Steam Next Fest wrap-up! Future optimization plans

First of all, thank you SO much everyone! During Steam Next Fest, Taste of the Wind received over 5,500 wishlists! For a small indie game with no publisher, where all content except music was created by me alone, averaging 800 wishlists per day with one day even reaching 1,200+—this result truly surprised and delighted me!

I've also noticed that many streamers, content creators, and players have been spontaneously playing and recommending Taste of the Wind. Thank you so much for your efforts! orz

I received tons of feedback and suggestions! Let me summarize everyone's thoughts and the optimization list I'll be working on:

The first thing I need to do is, of course, optimize the guidance content!

• The work minigame has a question mark hover tooltip in the top right corner. I'll change this to a more complete minigame tutorial when clicked. (I received lots of feedback about the minigame being confusing)

• I noticed during many streams that after going to a location once and finding no direct story, players might not return. I've changed it so the first visit doesn't return to Taste of the Wind after the location introduction story ends, but lets you continue choosing to randomly explore, etc. (except May Day Square)

• Regarding difficulty, I already decided during beta testing to add a Story Mode (cheat mode), but many people were still deterred by difficulty this time. Not everyone accepts story mode—they want to achieve it themselves. I'll either add a Simple Mode/Exploration Mode. The current mode should be renamed Business Mode, so Exploration Mode would have much less business pressure—just advancing dates + what you get from exploration directly increases income without needing to think about market and business operations.

• I'll also change investments from being unlocked in June to letting you choose whether to enable investments by going to May Day Square to apply for "Investment Qualification." If you're not interested, the investment module won't open—out of sight, out of mind haha!

• And at the very beginning, I'll add a more specific introduction to how to make money, i.e., the supply system. (But the current tutorial is already quite long and already gradually unlocks features (investments, going out, new employees & R&D all come later). If the tutorial is too long, it might be counterproductive. I'm wondering whether to purely explain through dialogue with Yun or add a few more images to the opening tutorial?) More suggestions on this are very welcome!!!

  

Next, I'll make some detailed improvements based on feedback!

• Categories and feedback have actually been revised several times. But the actual gameplay experience might feel completely different—like every half month you get 5 stamina points, and the story spans 5 years so there's actually quite a lot of stamina. (Currently the full version's first playthrough is already at least 8h+...

• Some players casually spend stamina—I want to check out this location, I want to talk to employees, I want to learn knowledge, I want to bond! Some players might pursue the challenge of making money more, so they'd spend all stamina on money-making activities, like maybe grinding recipes, grinding things that might increase supply, etc. But the latter, if played more functionally, especially with the "one million" loan hanging over their head, might feel very stressed/not get direct feedback.

• I'll provide more guidance on this part and add more subsequent feedback. For example, learning knowledge won't just be for players to gain knowledge & ending-related stuff, but will also trigger chain events. Like after Feng learns to make Tomato Eggs, Feng can make Tomato Eggs—anyway, hoping to increase everyone's sense of achievement like "hehe, I turned the restaurant around!"

• Some friends suggested that besides waiting during work shifts, we could add a section for collecting small tips —customers randomly leave tips on tables you can collect, or fires break out that you can manually extinguish, etc. (interacting within the work animation, not as separate random events). This is a great suggestion, I'm stealing it hehe!

• I also have some new considerations for the work section—although decoration affects the work background, I could add other switchable scenes like kitchen/accounting area. Then the kitchen has a cooking minigame, and if you never go to the kitchen, the cooking minigame won't trigger.

• Regarding work section random events, many players gave positive feedback/thought it was good at first but felt repetitive later. Of course the demo doesn't have many, but the full version will have MANY MORE random events (including some tied to stats & choices), don't worry meow! Most content also has well-implemented skip functions—skipping/failing at most means no reward, there's absolutely no punishment.

• Regarding art, although most think it's great, I'll refine some individual pieces. Many people gave feedback that the cleaning game during work shifts is hard to see what's dirty due to art style— this will be redrawn! Of course NPCs will have more portraits, and different restaurant backgrounds when scouting competitors... though it's quite a lot, since I draw fast, I should probably draw one for each restaurant!

• Also, some friends made suggestions about late game—these are in my plans! Don't worry, whether you pay off the loan early or don't pay it off, my plan is that your choices will subtly lead to major branches and endings—both paths have branches later.

• And more and more content I'll think about and optimize as I continue development...

Process of localization:

I'm also actively optimizing the localization content. Currently, I'm working on improvements to UI elements and recipe names, among other things. I'll gradually roll out these localization updates!

Some players have also reported issues such as screen flickering or being unable to launch the game. I'm actively working on resolving these as well!

Taste of the Wind might not be mature or perfect enough, but since it's my first work, I'll carefully polish it and nurture this "child" through to release and post-launch support. Thank you to all players who've played Taste of the Wind ：）

Although my focus will be on full version development, the demo will also slowly get optimization updates. Feel free to play anytime！

Regular shout-out for Discord community: https://discord.gg/N5fGxTUqQY

Regular shout-out for bug & suggestion feedback list: [Tencent Docs] Taste of the Wind Demo Feedback Form : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rEToo2t5VO5hqPJYIg6cDGHs_rlPd6AyyT-sqbGsb6E/edit?usp=sharing

Thank you for your continued support of Taste of the Wind!