Post by warpfire on Jul 2, 2022 19:40:24 GMT
This is a long post. Beware!
Suggestion:
Random optional timed mini games/events that have no effect if left unattended but have a slight bonus to production/sales/flat cash bonus if done successfully.
Example:
Requirements: any Retail building
Time limit: 1 hour
PA: Your store employee responsible for inventory and warehouse management made a mess of the paperwork and a customer of ours requested %product_name% that ended up seemingly blocked by other merchandise in the warehouse. And they need it soon or they'll leave. Do you think you can set free the requested goods?
>Let me show how it's done. Also fire the guy that did this.
(A little puzzle mini game starts, a variation of classic "move some crates blocking the path to exit for another crate you need". Can be randomly generated, to keep it fresh, with icons that are already in the game representing %product_name% on the playing field.)
(If completed successfully within a generous time limit the building gets 3%(?) of the current sale batch instantly completed, awarding instant cash that would have been made over the same time)
>Let him figure it out all by himself, so he will know not to take his responsibilities lightly.
(A small chance of a successful outcome.
If failed:
PA: The employee wasn't able to figure the blockage out in time and the customer left. Otherwise the operations continue as usual.
If successful:
PA: As the customer was heading for the door your employee, panting, approached him and handed him %product_name%. The customer was impressed by your employee's dedication and the deal happened.
You get a slightly better bonus boost since you left a good impression on the customer.)
Also there's always an option to ignore it, which has no drawbacks so if you're not available to play the game nothing bad happens.
Example 2:
Requirements: Restaurant
Time limit: 45 min
PA: Boss, bad news. Our celebrity guest cocktail artist is running late due to traffic and the first customer is already seated. Fortunately we have time before it is considered unprofessional to make them wait for a performance they booked in advance and they leave frustrated. Would you like to try to entertain them instead of the celebrity and keep them from leaving?
>You know, I actually was a bar man before I became an entrepreneur! Let me show you how it was done back in my day.
(A "Roostertail mixing" minigame appears. You are given a list of ingredients for a random client's order, and you can click/tap and hold the needed one that is also on the screen to add it to the measuring cup, which has notches for measurement, obviously, and is translucent so you can see how much you added, the longer you hold — the more you add. When you release the button/lift the finger off the screen it is inevitably added to the shaker. When you are happy with the result you also click/tap-hold the shaker to, well, shake, and a filling bar with a hotspot specific to that "Roostertail", so you have to stop shaking by releasing the button just when the bar is filled to the hotspot but hasn't passed it yet. The better you follow the "recipe", i.e. the closer the values of amounts of ingredients and shaking to the reference ones, the better fraction of a bonus you get, for example: 90-100% correct: 100% bonus, 70-89% correct: 75% bonus, 50-69% correct: 50% bonus, <50% no bonus. Bonuses can also be chosen at random from the pool, something like:
PA: You were successful in creating a perfect (100%) %Roostertail_name%, the customer was impressed and honored by the fact the owner of the establishment made him something himself. He leaves a generous tip and tells all his friends about this, boosting our customer per hour metric considerably since he was a restaurant critic under cover.
(You get $500 and an instant one time boost of 3% to sales.)
or
PA: You made a drink but that's it. It is drinkable but very far from the one your customer requested (50-69%). At least they got thirsty for more after it and got hammered that night, leaving lots of tips and orders. And broken glasses.
(You'd get $300 of additional revenue just from this customer, but unfortunately had to replace the glasses broken by the customer. You still get $150 though. You'll show them next time how great your drinks actually are!)
Or you can ignore it for the duration of the event and nothing happens, just as with retail.
Et cetera and so on, the possibilities are infinite both for the different buildings and different events for them.
The goal - what is the goal of this feature? Who is this feature for?
Short answer: The goal is to add additional gameplay for people who need it, me and people like me.
Long answer:
People who love spreadsheets but also have ADHD. If you're like me, setting your production orders and alarms on your phone to exact timing you'll lose your attention span at work and have to do something else, which for me is just logging on to SimCo and clicking all my buildings to collect stuff, look at it in the warehouse, set new alarms, check my finance page for 10th time per day to see nothing has changed, all of which is somehow calming, and so on.
It also adds a new depth of interaction with the game itself and not just spending free time while buildings are producing on spreadsheets, which I personally gladly do, but still there's a problem of attention we need to redirect.
I realize this creates an incentive to be 24/7 on to not miss an event and get free stuff/bonuses. Which I purposely made up pretty weak, as illustration that the incentive could be not strong enough to make people stay up all day and night on their computer/phone in waiting for an event to get ahead of other people. A solution I suggest to combat this is simple — no notifications. So, if you so happen to be in the game and there's suddenly a little fun mini game to do to relax your mind cramps that we all probably sometimes have and get a little bonus for mastering the specific mini game I think it should enrich the gameplay and add an additional squeeze of dopamine we all love and long for.
As for the discouragement factor often found in similar solutions other games might have - it simply doesn't exist since there are no penalties to doing the mini game wrong. Actually there's a bonus - you get to train to do it so the next time it appears you can do better!
Suggestion:
Random optional timed mini games/events that have no effect if left unattended but have a slight bonus to production/sales/flat cash bonus if done successfully.
Example:
Requirements: any Retail building
Time limit: 1 hour
PA: Your store employee responsible for inventory and warehouse management made a mess of the paperwork and a customer of ours requested %product_name% that ended up seemingly blocked by other merchandise in the warehouse. And they need it soon or they'll leave. Do you think you can set free the requested goods?
>Let me show how it's done. Also fire the guy that did this.
(A little puzzle mini game starts, a variation of classic "move some crates blocking the path to exit for another crate you need". Can be randomly generated, to keep it fresh, with icons that are already in the game representing %product_name% on the playing field.)
(If completed successfully within a generous time limit the building gets 3%(?) of the current sale batch instantly completed, awarding instant cash that would have been made over the same time)
>Let him figure it out all by himself, so he will know not to take his responsibilities lightly.
(A small chance of a successful outcome.
If failed:
PA: The employee wasn't able to figure the blockage out in time and the customer left. Otherwise the operations continue as usual.
If successful:
PA: As the customer was heading for the door your employee, panting, approached him and handed him %product_name%. The customer was impressed by your employee's dedication and the deal happened.
You get a slightly better bonus boost since you left a good impression on the customer.)
Also there's always an option to ignore it, which has no drawbacks so if you're not available to play the game nothing bad happens.
Example 2:
Requirements: Restaurant
Time limit: 45 min
PA: Boss, bad news. Our celebrity guest cocktail artist is running late due to traffic and the first customer is already seated. Fortunately we have time before it is considered unprofessional to make them wait for a performance they booked in advance and they leave frustrated. Would you like to try to entertain them instead of the celebrity and keep them from leaving?
>You know, I actually was a bar man before I became an entrepreneur! Let me show you how it was done back in my day.
(A "Roostertail mixing" minigame appears. You are given a list of ingredients for a random client's order, and you can click/tap and hold the needed one that is also on the screen to add it to the measuring cup, which has notches for measurement, obviously, and is translucent so you can see how much you added, the longer you hold — the more you add. When you release the button/lift the finger off the screen it is inevitably added to the shaker. When you are happy with the result you also click/tap-hold the shaker to, well, shake, and a filling bar with a hotspot specific to that "Roostertail", so you have to stop shaking by releasing the button just when the bar is filled to the hotspot but hasn't passed it yet. The better you follow the "recipe", i.e. the closer the values of amounts of ingredients and shaking to the reference ones, the better fraction of a bonus you get, for example: 90-100% correct: 100% bonus, 70-89% correct: 75% bonus, 50-69% correct: 50% bonus, <50% no bonus. Bonuses can also be chosen at random from the pool, something like:
PA: You were successful in creating a perfect (100%) %Roostertail_name%, the customer was impressed and honored by the fact the owner of the establishment made him something himself. He leaves a generous tip and tells all his friends about this, boosting our customer per hour metric considerably since he was a restaurant critic under cover.
(You get $500 and an instant one time boost of 3% to sales.)
or
PA: You made a drink but that's it. It is drinkable but very far from the one your customer requested (50-69%). At least they got thirsty for more after it and got hammered that night, leaving lots of tips and orders. And broken glasses.
(You'd get $300 of additional revenue just from this customer, but unfortunately had to replace the glasses broken by the customer. You still get $150 though. You'll show them next time how great your drinks actually are!)
Or you can ignore it for the duration of the event and nothing happens, just as with retail.
Et cetera and so on, the possibilities are infinite both for the different buildings and different events for them.
The goal - what is the goal of this feature? Who is this feature for?
Short answer: The goal is to add additional gameplay for people who need it, me and people like me.
Long answer:
People who love spreadsheets but also have ADHD. If you're like me, setting your production orders and alarms on your phone to exact timing you'll lose your attention span at work and have to do something else, which for me is just logging on to SimCo and clicking all my buildings to collect stuff, look at it in the warehouse, set new alarms, check my finance page for 10th time per day to see nothing has changed, all of which is somehow calming, and so on.
It also adds a new depth of interaction with the game itself and not just spending free time while buildings are producing on spreadsheets, which I personally gladly do, but still there's a problem of attention we need to redirect.
I realize this creates an incentive to be 24/7 on to not miss an event and get free stuff/bonuses. Which I purposely made up pretty weak, as illustration that the incentive could be not strong enough to make people stay up all day and night on their computer/phone in waiting for an event to get ahead of other people. A solution I suggest to combat this is simple — no notifications. So, if you so happen to be in the game and there's suddenly a little fun mini game to do to relax your mind cramps that we all probably sometimes have and get a little bonus for mastering the specific mini game I think it should enrich the gameplay and add an additional squeeze of dopamine we all love and long for.
As for the discouragement factor often found in similar solutions other games might have - it simply doesn't exist since there are no penalties to doing the mini game wrong. Actually there's a bonus - you get to train to do it so the next time it appears you can do better!