This month, we redid the shop screen's visual aesthetic, and refined a bunch of things under the hood.. The stylizing of these two screens was the easy part, the difficulties came from reworking some logic.

Shopping has now been split into two screens, "Ana's Supply Depot." and "Wright's Emporium." 

New Shops

Salesman W.G. Wright's store replaces Len's, run by a slightly shady-looking guy who likes to repeat the adage of "no refunds." He doesn't like to talk much about his past, but he will say he hails from a dark place that reeks of "rose and ash." Whatever world he used to hail from  is, for one reason or another, one he can't return to.

Wright's store has things like consumable healing items, skill books, and gifts to give workers.

The other side of shopping, the general supplies store, is run by a mouthy sphinx named Ana. She is similarly stubborn about not offering refunds, though she is at least cute. She has a complex about her meager height of 4'9".

Ana and Wright seem to have a long-standing feud over the territory their stores occupy, previously occupied by a rep from Chimera Co. , but that's none of your business, as the player.

Reworked Systems

We went ahead and reworked the set-up screen. It's still got a lot of placeholder elements, but it's already closer to what we hope the final version will look like.

Scheduling takes place at the beginning of the week via a drag-and-drop interface. Depending on the contract, workers' availability may be limited. Plan carefully, so that you don't have any holes in coverage.

The player can now sort item types both in their inventory, as well as during shopping. We reworked the way this works under the hood by reworking item resources into different classes, as opposed to running a tedious logic check that combs through item IDs and manually checking.

Much smoother and less stress on performance, as well as being more modular (new types of items can be added later, if needed).

Buffs have been added, as well as status ailments. Both conditions will vanish at the end of the night, but if they aren't handled before then, they can have long-term malignant effects.

Status Ailments

Nausea- The game's equivalent of "poison." Worker VIT will be drained at a higher rate. Healing items lose effectiveness. If nausea isn't treated immediately, a worker may become sick and forfeit the remainder of her shift.

Drowsy- A worker may fall asleep during her shift, angering the customer and earning no GP at all. Certain character traits can make a worker immune to this effect.

Wounded- Light knicks and scrapes from rough-housing may cause this ailment. VIT will drain faster, and EXP growth is penalized

Buffs

Lucky- Gain extra GP and EXP in random spurts.

DEF+ - Take VIT damage at a slower rate.

Scented- Customers are more satisfied with the service they receive.

New items

White Herb- Cures the "Nausea" status.

Red Herbal Tea- Cures a "Drowsy" status.

Bandage- Cures the "wounded" status.

Secret Scent Number Nine- A perfume that gives a worker that "Scented" status. SKL and SLU workers gain a moderate boost to GP/EXP, while CLS workers receive a significant boost.

Dragonbalm Ointment- A topical ointment that causes a worker to incur less stress during the night shift.

Pipkin Charm- A charm shaped like a lucky rabbit's foot. The worker will gain more EXP in random bursts throughout the work night.

Other Changes

Another addition to the game is the ability to sell items. This is a no-brainer. In the original prototype, the player could buy new items but had no ability to sell unwanted ones. The player may acquire items that they later no longer need, and can sell them back to Wright and the Supplies Inc for a portion of the original sale price. As quest items are technically consumed on use, the player does not have to worry about a bunch of these cluttering their inventory.

Final Thoughts

The contents of this dev log don't cover all the ground we covered through September, but it covers all of the important parts. As always, there's a massive list of tiny fixes that were made that are just too numerous to list.

Feel free to follow the SFW and spicy Twitter accounts or join up on Discord to give your support, if you like how things are coming along. Or, if you're feeling extra generous, consider subscribing on Patreon or SS.

See you next month.