew it was begging for an overhaul.
Some of their observations were:
- The arrow that expands the notifications wasn’t obvious.
- The messages didn’t scroll on their own during gameplay
- The notifications section returned to earlier messages when the player started the day.
- There was no way to ignore activity notifications from customer segments the player wasn’t interested in.
New prototype
With our work cut out for us, the team had a group brainstorming session to modify the design. The image below is what we initially came up with:
In this design, we:
- Changed the position and size of the arrow that expands the section.
- Increased the maximum expansion size to cover almost the entire screen.
- Replaced the scrolling function with buttons
- Added an upward-seeking control to the medium expansion view
- Increased the size of the medium expansion view
- Implemented automatic text scrolling
- Renamed the notification filters
Implementation
First, the team got rid of the scroll bar and modified the components to accommodate the minimum, medium, and maximum views.
Then they configured the upward and downward scroll buttons to handle variable view sizes. They also ensured the information presented while scrolling through old and new messages is ordered correctly.
The first implementation in-game didn’t look quite like we wanted it:
We wanted all the notifications to fit into just one line, and the space between the messages looked way too much.
We went at it again for a couple more days. In the end, while we couldn’t get all the notifications into one line, we managed to get most of them. After trimming the space between the messages, the team added the function to filter information by customer group.
The result:
This looked much better, and I asked them to complete the redesign. It is for this last version I just got notified.
As I launch the game, I realize I won’t be going for that jog after all. 😆
The final look:
And that’s a wrap for today, Cheers 🥂
Don’t forget to Wishlist the game if you haven’t: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1429080/Business_Heroes_Food_Truck_Simulation/
Live Long and Prosper 👋,
Kunal & the team
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6 December 2022
Stand quality: The secret to excellent food truck ratings 👍
Successful food truck owners all know one thing. Poor food and service quality will kill a food truck business faster than you can say, “Rest in peace” 😵. This news update is about preventing your food truck company from death by poor service.
After every sale, customers give feedback about your Stand’s quality of service. This feedback increases ⬆️ or decreases ⬇️ the Stand’s total quality 🌟 depending on if it is good 👍 or bad 👎. Negative feedback shows you areas of the Stand that need improvement.
A business that consistently ignores negative quality feedback from its customers cannot expect to survive for long. This is because the Stand’s overall quality forms part of its Reputation. An excellent reputation allows a Stand to attract more customers farther away from it. You can read more about this here.
A higher Stand quality has a positive effect on Stand Reputation. So, what makes up Stand quality? A Stand’s overall quality is based on its Service Quality and Food Quality.
Service Quality
Service quality measures how a business’s service delivery compares to customer expectations. Quality service leaves a strong impression in the customer’s mind. 🤩
For a food truck, this means delivering speedy service in a friendly and helpful manner 😊. That’s why we divided Service Quality into service speed and customer service.
Service Speed 🏃💨
This measures how long it takes a Stand’s employee to serve customers. New Stand employees start with an average service speed.
You can improve their speed through training 🧑🏫, increased employee happiness 😁, and Stand upgrades 🦾.
Bad customer feedback 👎 and employee unhappiness 😞 will worsen your employee service speed. So it’s best to address them immediately.
When a Stand has two employees, the Stand’s service speed is the sum of both employees.
Service speed is inversely proportional to the time ⌚ employees take to serve customers. As service speed increases, the time (measured in milliseconds) to serve customers reduces.
We are using milliseconds because we compressed time in the simulation.
The formula for this relationship is:
Here’s a graph showing the result of the formula:
You can see that the time to serve a customer reduces at higher employee service speeds.
Customer Service 🏅
This shows the employee’s ability to charm customers. Excellent customer service guarantees positive feedback 👍 from customers.
Like service speed, new employees start with an average customer service rating. You can improve their rating through training and increased employee happiness.
Bad feedback 👎 and employee unhappiness 😞 will also worsen customer service if left unattended. Unlike service speed, there are no Stand upgrades to improve customer service.
The customer service quality for Stands with two employees is the average of both.
Improving Service Quality
One of the best ways to improve your food truck service quality is to train 🧑🏫 your employees. Training helps improve service speed and customer interaction.
Impact of Training on Service Speed
Employees start at training Level 0 and can be trained up to Level 6. Each new training level increases the employee’s service speed by a certain amount.
In the table below, you can see how different training levels impact service speed and the equivalent time it takes to serve a customer:
A new employee with zero training and no Stand upgrades has a service speed of 40. At this speed, it will take them 4256 milliseconds to serve one customer.
But at training level 4, it will take the employee only 3511 milliseconds 🤯 to serve a customer. As training and speed increase, service time reduces.
Impact of Training on Customer Service
Like service speed, each new training level increases the employee’s customer service by a certain amount (as illustrated in the earlier image). The table below shows the progression:
Happy employees, happy company. 😁
Employee happiness measures how enthusiastic and dedicated a worker feels toward their job. Happy employees are present, and they perform better. We kept things simple by tying the employee’s happiness to their salary and bonuses.
Employees begin with a certain happiness level. This level increases or decreases based on their salary, bonuses, and random events.
What’s the market rate got to do with it? 🤔
As in real life, there is an average salary expectation or market rate for the position of a food stand employee. This amount differs from city to city.
An employee’s happiness depends on the difference between their salary and the market rate. Paying your employees higher than the market rate will make them happier and vice versa.
What happens when employee happiness drops? 😓
When your employee’s happiness is average and above, they feel engaged and motivated. Their probability of not showing up for work is 0. As their happiness drops below average, they begin to lose motivation. So, their likelihood of not showing up for work increases.
The screenshot below shows Sophie being absent due to employee unhappiness.
Here’s the formula for calculating the effect on employee happiness due to the difference between their salary and the market rate:
And the result of the formula in a graph:
You can see that at 5% above the market rate, there is no effect on the employee’s happiness. Their happiness improves or worsens as the difference increases or decreases.
Happiness affects speed 🏃💨 and customer service 👍
The table below shows how employee happiness affects service speed and customer service.
Happier employees gain one extra point in speed and service quality across all training levels. They are faster and treat the customers better than their colleagues in the same training level.
Food Truck Upgrades 🛠️
Upgrades are extra facilities that help to improve a Stand’s performance, offering, or value. Various upgrades are available. From cash registers, sound systems, and Umbrellas ⛱️ to cooling fans, nitro boosters, and organic veggies 🫑🍅.
Some upgrades improve employee efficiency, the Stand’s appeal, or food quality, while others comfort or entertain customers.
Some Stands have certain upgrades built in (like in the above image), while they need to be bought for others. Such purchases are based on compatibility, as not all upgrades are compatible with each Stand. All upgrades with a padlock in the above image are not compatible with Isabella’s Stand.
Food Quality
Food quality is based on the taste and freshness of the Stand’s burgers. Every Stand starts with average food quality. As you change your burger recipe for your target customer segment, your food quality will increase or decrease depending on their feedback. Random events can also affect food quality positively or negatively.
The most satisfactory feedback customers can give is called the Perfect Recipe. Customers give this feedback when the ingredients in a burger recipe match their taste in size and composition. However, because customers have different tastes, the Perfect Recipe for each segment will differ.
Customer Experience and Feedback
Service Speed Feedback
Customers measure a Stand’s service speed by the amount of time ⌚ they are willing to wait to buy a burger 🍔. This time is called Customer Patience, and it’s different for each segment.
For instance, Students 🧑🎓, with limited cash and time to burn, can wait for 15000 milliseconds (about 90 minutes in real life) to be served. But Managers 🧑💼 will only wait for 6667 milliseconds (40 minutes in real life) before leaving.
Service speed 🏃💨 is one factor that determines how fast your burger queue moves. If the time to reach the front of the queue exceeds a customer’s patience, they will say that the wait is too long 😡 and leave. The image below shows a manager stomping off because the wait is too long for him.
But if the customer is first in line, they will buy the burger and say that the service is too slow 🐌.
Customers become more patient when the Stand has certain upgrades. Things like sound systems, TV screens, and cooling fans all help to improve patience.
Customer Service Feedback
It works the same way for customer service. Each customer segment has a minimum customer service need. Service below this threshold will attract bad customer service feedback 👎.
The customer service threshold for Parents is 25, and 50 for Tourists. If your employee’s customer service is below 50, Tourists will keep complaining about it. But as long as it is not below 25, Parents will be okay with it.
The gif below shows a Tourist leaving bad customer service feedback while buying a burger. Judging by the previous customer’s reaction, the burger is terrible, and they will complain about that too. 🤣
Food Quality Feedback
Recall that the Perfect Recipe for each customer segment is unique. The perfect recipe for one customer might be a burger with too many or too few ingredients for another. Customers judge your recipe by the quality and amount of ingredients in it.
When one or more ingredients are too much or too little for a customer, they will give an ‘excessive ingredient’ or ‘insufficient ingredient’ feedback. Both of which reduce your Stand’s quality.
Excess ingredient feedback
Insufficient ingredient feedback
For quality-conscious customers, their perfect recipe requires special ingredients like the softest buns. You will need a fresh bun maker installed on your Stand to produce these buns.
Conclusion
Delivering excellent quality in your food Stand begins with paying genuine attention to your recipe, employees, and customers 👨👩👧👦. When you prepare tasty recipes, train your employees, keep them happy, and make your customers comfortable, there will be no end to the positive feedback and recommendations your company receives from customers.
Don’t forget to join our community to get these behind-the-scenes specials delivered directly to your inbox. Plus, we’ve got other exclusive perks waiting for you.
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2 December 2022
How employee happiness affects your Stand 😁
Hello, 👋
The last episode explored how service speed and customer service improve service quality. Today, you’ll see how employee happiness also affects service quality.
Happy employees, happy company. 😁
Employee happiness measures how enthusiastic and dedicated a worker feels toward their job. Happy employees are present and they perform better. We kept things simple by tying the employee’s happiness to their salary and bonuses.
Employees begin with a certain happiness level. This level increases or decreases based on their salary, bonuses, and random events.
What’s the market rate got to do with it? 🤔
As in real life, there is an average salary expectation or market rate for the position of a food stand employee. This amount differs from city to city.
An employee’s happiness depends on the difference between their salary and the market rate. Paying your employees higher than the market rate will make them happier and vice versa.
What happens when employees are unhappy? 😡
When your employee’s happiness is average and above, they feel engaged and motivated. Their probability of not showing up for work is 0. As their happiness drops below average, they begin to lose motivation. So, their likelihood of not showing up for work increases.
The screenshot below shows Sophie being absent due to employee unhappiness.
Here’s the formula for calculating the effect on employee happiness due to the difference between their salary and the market rate:
Here’s a graph showing the result of the formula:
You can see that at 5% above the market rate, there is no effect on the employee’s happiness. Their happiness improves or worsens as the difference increases or decreases.
Happiness affects speed 🏃💨 and customer service 👍
The table below shows how employee happiness affects service speed and customer service.
Happier employees gain one extra point in speed and service quality across all training levels. They are faster and treat the customers better than their colleagues in the same training level.
That’s it for today, Cheers 🥂
Don’t forget to Wishlist the game if you haven’t: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1429080/Business_Heroes_Food_Truck_Simulation/
Live Long and Prosper 👋,
Kunal & the team