itch.io

We definitely hear your concerns about the new event system breaking the rhythm of the core game. It seems like we got a little too excited about the new minigames and went a bit overboard with how many were getting spawned. We made some adjustments that we think will improve how it feels, but are still mulling things over for future updates. The timeout duration is increased, spawn rate is decreased, and there is now a cooldown between events so they cannot spawn rapidly back-to-back. We also increased the reward for the Heimlich maneuver minigame.

With less spawning and more freedom to choose when to address them, you don’t have to break your rhythm on your current customer unless you need to, and you can choose to use them strategically. For example, maybe your satisfaction is low and you just went slightly over on a customer, so you are at risk of getting fired. Instead of finishing the customer, you could jump into the event to get a quick boost of satisfaction (as long as you do well), which may be enough to save you.

We are also considering trying out having a “Manager” that appears between customers instead to trigger a minigame. This would simplify things for the player in not having to manage events, but doesn’t really address some of your other concerns. There would still be an unknown amount of events, and they would still just essentially be additional obstacles in your way to finish a shift. Them being obstacles is currently by design, but we do of course want that to add to the overall fun of the game and not just be annoying.

The cheese in the cheese grater actually moves down with the supply amount, but it may not be apparent enough. If you look at the cheese block and crank handle, you can see it go down as you grate cheese. As a loading screen tip: “peek at the cheese block quickly between customers to see if you’re going to reload soon”.

We were a little hesitant on making a crank sensitivity setting from the start, because we don’t want it to throw off balance, especially when we add leaderboards, but we do want our game to be accessible to everyone if the default crank setting is just too much for some. We definitely don’t want everyone to have to use the lowest setting to be competitive, so we will have to watch out for that.

The intention for a lot of the modifiers was to have trade-offs and interesting ways that modifiers could work together. In this case, you’re right that if you are good at reloading and you use Perfect Reload, having “Extra Cheese, Please” would decrease the benefit you get, so those modifiers don’t really work well together. We wanted options that different players at different skill levels might like taking. The “Extra Cheese, Please” modifier would be more for beginners who aren’t good at hitting perfect reloads consistently.

We also want players to be able to put together “builds” that take advantage of the way certain modifiers play off each other. This is something we want to keep expanding on as we add more elements to the game.

We do see the concern with overwhelming new players, so we are aiming to add a short intro tutorial with the Catalog release to give players a better sense of their objectives and how the game works. There is definitely a lot that is left up to the player to figure out right now. We’ll always give you the option to skip or replay the tutorial.

We are considering delaying the urgent events to give new players some breathing room, but we did also get some feedback that seemed like players were disappointed by not getting to any minigames early in the game, so we want to find the right balance there.

We agree that giving the player a sense of progression is a really good idea. We definitely want to do more with that. Here’s some ideas we are thinking about:

• Adding achievements. Let us know of any you’d like to see in the game. We have this partially implemented and should be coming soon after the catalog release.
• Unlocking modifiers and special customers as you play and/or through achievements.
• Permanent passive modifiers unlocked by achievements. Maybe you have 1-3 slots, and you can choose which small bonus you want to get for each one.
• Customers and modifiers that are only introduced after a certain shift.