This episode about why we added events in our strategy game and how we did it. Dale Carnegie once said:

“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 the player’s excitement and entertainment while growing their food truck business.

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

As players grow their food truck businesses, they 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 players can select their preferred news channel from three choices.

Their selection determines the category of event they 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 a 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.

Probability of Occurence

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:

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

That’s it for this episode!

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Live Long and Prosper,
Team Visionaries

Pricing is a key factor in any business strategy game. In Business Heroes, it affects how customers interact with food stands. Your pricing strategy is a crucial aspect of the business model and greatly impacts customers’ buying decisions.

Decision Design

Some customers are more sensitive to the price of burgers than others. For instance, students, parents, and Staff have lower disposable incomes than the other segments. For them, affordability/price is a big part of buying.

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?

Utility Value

This is where utility value kicks in. 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.

Determining Price Sensitivity

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/service quality, brand name recognition, etc., than price.

The key to maximizing sales is to consider the target market’s price sensitivity when setting menu prices.

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