Day 15 - customer service system
Hi, kavabun here.
I’ve been working on the customer service system lately. Although I haven’t implemented much (aside from what I already had), I think I’ve finally formulated the concept!
Community hall
- Customers come with needs—they want to rest, eat, or get supplies. This ties into the main gameplay loop. When their needs aren’t met, they’ll head to the community hall and just deal with it—for example, eating on the floor. The hall can be upgraded as the game progresses.
Room bonuses
- A room is defined by having a bed and table inside a closed space. If it meets certain conditions, specific customer types will receive bonuses.
Customer visit logic
- As your shop gains fame, the number of daily customers increases.
- Some day events (like a frontier party passing by) will trigger customer floods.
Customer types
- I haven’t decided all the details yet, but I’m planning on including nobles, dungeon travellers, traders, and more.
I’m feeling confident that this system will be fun to build and play with. Tomorrow, I’ll start working on integrating it into the main loop.
Also, I finally fixed the bug I had yesterday—turns out I didn’t need to restructure the player controller at all. Small wins!
I actually spent almost 3 hours just finalizing the concept. I had moments of doubt, wondering if the system would be fun enough. So I explored a few alternate ideas:
- A dashing mode, where the player runs through the dungeon under a time limit collecting goods—kind of like a no-attack Isaac-style risk-reward run.
- A dungeon tower defense mixed with Vampire Survivors mechanics—two genres I really enjoy.
Then I looked at some games for inspiration—Dungeon of the Endless, Spring Dash, and Furnish Master. They’re all great games. But in the end, I realized I truly enjoy the placement system in my game. So instead of pivoting, I’m locking in and making the core loop more solid.
Thanks for reading! I’ll be back soon with devlog videos and more.
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