Hello, 👋

As I sit to write this episode about the game’s Events system, the words of Dale Carnegie come to mind. 🤔

“People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.”

From the beginning, we knew that because of the nature of Business Heroes, the game ran the risk of being an overly serious management game.

And we certainly didn’t want that. 😒

So, we introduced the Events system to enhance your excitement and entertainment while playing the game.

You can think of it like the news media in real life. Except that the news it delivers is improbable to happen in real life.

As you grow your food truck business, you will have to adapt and make quick decisions in response to these very unrealistic events. 😆

Design & Implementation

We divided the events into two categories, Good and Bad. Each day, the system generates a random number 🔢 that determines the chances of an event occurring the following day. 🌄

Depending on the number, the outcome can be a good event, no event, or a bad event.

In general, the system leans towards good events. We did that because the goal of the system is enjoyment, not frustration.

The news section pops up whenever there’s a new event, and you can select your preferred news channel from three choices.

Your selection determines the category of event you get.

Each event spans from a minimum of 1 day to a maximum of 10 days. For example, the event below is a 50% sale on all Upgrades that will last for 1 day.

Both event categories have 5 levels each. These levels determine the effect and frequency of the event. A level 2 good event has less positive effects on your business compared to a level 5 event, and is likely to happen more frequently than a level 5 event.

The same is true for bad events.

We also designed the system in such a way that the probability of getting a Level 1 or 2 event is higher than that of levels 3, 4, and 5.

The image below shows that the probability of occurrence of a Level 1 good event is 26/40 as against 2/40 for a Level 4 good event.

The events cause a percentage increase or decrease in a wide range of statistics, all of which are listed below:

For displayed stats, you can always see the event effect and duration in their tooltips.

Events can range from a massive discount on upgrades to the Nation discovering a cure for cancer.

Here are a few examples:

If you have crazy ideas about other events we can add to the Events system, we’d love to read about them. 🕺

You can send in your ideas by responding to this email with them.

The events system is an exaggerated, gamified version of business reality designed to boost fun and enjoyment. We hope it adds to your overall experience of the game.

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

Hello, 👋

I am strolling back home, lost in game-balancing calculations, when the delicious aroma of fresh doughnuts draws me out of my daydream.

Well, there’s no harm in checking out the source of the scent, I think to myself as I begin to look around. I see the aroma’s source, a solitary kiosk tucked away at the street’s corner, and walk up to it.

But the displayed price instantly stops me in my tracks.

I am familiar with the cost of doughnuts, but this seemed much higher. I wondered if the vendor, being the only doughnut seller in the area, was trying to exploit the limited supply.

And my thoughts immediately jump to how pricing works in Business Heroes.

Some customers are more sensitive to the price of burgers than others. Students, Parents, and Staffs, for instance, have lower disposable incomes compared to the other segments. For them, affordability/price is a big part of the buying decision.

Other factors that influence buying decisions in the game are:

– Time of day
– How appealing the Stand looks
– The food and service quality of the Stand
– Brand popularity of the business

These customers will shy away from your stand if they consider your burger to be too expensive.

How do they decide what’s expensive and what’s not?

They compare the cost of your burger to the cost of alternatives, such as a homemade burger, and decide based on which option offers the best value for their money.

If the cost of buying all the ingredients plus the time and effort to make the burger themselves is significantly less than the burger price, they will likely consider it expensive.

But as the difference between the burger’s price and the cost of the homemade option reduces, it will seem more affordable to them, and their likelihood of buying the burger will be higher.

To show you how it works, let’s take a closer look at how pricing affects the buying behaviour of the Students segment.

The formula we used:

This results in a graph that shows how the probability of Students buying a burger drops as the percentage difference between the burger price and homemade cost increases:

You can see that Students are very price sensitive as their purchase probability begins to drop at a very low percentage price difference between buying the burger or making it at home.

The graph is different for each customer segment. Some customers like Fit-ones and Managers have a high purchase probability even at a price difference above 200%!

This is because their buying decision is based more on stand appeal, food and service quality, brand name recognition, etc., than on price.

It’s essential to consider your target market’s price sensitivity when setting your menu price to ensure you are maximizing sales.

As I turn away from the Kiosk, it occurs to me that people who do not consider themselves price-sensitive (such as myself) could exhibit price-sensitive behaviour when they suspect monopolistic behaviour.

Hmm. That could be an excellent mechanic to add to the game.

Then again, it might make the game WAY too complex.

But we’d only be able to tell once we try it.

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

Greetings, 👋

“Why do these Environmentalists keep ignoring my food stand?” wailed Busayo, our content writer.

“They walk right past my Stand only to queue up at Motawea’s! Who would believe that some customers like to queue? Guys, you need to implement a way for me to do something about Motawea’s Stand. Maybe throw a Burger Bomb at it or send Inspection Officers to shut it down!”

The mock fury in his voice sent Motawea, our Multiplayer programmer, into a laughing fit and made me chuckle.

I glanced at Busayo’s company valuation on my screen and noticed it was taking a beating. Motawea, his only competition in Park Central, was cleaning him out.

It’s our weekly playtest session, and today we are in a 30-day race for dominance in multiplayer mode. So far, our lead developer, Hongjing, is leading everyone with a company valuation of over $20,000.

As day 16 starts, I click to Park Central to see what’s happening in real time.

Park Central is known for its large population of Environmentalists. No food truck can survive there for long if they don’t buy from you. That’s why Busayo is desperate to sell to them.

Busayo’s Stand Range (we explained how Stand Range works in this email) is wide enough to attract customers. Parents are also buying from him. So, his problem isn’t due to a poor brand or high price.

Parents are more price sensitive than Environmentalists. If they can afford his Burgers, Environmentalists certainly can.

Motawea’s Stand, on the other hand, has a long queue of environmentalists in front of it. They clearly prefer his Stand to Busayos’ for some reason.

Busayo’s food stand is attracting customers but not the right ones for that location. I think about it for a minute and realize the problem is likely his Food Quality.

But I keep this information to myself.

How Food Quality Works 🍔🌟

Food quality is based on the feedback customers give about the taste and freshness of a Stand’s burger. Every Stand starts with zero food quality feedback.

You can see it in the tooltip below:

As you modify your burger recipe to suit your target customer segment, your food quality will increase or decrease depending on their feedback.

Food Quality Feedback 👍👎

The highest food quality feedback customers can give is called the Perfect Recipe. Customers give this feedback when a burger recipe matches their preference in size and composition.

However, because customers have different preferences, the Perfect Recipe for each segment will differ. The perfect recipe for one customer might be a burger with too many or too few ingredients for another.

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.

Business Impact 💰

Your food quality will grow if most customers give you the perfect recipe feedback. It will decrease if most customers give you the ‘excessive ingredient’ or ‘insufficient ingredient’ feedback.

When a Stand’s food quality becomes too low, most quality-conscious customers like Environmentalists, Fit-ones, and Managers bypass the Stand. A Stand with high food quality will easily attract such customers.

And that’s the situation Busayo is in.

Motawea had jubilantly announced on day two that he had found the perfect recipe for the Environmentalists. Over several days, the compounding effect of this early discovery on his food quality has become his advantage over Busayo.

Most of Busayo’s customers are still giving negative feedback, further damaging his food quality and hampering his ability to attract more Environmentalists.

To gradually wrest back market share from Motawea, he will first need to reverse the damage to his food quality. He can do this by either finding the perfect recipe for the Environmentalists or avoiding negative feedback from his current customers.

Then he’d also need to invest in marketing to attract more customers and build his food quality.

Either way, it will take some strategic thinking, and maybe a stroke of luck (in the form of a Random Event), for him to catch up with Motawea before day 30.

As I click back to Street Corner, where my Stand is pulling in a decent profit without competition, I wonder if giving players the power to attack their competition will increase the fun.

What do you think? What should we go for?

Let me know what you think by responding to this email.

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

Hello, 👋

It’s 7 pm, and I’ve just said goodbye to Hongjing, My, and Busayo after our first planning meeting of the year. As I minimize Microsoft Teams on my computer 🖥️, it occurs to me again, for the umpteenth time, that the vision is possible. 💯

As a member of a 100%-remote company, I am constantly amazed by the dedication and passion of the team.

We are a group of diverse individuals united in our belief that everyone should have the opportunity to reach their full entrepreneurship potential and positively impact the world.

This belief brought us together to build Visionaries and, eventually Business Heroes. We’ve worked tirelessly on the game for the past few years, but after today’s meeting, our most important goal for 2023 is clear.

Release Business Heroes 90% complete in Early Access ✔️

Why is this goal so important to us? 💭

You see, we are on an ambitious 10-year journey to create the world’s largest simulated economy, and we still have so much work 🛠️ to do before we reach our ultimate goal.

Releasing this year will allow us to gather valuable feedback from players like you, which we will eventually channel into our next games. 🎮

What About You? 😃

As a way to begin the year, I’m inviting you to share your most important goal for 2023 with us too. Whether it’s a personal goal or a professional one, we want to hear from you.

So please send us a message and let us know what matters most to you in 2023.

Who knows, we might be able to help you get there. 😉

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

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

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:

1. Changed the position and size of the arrow that expands the section.
2. Increased the maximum expansion size to cover almost the entire screen.
3. Replaced the scrolling function with buttons
4. Added an upward-seeking control to the medium expansion view
5. Increased the size of the medium expansion view
6. Implemented automatic text scrolling
7. 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

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