A whole day at the shop (and a clock that runs by itself)

Last time I signed off hoping I would have more than one customer to tell you about. This morning I can report back: three groups came in — and they did not simply come in and stand about, either. The shop now has a "day" of its own.

⏰ The clock runs by itself for the first time

Up to now the shop's "day" was two buttons — press to start, press to finish, and the day lasted however long the mood took me. Not any more. There is a real clock up in the top left corner now, ticking away the whole time. (The rate is exactly what you would expect from a game of this sort — one hour inside the game runs for about forty real seconds.)

In the morning the shop is still shut, so we can wander about setting the menu and stocking the cupboards at our leisure. Only when 10:00 comes round will the "Open shop" button let itself be pressed. And from that point onwards the customers walk in of their own accord, one after another, for as long as there is a free table — nobody has to conjure them up one at a time any more.

🌆 The shop's evening has a rhythm of its own

At half past six in the evening the shop stops taking new customers (regulars of the Stardew sort will know that rhythm well). At seven the shop closes — but anyone still sitting there eating gets to finish, and nobody is thrown out. Only when the last customer gets up and leaves, with the shop genuinely empty, does the "settling up" happen: the day's money, which has been lying in the till, flows into our wallet, and the day-summary card springs up — today, 3 groups · 3 dishes · ฿75.

Yes — during the day the customers' money does not go straight into our pocket. It goes into the shop's till first, and only transfers across in one go at closing. A small detail, and it is what gives the end of the day the genuine feeling of cashing up.

🌅 The second morning

Wake up to a new day and every button explains itself — at eight in the morning the open-shop button tells you quietly that "the shop opens at 10:00", and the skip-the-day button says "too early". No button goes silent on you when pressed any more. We test all of this in co-op on two screens, mind you — the friend who comes into the shop sees the same clock ticking, the same summary card, the same single pile of money.

👁️ The bug not one of our instruments could see

The aside for this entry — on the first test round our automated checks passed every single item, green the whole way down. But when we opened up the screenshot from the "friend's" side and looked at it with our eyes, the day-summary card was saying it had transferred ฿0 — while the shop owner's side said ฿75. The cause was two pieces of data arriving across the network a split second apart, with the card taking its snapshot of the figures just that little bit too early. It was fixed within the hour, but the lesson has a much longer life: an instrument saying it passed is not yet the same thing as an eye seeing that it is right. So our team now has a rule that every single image passes a human eye first.

🔨 So what comes next?

Something big — now that the shop has a day of its own, the next chapter is the thing a great many people (ourselves very much included) have been waiting for most: the full shop-decorating system. Placing furniture more freely, rotating it more finely, painting floors and walls, changing the windows and doors, expanding the shop — and two or three more things we are keeping back as a surprise. The plan is spread out on the table already, and I will keep coming back to tell you how far along it has got.

See you in the next entry — the shop really is becoming more of a shop every day. 🐈☕