Spring Cleaning! [Post-Jam Update]

Thanks to everyone who's played the game during the jam and left feedback once again! I was able to add a lengthy list of things to work on and a lot has been changed!

Let's start with the big thing...Interface....most comments started with or were purely "UI wasn't hitting bruv" and yeah it's completely valid feedback since the UI was pretty busted. This is due to a last minute change of taking out menus and dialogue pausing the game which let them overlap each other and create impossible to maneuver chaos messes. This has been fixed!
With very specific trackers, a revamped menu system; and new pause options for menus; no menu should be able to overlap others anymore! If any do I'll patch it out as quick as I can.

The next thing that I only had one genuine complaint about was mouse controls which now fully work in the game! I wanted to make sure nobody had a bad experience and could play the game their way. My original mission was also that but keyboard and controller is what I ended up using the most so they got the most care. Especially as the time ticked down and my exhaustion grew mouse controls were quickly abandoned. If there's any issues or features desired for mouse controls I'll definitely work on adding them in!

Buttons were another issue, there was a lot of confusion on buttons and even I had issues with selecting the right option. Now there's not only more color difference on the whole button but there's a "cursor" like old Final Fantasy games by marking the focused option with a paw print. Hopefully the new details will make the buttons easy to navigate.

The "live menu" for the coffee bar I thought would potentially be a banger idea much like the Need for Speed quick menu added in I think the last Hot Pursuit game. It was not, it seemed to create more issues than worth and was honestly annoying to use. So I created a prompt system so no matter what you're using the button/key will pop up to interact with the menu and it's just a normal menu now. I also used these prompts on some other spots that require an interact as well.
With this I also made menus navigatable with arrow keys and the DPad while leaving the move around buttons out of the equation to make everything more straightforward. Eventually I'll add in custom inputs but that's a QOL feature I just wasn't able to add in yet.

Onto the next fun one! Items! I overhauled items so they're more flexible now and have some features I wanted to add in originally but ran out of time to. 
Firstly items now have durability or uses, instead of buying or making a whole bottle of flavoring or beans for a single use you get X amount of uses before they break. This was a pain to get working properly but it works! This also relabels items in the inventory once used and it also only stacks full durability items like most games. There may still be some bugs around this area as I had to recode most of it. Just let me know and we'll squash one bug at a time.

I unfortunately didn't add any new items or make items like Apples and Mint foragable in the wild due to the deadline I set for myself, all the work this update ended up being; and my personal life. I did get my new phone the beautiful S25 Ultra and I drew up some icons for each item in the game! I'm not seasoned at making items honestly and even my art skills are quite rusty; but I wanted to make the game feel more filled and charmful!

Working away from items I also tuned up the customer experience! Admittedly a lot of this isn't super useful to you the players due to it not being conveyed in-game yet. But customers now can buy multiple coffees! I work at a cafe and pretty often people are picking up orders for their coworkers, buying in a group; and so on. While I do plan on adding in more features like groups, delivery customers and so on; this is the first stab at adding a little more.
Next customers have preferences and requirements. Preferences grant you increased profit and popularity, requirements offer the same but at a higher rate. Not having the requirement also could make them leave the coffee bar, I didn't want them to outright leave since customers often pick a second rate item they're just less happy. And that's the case here!
Customers can also leave tips, this is a simple chance system right now but I promise it'll become more complex later.

There's going to be a whole update dedicated to customers later on but I wanted to do some groundwork on that now.

I also redid the materials for the bunnies (a handful of times trying to get shaders to work before I just used the built-in mat system settings) and now there's a few more options for customer furs. You likely won't see a huge difference beyond each looks is more uniform and compatible. I plan on adding a few furs for them each update just to keep it expanding.

[PLAYABLE CHARACTERS]

Not too removed from that subject is the new two playable characters Brownie and Cosmo. Yeah I renamed Mocha to Brownie so I could have my Cosmic Brownie reference in the game. (Yes this is the actual reason for it)  I wanted to make them more unique during the jam so there's benefits to both characters that aren't explicitly "This one is better for this so I'm only going to do this with them" as that makes for a boring experience and maybe you want to play the other one.

Brownie is more adept with crafting items such as flavorings as well as gets more out of foraging and sells coffees for an increased profit.

Cosmo is more focused on exploration and charm, his jump is a little higher and he sprints faster. As well as popularity for the coffee bar grows faster with him and he gets increased tips.

Both offer skills that are useful for both working the coffee bar and exploring and these differences will only grow as the game is developed. Especially once combat becomes a thing...we'll be balling with a fully built out skill tree of sorts.

Adding sprint in is also a new feature, later on I'm contemplating having a stamina system to balance things out but we're not there yet. I actually redid the entire character controller to feel more "natural" and hopefully fun! Naturally I named the movement system the Shift System since it acts like a transmission. This includes some popular jump features such as jump buffer where if you press jump a little before you land you'll jump again once you hit the ground.

[Wilding Out]

You'll notice there's a new intro to the Wild mentioning you can only go out once a day now and that there's a couple new areas replacing the last poorly slapped together section. You also will be building a trail throughout the week in-game which means if you adventure out in that week you'll be running into the same areas in order. I wanted to add more but honestly this has been a lot more work than I expected and I want to get this update out. Plus the Wilds and City are the big focus of the first non-jam update; so I didn't wanna go all out and hold back this stabilizer update for what'll be next up anyways.

These changes were made as groundwork to the future of the game and balancing. Before you could just run in and out of the Wild with mass amounts of berries. Even if you left right away and lost half of them you were still making 100% easy profit. Now that can't be done and the trail system is going to be a massive change come next update where the bus gets introduced with the rest of the "city" and safe zones as well as interest zones. Lots of stuff coming to the Wilds in the next month!

With that you'll notice the areas are pretty empty and basic, this is intended since I wasn't sure how to handle each area honestly. So each area is designed differently with a different philosophy behind it in order to see what you the players want. Maybe you want the variety, maybe you hate one design or another; it's all part of the growing pain process.

[This and That]

There's been a lot of changes and a lot were small such as increasing the require amount of Bloomies to beat the game. Several small bug fixes I didn't document since they were tiny but noticeable or could be noticeable.
The bug that would keep you jumping between levels after finishing one is now fixed.

There's a dialogue skip option now! It's come in clutch so much testing out all these features.

Berry bushes now require a prompt to acquire them and their rates were lessened.
Flavoring requirements for berry flavor also were increased.

I added in a tilt-shift shader so let me know how ya'll feel about it!

I also revamped the Itch page with a new background and cover! I wanted it to feel coffeehouse and whimsical and this will be a constant change as updates roll out.

[Fin]

Once again thank you all for playing and thanks even more to the ones coming back to see what's new!
Please let me know your feedback good or bad! I know the game is still far from probably even stable, this is the biggest project I've worked on and it's still growing. 

To avoid feature creep from killing the game I've been planning out each update to move the game forward at a good pace. These updates are structured with a main focus, then I'll be sprinkling in QOL changes as well as minor content. This way the game is being pushed ahead with main features and needs but still getting love it needs as it grows.

If you're finding the update to be a good change list but underwhelming I ask for only one more update to really show where the game is heading. I work as much as a I can at my day job for that bread to survive and put in the hours after and before shifts. I've pulled the most overnighters to get this update cranked out properly since I've left college. With new bags under my eyes I'm thoroughly excited and terrified for what comes next.

But the roadmap doesn't lie and it's on the move! So check it out on my Trello board here!