Greetings, 👋

It’s a lovely Friday in September, and you know we’ve got your update ready. This episode is about how we adjusted the pathing system to make customers move more efficiently to a food stand. Since we are using a 2D environment and handling thousands of city residents, this problem was slightly more challenging.

After a customer collides with the stand range and decides to buy a burger, they are assigned a queue point near the stand, and they proceed to that queue point.

In the image below:
– The stand is in red, and the stand range is in transparent red.
– The person’s path is in blue, and their path’s intersection points (where they can change their direction) are the green squares.
– The decision point in yellow is where they collide with the stand range and decide whether to buy a burger or not.

Previously, after colliding with the stand range, they would first head to the next path intersection point on their preset path before proceeding to their queue spot near the stand. This resulted in an inefficient movement along the yellow arrow to their queue spot, as shown below:

We wanted them to follow the shortest path to their queue spot from any intersection point. Like below:

To do this, we had to implement a path-finding system for everyone using a graph structure and Dijkstra’s algorithm, an algorithm for finding the shortest paths between specified points.

Now customers can find the shortest path to a food stand from any point in their journey across a location.

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

Greetings, 👋

Great to catch up with you again this week. We’ve been making more improvements to the UI in preparation for the demo (in case you missed the previous email, yes, we have a demo coming up very soon).

Some of the improvements we made:

New stand navigation system

Improved stock reordering

Streamlined stand upgrades process

Other improvements include:

• Reorganized all stand operation buttons to improve the stand management process.
• Implemented more stands (the demo might include up to 3 stands after all).
• Added an auto-reordering function for inventory for those who dislike micro-management. 😉

Before opening it up to the public, we will run a small, closed demo session for community members like you.

We can’t wait to hear what you think of it.

More details soon. 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, 👋

It’s another lovely Friday and we can’t wait to let you in on the latest developments. We are almost getting to the demo phase for the game, and we spent the last week planning what will be included in the earliest version.

Our goal is to give you a sneak peek of the game mechanics and how the game works. We intend to show off as much of the game as possible while keeping the demo relatively short and sweet. Here’s a quick overview of what to expect.

Access to all countries:

Single-player only (15-day Career mode):

Two stands available with upgrades:

Other planned features include:

• All customer segments
• Full population size
• All financial reports
• Banking activities
• All economic events
• Access to 3 Localities
• Stand management dashboard

We are still finalizing the exact date, but you can be sure you’ll be the first to know as soon as everything is confirmed. In the meantime, we would love to hear your thoughts and feedback on what you would like to see in the demo.

You can let us know by responding to this email.

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

Greetings, 👋

Welcome to your latest update on our progress in building Business Heroes. We spent the last week fixing bugs in the game’s queuing animation system and developing its Bankruptcy logic.

The Bankruptcy logic is still in progress, but you are about to see how the queuing system now looks.

Previously we had an issue in multiplayer that caused the customers to collapse into each other when attempting to queue at a stand.

Definitely not how we wanted folks to queue up. 😂

After multiple deep dives into the murky waters of code that power the current customer pathing and animation systems, we discovered it was both a positional and syncing issue.

Several restructuring attempts later, we finally fixed it, and you can see the results below.

While at it, we segued into the main menu’s animation system to fix a pre-existing transition error we had been putting off.

The animation now works as intended, and this is how it looks:

We spent the rest of our time setting up the Bankruptcy section, especially for multiplayer. You’d get to see how it works pretty soon…hopefully. 😃

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

Greetings, 👋

Another lovely Friday is upon us, and you know we have your update on our progress ready. We finished working on the main menu of the game this week. Included in the implementation are some updates to the country selection and settings section.

We improved the User Interface for country selection. We also added tooltips containing country-specific data to help guide your choice of a starting location.

New country-specific data include:

• Currency
• Weather
• Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
• Interest Rate

We moved the difficulty gauge down and made the prevalent weather in each country prominent. We decided to improve the visibility of the predominant weather because of its impact on gameplay.

Here’s how it looked previously:

The game settings section is also fully functional with all the accessibility options.

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

Hello, 👋

It’s another lovely Friday, and we definitely can’t wait to bring you up to speed on our development activities. We spent some time polishing the Financial Hub, and we thought you should see it.

The Financial Hub is the City’s lifeblood. Comparable to Wall Street, the location is packed full of hotshots in fancy suits and with fancy hair.

Most of the customers you’d find here are Managers, Staffs, and some Tourists. As the economic hotbed of the city, you can bet that the permit fee for a food stand would almost cost an arm and a leg.

If that’s not making it tough enough, the primary customer groups here are not the easiest to please. Managers are impatient with mediocre service, Tourists are fussy about food quality, and Staffs raise hell if your price is too high.

It’s generally not the best location for a new food truck business with limited funds trying to learn the ropes of the game.

A thorough understanding of the needs of these customer groups plus a sound grasp of your cash flow and inventory management is the only way to come out on top in the Financial Hub.

However, once you’ve got a good grasp of your business and how to satisfy your target customers, the Financial Hub could potentially be one of your cash cow locations. With three stand spots, the sky is truly the limit in terms of income.

After all, there aren’t many people in the city with as much money to burn as Managers when you can meet their demands.

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

Hello, 👋

Welcome to your latest update on our progress. This episode is about the city residents and what they think as they go about their daily affairs.

We’ve implemented thought bubbles for the populace to give you an insight into the kind of thoughts that pop in their heads during the day.

Unlike Customer Feedback, which directly impacts the performance of your business and you can review in the Key Performance Indicator (KPI) section, thought bubbles contain random stuff that may or may not be related to your food stand.

Some customers see your Stand and suddenly remember how hungry they are or decide not to stop by because, in their opinion, your burger quality is doubtful.

In general, you will be able to see people’s opinion about your

• Brand
• Service and Food Quality
• Stand Appeal
• Price.

You will also see thoughts about entirely unrelated things, and who knows, you just might stumble on an Easter egg in there somewhere. 😉

That’s all 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, 👋

Great to catch up with you again. We’ve been working on the Banking area of the game. While it’s still work-in-progress, we thought you’d like to take a look.

The bank provides loans to businesses, repayable over five years. The loan amount you can access at anytime will depend on your company’s debt-to-equity ratio, a measure the bank uses to assess how risky it is to loan your business money.

Ever heard the saying, “A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don’t need it”?

Well, this bank works a little bit like that too. 😃

They are happy to lend you substantial amounts as long as your debt-to-equity ratio is low, and you are flush with cash.

As you take more loans and your debt-to-equity ratio rises, the loan amounts you can access drop, and the interest rate rises for each loan.

When your debt-to-equity ratio gets too high, the bank classifies your business as High Risk and stops lending you money till you repay some of your outstanding loans.

A word about the Interest Rate: The Interest Rate reflects the nation’s economic situation and your creditworthiness as a borrower. A few months after the economy enters a recession, the Central Bank will begin to drive the interest rate down to give out more loans to stimulate the economy.

If your risk rating with the bank is in the green, you will be able to get loans at great interest rates at such times, and there’s no telling where that money will take you.

That’s all 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, 👋

Welcome to your latest update on our progress in developing Business Heroes. Today, we unveil the newest locality fresh off our implementation board: National Landmark.

National Landmark doubles as a historic landmark site and a park. It can get pretty crowded during the day as many people come to see the landmark or hang around in the park.

The largest customer groups you will typically find here are Tourists, Foodies, and Students on an excursion from school. As you can imagine, this is one of the city’s pricier localities, and parking a food stand here costs a pretty penny.

Foodies and Tourists are fussy about the quality of your food and the look of your food stand. So, you want to be sure you can meet their standards before making the investment to move here.

But, once you can satisfy their taste bud and eyesight, the National Landmark offers a remarkable opportunity for profit with a higher volume of traffic and three stand spots for business owners.

We hope you’ll enjoy your time at the National Landmark, and please tell us what you think of how it currently looks.

That’s all 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 great to have you here with us today. We spent the last two weeks improving the Missions, Tooltips, and Perfect Recipe systems in the game. Here’s a peek at how the Perfect Recipe section currently looks.

The Perfect Recipe section is where you discover which customer segment loves your burger recipe and price. Like all new product development efforts, you start with a blank slate, not knowing the exact combination of ingredients and pricing your preferred customer would love.

Your ultimate recipe goal is to discover the perfect combination of ingredients and prices for every customer group in the city.

Each customer is an opportunity to customize your recipe to perfection. You can modify your recipe during gameplay…

Of course, all the customer segments will have their unique feedback on each recipe you put out because, as the popular saying goes, One customer’s food is another’s poison. This is where product-market fit is key.

You can quickly see what each customer segment thinks of your burger recipe in the Perfect Recipe section. When you discover the perfect recipe for a customer group, the ingredient combination will be unlocked for that group.

A perfect burger for one segment could be a terrible burger or a burger with too much or too few ingredients for another segment. And so it goes until you conquer the city.

It’s vital for customers to love your burgers because when they do, the feedback they give improves your business’s reputation and helps you attract even more customers.

That’s all 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