R.I.P. Deathroom

I sent out the prototype to my Twitch subs for a first look at Soy's Coffee Shop, and it was super worth it. I got some great feedback and identified some superfluous elements that could be removed. Read more below...

Kill the Deathroom. It's that simple.

In more words though, while the idea of being a Bean-version of Sweeney Todd sounded great, it didn't translate well into gameplay - especially not for the experience I'm looking to give the player.

Moving forward, there is no more Deathroom. Instead, the player will focus on completing orders, then go on adventures looking for more coffee blends to expand their menu. There's more to it, but I'll leave that for another time.

THE SOLUTION

What kind of coffee blend do you usually go for?

Stay tuned for the next part!

THE PROBLEM

It was once said that a game is as good as its 30 second gameplay loop. What that means is that if the player stays engaged for those 30 seconds, and you repeat that same loop, it's most likely that players will stay hooked and keep playing.

When sending out the prototype, I was trying to identify if my 30 seconds was good. It turns out it wasn't as solid as I was hoping for. The core loop consists of serving coffee to customers, then bean-nap them in order to roast and grind them to serve more coffee, and finally, you end up in an arena to fight creatures. This sequence was all over the place and each beat felt like its own thing, with no flow between them.

This was especially true for the Deathroom. The act of serving coffee to keep the beans busy, to then go to the control center to grab them, to then go to the button to roast and grind them, while customers keep going into the coffee shop - it felt like too much happening at the same time without feeling meaningful enough.