Farming System
8 months ago – Thu, Aug 24, 2023 at 08:19:07 PM

Hey chefs! We have been hard at work implementing some new systems into Chef RPG, and are excited to share what we have worked on over the past 2 months. After receiving a lot of feedback from alpha testers, one challenge encountered by players who progressed further was the difficulty of collecting additional ingredients to sustain a larger restaurant. In this update, a farming system has been developed, which gives players an additional method of gathering veggies and fruits.

Farming Design

For now, farming will be contained to inside April’s Greenhouse. There is a limited amount of space in the greenhouse, forcing players to be selective about which crops to  grow to supplement their menu, rather than growing ingredients to sell to shops. We want to design farming to feel optional, so you only feel the need to pursue farming for certain builds. For example, you will get the most out of the greenhouse if you want to run a vegan restaurant or a fruit cocktail pub.

Growing Plants

Seeds should be planted on the ground and watered each day to grow a plant. After a few days, the crop will be fully grown, at which you will be able to harvest its ingredients. There are three plant types: regular plants that disappear after harvesting, and bushes and trees that you can harvest multiple times.

Clearing Plants

To remove a plant, we added a spade tool to dig up the plant patch. Removing plant patches can reward you with seeds, as well as plant roots, which can be given to NPCs to craft special items.

Flexibility & Design

The greenhouse is designed within a buildable grid system, which allows you to place furniture as well. To place furniture on soil, you must first place a floor tile to cover the soil. You can combine plants and furniture to design your ideal greenhouse space.

Brewing Updates

On another note, we’ve made a few more updates to the brewing system. More alcohol items have been added, including Cachaca (Brazil), Raki (Turkey), BaiJiu (China), Brandy (made from wine), and Mead (made from honey). In the final game, these new alcohols might not be used as ingredients in cooking, but can still be sold to shops for a good profit, or gifted to certain NPCs.

A brewing recipe page has been added as well. After a successful brew, the alcohol’s brewing process will be displayed on this page. It is accessible from any brewing machine so you won’t need to memorize all of the steps.

New Maps

Finally, we have started work on creating Billboard City, as well as finishing up the remaining interiors in White Ash Harbor. To avoid spoilers, we won’t be revealing any info about Billboard City in the near future. For now, here is a sneak peek of a new interior in White Ash Harbor.

Note To Alpha Testers*

Both the brewing and farming systems have not been patched into the alpha version yet. We will release a big patch in a couple of weeks containing the two systems, along with gameplay balances, bug fixes, new interior maps, and new items.

Farming Devlog

That’s it for now! If you wish to check out an in-depth development log detailing the design of the farming system, check out the latest video here:

Brewing System
11 months ago – Sat, Jun 17, 2023 at 09:08:00 PM

Hey Chefs! We hope you have been having a great summer! It’s been a crazy few months as we have been mostly been focused on releasing the alpha, and making various bug fixes and improvements based on player feedback.

Now that the alpha is off the ground, we have begun jumping back into creating new features for Chef RPG. The first of these features is a brewing system. You will be able to craft your own alcohols inside your restaurant or your home. These alcohols can then be used for various recipes in your dishes, or directly sold to shops for a profit.

The first step of the brewing process is actually acquiring the machines themselves. After thinking of several options, we decided to implement a furniture crafting system that allows the character Bianca to craft special pieces of furniture by providing her materials and credits.

The acquired brewing machines can be placed inside any buildable room. There are five different machines, each representing a different part of the brewing process. Brewing alcohols involve 3 steps, and the first step is the most important, since it will decide which ingredients you use, and what alcohol you wish to brew.

2 Cozy/Chill brewing UIs were created to guide you through this first step. A boiler/steamer is used to prepare most alcohols like Beer, Whisky, Vodka, Sake etc. A fruit press is used to make wines and ciders.

The second and third step of the process is simpler, and requires you to only input the previous brewing product into the machine. After a few hours, the resulting brewing product or alcohol item will be created.

Brewing, along with Greenhouse Farming (coming soon), and the Fishing Platform (coming soon), are important features that allows players to acquire certain ingredients at a faster rate, to match the growth of your restaurants. Let us know if you have more recommendations for staple alcohols from different cultures!

*** FOR ALPHA TESTERS : Please note that the brewing system has NOT been patched into the alpha version of the game yet. We will release one big update that contains the completed brewing and greenhouse farming system in a few months.

That’s for now! We hope you enjoy your summer and we will be back with more updates once we have more new features to show! If you want to check out the process for designing the brewing system, check out the latest Youtube Devlog here:

 Chef RPG Devlog #9 

ALPHA ROADMAP
about 1 year ago – Tue, Apr 18, 2023 at 01:50:57 PM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

CHEF RPG ALPHA IS HERE!
about 1 year ago – Fri, Apr 07, 2023 at 04:05:13 AM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

ALPHA DATE, FISHING, QUALITY OF LIFE UPDATES
about 1 year ago – Wed, Mar 22, 2023 at 03:51:34 PM

Hey Chefs! We are back with another update on what we have worked on over the past 2 months.

ALPHA - APRIL 6

First off, we would like to apologize for the delays with the alpha. Since this is a passion project, we don’t want to release something that we are not quite happy with, even if it’s the first alpha. Since this is a long project, we are constantly learning new things, and our standards change over time. Because of this, we regularly improve old work and add new features that were previously unplanned, resulting in an extended development time. The good news is that the alpha has more content and is more polished than what was originally planned when we started this Kickstarter.

At this point, we are just adding some missing sound effects and doing the final polish and bug fixing. The Alpha will be available April 6, for PC and Mac, and requires a mouse to play. Currently, the game will not work for Steam Deck and does not have controller support. Steam keys will be sent out to your email along with further information on that date. We are really looking forward to having you guys try the game out!

Fishing

We have finished implementing the fishing Minigame. To fish in Chef RPG, equip the rod and stand facing a body of water. Cast out your line, and wait for a fish to bite. When a fish bites, a white ring will appear in the water. The goal of the minigame is to pull the fish toward the inside of the ring, while the fish tries to swim away. Your Gathering skill level and the quality of the fishing rod will determine your pulling power. The higher level of the fish, the harder it is to catch.

NEW INTRO SCENE

A new intro scene has been added to give a better introduction to the story. Without spoiling too much, here is a sneak peek of the new intro.

SEASON SELECTION

Before you set out on your journey, you can choose which season you wish to begin. We thought this feature would give a bit more variety to the early gameplay – depending on which season you select; you will have access to different animals and harvestable plants. This choice will not impact the gameplay in the long run.

NEW BEACH AREA & RANDOMLY SPAWNING ITEMS

We’ve added a tourist beach area in the South-East corner of the game world. Many NPCs wander this area, and you can often find the main characters hanging around this spot. A new item respawn system has been added to the game, so now you can pick up various objects around the beach like seaweed, clams, and some rare shells that can be sold for a big profit. Every item has a respawn timer and has a chance to respawn after a certain amount of time.

DAILY TASK REWARDS

Completing daily tasks will reward you with a variety of items, ranging from equipment to recipes, to ingredients. The more difficult the task, the better the reward. Rewards are randomized and you have a small chance of collecting a higher-level reward with each job.

QUALITY OF LIFE FEATURES ===================================

After some testing, we found that one of the biggest challenges with developing a game is easing new players in and getting them familiar with the controls and rules. The following are some quality-of-life features to make jumping into the game easier.

MINIGAME TUTORIALS

Every cooking minigame now has a tutorial screen that pops up when you play a minigame for the first time. The tutorial can be reopened at any time with the click of a button.

INFORMATION TABS

Collecting items, completing tasks or failing tasks will activate an information tab on the side of the screen. Before, you would have to open the main menu to see if a quest has been updated or find out which item was picked up.

SMART FURNITURE PLACEMENT

In restaurants, a smart furniture placement feature has been added to the build mode, where it notifies you if a primary piece of furniture (appliance, fridge, chair, table) is obstructed. This will prevent furniture placements that break the game – if a chef or wait cannot reach their target destination.

FORCE CLOSE RESTAURANT

Previously, to end the restaurant service, you would have to close the restaurant and wait for all guests to have their courses served and have finished eating. We felt it would be useful to add a force close button, which forces all customers to immediately leave the restaurant. It’s a useful ability if you are in a hurry,  but guests will not be happy and you will suffer a profit and reputation penalty.

That’s it for now! After the alpha, there is some exciting work coming up. We will also continue to update the alpha for a few months with more polish and some additional content. We look forward to revealing more of Chef RPG in the near future!