Am bummed, every suggestion was ignored

[guardianslade]

So now several hours in I think I have a decent grasp on some of the things in place, hopefully. *laughs* Now I can't see into the future and what all you have planned but can only throw out ideas and if anything is useful you might not have thought of then great!

So I will make an assumption that in the final game there will be this massive debt to pay off and not the reasonable sum the demo has. *it's a really common goal in games like this* I would however propose a few things that might be far more fun!

I can see all over in the town there are tons of placeholders, buildings that have no real use and don't even look like anyone lives in them. So I'll just list off a bunch of things and you can consider them or ignore or whatever! Think of it as brainstorming. ^^ No pressure at all, ideas can be wild!

Before starting I feel time is better broken into parts of day, something like five to eight time bars. In a day. *You can balance this as you see fit to feel good* Certain ideas of mine flow into that and are using this in mind. Going to a location, opening store, etc. would use a bar.

1. Reputation: Everything, and I mean every single thing would give small amounts of reputation. Things like repeatable quests, donations, as well as making furniture, making new homes, town decorations, buying new furniture, absolutely everything gives a little bit to a nice big chunk. If you wanted you can have two different reputations. Your shop, and overall town reputation which you unlock after you finish the first small debt goal. Both being tied to things like special new characters moving in, the ability to create more houses for villagers, large town projects being offered, new events happening and so on. The more renown you have, the more fun things and surprises are bound to be attracted to your town!

2. Easier crafting. You only need to take materials to the crafter once to unlock an item, then you can buy a set amount up to a maximum of an item with just gold. Bring 10 pieces of wood for that table unlock you can see. What you can see available to unlock also tied to reputation score or some story progress.

3. All reputation gains and bonuses from everything to buy, craft, make are accumulative, so you can decorate how you want, with whatever style you want, even old things, and still get the benefits of the new items you buy. Own lots of different cute outfits for yourself, your employees, and villagers? You get the combined bonus of all of them together no matter what you or they wear! Want everyone to wear a cute bunny mascot outfit, instead of a kitty or squirrel one? Well buy them all and you can pick whatever you like and have all the bonuses! I'm sure you get the idea!

4. Reputation items have a max limit, but you can buy as many as you want. An example would be some nice wall candles. Which provide +3 reputation each up to 4 candles. but you can decorate with more candles if you like with no bonus. Or with only 2 but you own 4, for the same bonus. The amount should not be too high on any one item to help limit the need to grind items you do not plan to use.

5. The town itself becomes the true endgame. After paying off that smaller reasonable debt, the mayor/tax collector comes up and asks if you would like to renovate pretty much the whole entire town as a side project, along with your own shop of course. Making everyone and yourself more profitable and a better place to live. Again, the sky is the limit. And the more we ourselves can customize the look of as much as possible, placement, skins of buildings, inside houses, all that. The more replay value and goals we self create. People love to show off their designs when they have a bit of canvas to work with. Possibly let us create big permanent shops for those daily kiosk guests such as tailor and trader, so they get a permanent residence, and then upgrade their shop to make even more things become available to us.

6. The ability rogue-lite part. So as you do all this fun stuff, along with the reputation you get points that you can allocate into skills. It could increase the value of particular types of meals, like ones that use eggs or pork. Increase customer patience, bonus to the amount of customers that will show up during an open session. *one time bar* even fun things like making them more hungry, more on that in a bit. Special skills in combat, extra gold just earned at the end of the day, like tips. There is literally a ton of things that can be used to feel like a secondary constant progression is happening, and lots of cool neat features and things will keep players wanting to get them.

7. Your own house. Really can't stress this enough, right now we live in a room in the back of the shop. Let us create, build and share with people great creations of our own house, hopefully with a nice big yard and lots to customize! Even more amazing if we get to build them for all our nice village friends too! *I literally have no idea where any of them sleep right now!* All those orange houses could be open space ready to make the town great!

8. Townsfolk honestly could help you out a whole lot more than they currently do. Where is the garden? Folks could send you things, in the mail or a little box now and then or each day if you help them out. Like we might need to create a farm, but it isn't run by us, but we do get to help upgrade it, maybe decorate etc. And they send us some stuff in the morning!

9. The cafe part can go however you like, you might already have something set in stone. But with the time bar method. You would start with say, 3 customers coming in per open. Usually a customer will order one item per visit. But sometimes they might be more hungry, and perks and bonuses could raise them wanting more helpings. This could be tied to patience/hunger, and how long they stay in the store. The longer they are there, and quicker you are to serve, the more helpings they will eat in that time. Probably no more than 3 customers served at a time. But the amount that will come during a session can be increased with perks to quite a lot! Likely as you get employees to assist as well, any you do not serve yourself will be handled timely anyway. The amount of time the player uses during a food session should stay reasonable, even with lots of customers, with other employees helping by that time.

Possibly, It lets you be more personal with customers too if desired, it could be more of a game of what would they like? And you can suggest. This takes far more real time though to a player, so make sure the rewards for a customer eating a meal are very good! One very fun idea I had was eventually an alchemist moves into the town, and they give you a potion perk that sometimes makes a customer randomly grow much bigger and get way more hungry! So much that they want lots of servings of whatever you want to make as fast as possible! And more perks raise how often it occurs. I keep imagining that all this food is going to make very plump villagers eventually *laughs* ^^ Just more interactivity with this minigame I feel is important, but again it will use more real player time so it absolutely must be justly rewarded! There will likely be tons and tons of good projects and items players want to spend all this money on, so be generous and do not make it too grindy!

10. Cafe could use fun stuff other than just food prep and more employees! Dancers, cooks, musicians, waiters that bring drinks, anything! The player can do any of the jobs assisting like a manager should, and likely will be a waiter for a good portion of the time to allow customer mingling with a few of them!

11. Oh and of course, lots and lots of adorable big kitty hand and pawfeet! maybe with beans! Who knows how they fit such big cute pawfeet in those boots! Cats tend to hate shoes though! New town ordinance, everyone must go barepawed! *laughs* ^^ And I totally love cat antics and humor, really needs some toys and catnip and other fun amusing things to let the characters cute animal sides come out for some fun! I would definitely like to see some things like magic pop up! It's so fun, a bit random, and full of secrets!

12. Romance? Hopefully at least friendships for bonuses, story, fun etc. A common, and sort of expected thing for a game like this, but this one is really up to you, I figure you already have plans.

A nice balance of a bit of combat, cafe work, and a huge dose of story, plot, events, secrets to uncover and lots of decorating. And I feel this game really can be something amazing! I personally feel that her running the store casually, enjoying it, and making a lot of money to fulfill improving everyone's lives and her own, is more fun that just chipping away at some big nasty gloomy debt. *I would think the game would end when her parents return home, your town being actually better than their vacation spot now.* But of course, you can keep playing and enjoying making stuff even more amazing! Maybe even some epilogue fun with the parents.

I hope at least some of this is helpful, I know it was long, I'm sorry, there were a lot of ideas! ^^ If you have any questions or thoughts, let me know and I'll do my best to answer and add on. And I look forward to whatever you decide to make! *wishlisted so I can keep an eye on it!*

[MEUR_Dani]

Thank you so much for the detailed suggestions!

[guardianslade]

I edited the title, but yes not a single change from the demo far as I can tell now 15 hours in. And worse, the debt collector is in fact, once again, the only plot of the game. I can't stress enough just how bad that plot actually is. No one wants to throw tons of money at something that we *the player* did not even get to enjoy. It's not like the debt fixes up our place and we repay it, nope it's just money to the void that I could have enjoyed buying upgrades and decorations. A total waste.

I had such high hopes because the look of the game is just so good. But no costumes, no hiring employees, it's not actually a rogue-like or lite at all. It's a normal rpg with upgrades, and not even a random dungeon each time. *there is like a few preset layouts each level* And 60% of the town is still orange house placeholders, doesn't even need to be there. IMO Is it overall awful? Nah, but great? Nah. All this makes the game just "it's a game, meh."

I welcome others opinions on this, what can I say, I just had really high hopes. They just aren't there.

[POMPOKO]

Originally posted by guardianslade:

I edited the title, but yes not a single change from the demo far as I can tell now 15 hours in. And worse, the debt collector is in fact, once again, the only plot of the game. I can't stress enough just how bad that plot actually is. No one wants to throw tons of money at something that we *the player* did not even get to enjoy. It's not like the debt fixes up our place and we repay it, nope it's just money to the void that I could have enjoyed buying upgrades and decorations. A total waste.

I had such high hopes because the look of the game is just so good. But no costumes, no hiring employees, it's not actually a rogue-like or lite at all. It's a normal rpg with upgrades, and not even a random dungeon each time. *there is like a few preset layouts each level* And 60% of the town is still orange house placeholders, doesn't even need to be there. IMO Is it overall awful? Nah, but great? Nah. All this makes the game just "it's a game, meh."

I welcome others opinions on this, what can I say, I just had really high hopes. They just aren't there.

After spending a bit more time with the game, which I still think is pretty nice, I have to agree with some of what you saying. The plot is so uninteresting that I fully skipped it, I don't even know why I pay the debt now lol, I just do and it is actually very annoying part of the game. It feels like wasting the time because in the end you just have to pay the debt and this is the whole plot?

Also the fact that not a single npc has a house that you can visit to just finish the quest, is a bit of annoying as well.

[KaineShadory]

soo, Animal Crossing?

[Sandwich Specialist]

I think you have great ideas but I feel like it might be too ambitious of a scope (Im assuming you wrote this after playing the demo?). They can't just add brand new mechanics after setting up the whole thing already. For example there's no point in adding town management and customization in a restaurant management-focused game. It will be more convoluted and confusing, harder to implement and balance, more work, etc.
I think what we need is QOL changes first, and maybe a year or two they can update and add new mechanics if possible.

[OG.UA SAPUTRA]

just play animal crossing bro

[guardianslade]

Originally posted by egirl with a praise kink:

I think you have great ideas but I feel like it might be too ambitious of a scope (Im assuming you wrote this after playing the demo?). They can't just add brand new mechanics after setting up the whole thing already. For example there's no point in adding town management and customization in a restaurant management-focused game. It will be more convoluted and confusing, harder to implement and balance, more work, etc.
I think what we need is QOL changes first, and maybe a year or two they can update and add new mechanics if possible.

I think that's really the main problem. What I played in the demo was not good enough to be a game. And the reviews are showing, it's so bare, this really isn't a game. Yes, they had some things in place, you add on and change them. If they can't change things that needed changed it's doomed for scrap anyway.

And they didn't need to do everything I said, *which was a lot* but they didn't do even one single thing. Not even removing the nasty *buzz* noise that happens every time you make a meal. And ugh.. the debt collector plot, awful.

What I described in my suggestions is not animal crossing either. I love animal crossing. I played animal crossing for 900 hours. I wanted something new! Also, lots of features I described are not in that game and would fit better here. Like the rogue-lite teir list, romances, hiring employees, the time bars and reputation system etc.

The real sadness, is I don't expect this game to get any further updates at all. Is very unlikely from a developer that is under XSEED games. The majority of XSEED published games, like Potioneer, did not get updates. But hey, I'm hopeful too, maybe it will happen. It desperately needs it.

[Sandwich Specialist]

Originally posted by guardianslade:

I think that's really the main problem. What I played in the demo was not good enough to be a game. And the reviews are showing, it's so bare, this really isn't a game. Yes, they had some things in place, you add on and change them. If they can't change things that needed changed it's doomed for scrap anyway.

And they didn't need to do everything I said, *which was a lot* but they didn't do even one single thing. Not even removing the nasty *buzz* noise that happens every time you make a meal. And ugh.. the debt collector plot, awful.

What I described in my suggestions is not animal crossing either. I love animal crossing. I played animal crossing for 900 hours. I wanted something new! Also, lots of features I described are not in that game and would fit better here. Like the rogue-lite teir list, romances, hiring employees, the time bars and reputation system etc.

The real sadness, is I don't expect this game to get any further updates at all. Is very unlikely from a developer that is under XSEED games. The majority of XSEED published games, like Potioneer, did not get updates. But hey, I'm hopeful too, maybe it will happen. It desperately needs it.

That's quite a harsh critique (if we can even call it that) to boldly claim it's "not good enough to be a game". That sounds bitter and condescending, just because they didn't implement your ideas and suggestions. It is a restaurant management game, and people enjoy restaurant games. It's insulting to the fans who enjoy it when you claim "this really isn't a game."It's not a town simulator/management game and it doesn't have to be. If they even add those elements people will just say "this game doesn't know what it wants to be."

As for the rest, I'm assuming it's still pretty complicated to change, especially how only one person recommended it. Redesigning, romancing characters, etc will be additional workload after the foundation has already been established so it doesn't seem to be a smart idea to risk new things that can interfere with their deadlines.

I personally have been looking for a game like this that only focuses on gathering ingredients and managing my restaurant, and I'm happy to be able to play something so cute and fun despite not being perfect. They will update it with bug fixes and perhaps QoL changes, according to the devs.

It's okay if you don't agree or like it, that just means it's not for you. I'm sure you'll find some games that you listed and want in other titles :)