Suggestions Box (Jun 2016)

Every month I list five things I'd like to see added, altered or abolished from the game. Because even though my long time of playing Restaurant Story clearly shows I love it, that doesn't mean it's perfect. Some of the ideas I'll air will be significant game changers while others will be low-key and irrelevant in the eyes of many of you readers.

You can share your own suggestions too via the comments. If I like them, I may even include them in the next instalment!

In no particular order, here are this month's entries...

 #166: Increase box odds for limited time

With Value Packs seemingly discontinued for those players on iOS devices, I've been thinking about new promotions that Storm8 could offer. And one that came to mind is a limited time change in the odds for boxes.

The probabilities of gaining a 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th prize at present is reported to be 54%, 35%, 10% and 1% respectively. For a short period the gamemakers could give the players an edge with odds of, for example, 40%, 45%, 10% and 5%. This would really build some much needed excitement around the crates, which have long since lost their appeal for a lot of players.

The result of such reinvigorated players? More revenue for Storm8. There's no doubt in my mind that the game's developers would enjoy a spike in income from purchases of gems with real money as users go all out to get the coveted prizes.

And there's a few ways of going about implementing such a special deal. It could be a single box every week or two, or maybe even a flash odds change on all the boxes for just a few hours at a time. By executing such a short term deal at different times to give all time zones a fair shot at catching an odds boost, this could really create a buzz!

 #167: Add more host stands

I don't think there are enough host stands in the game. To date there have been nine introduced, with only one diverting from the traditional shape, that being the Cash Register. On the face of it nine host stands may seem like plenty, but when you consider the lifetime of the game this is actually really low.

Host stands to have appeared in Restaurant Story

I'm calling on the gamemakers to design and release some new host stands. If nothing else, just some re-renders of the standard style with different colours would be nice. This would allow host stands to fit in with the surrounding decor much more often. There were a few occasions during my Mad Chemist and Lab Assistant tale that this wasn't possible, and it is frustrating.

Ideally some completely new designs would be added too. The introduction of the Cash Register was met with universal approval, and I think Storm8 would definitely see increased customer satisfaction (both from the players and their diners' bots!) if they were to do so.

 #168: Introduce player statistics

Back in April 2015 I suggested introducing a display of player statistics similar to what we have in the sequel game, Restaurant Story 2. This idea goes further than that, and is based on a concept from regular contributor The Red Chair.

I'd like to see some numbers on each player which are useful for determining the style of game each plays. This would be really handy for working out whether a potential new neighbour is compatible - we've all got different styles of play, and sometimes contradicting styles can lead to neighbours not cooperating on a gaming level.

So what stats would help achieve this? Well, we could get a good grasp on how much a player likes to visit others with a count of the total number of neighbour and community visits. Likewise a total tip count would give an impression of how much a player actually stops at other restaurants, as opposed to simply eatery surfing (it does happen!) The level of actual player interaction could be measured by tallying up the number of wall posts made. And the most common gift sent could be useful too for indicating whether a player tends to gift parts or food more regularly.

What would be important with the numerical facts here is that they are not only displayed as totals but also on a per day basis. This would allow newer players to be compared fairly with older players. And I stress this is all designed to help with neighbour selection - it's not something I'm keen to see used a pedestal upon which players look to pip all others. I like how there's not a competitive element to the game like this, and wouldn't want to change it!

 #169: Add more balloon designs

Here's another entry regarding the lack of variety of a certain decoration. When I was doing up The Garlic Tree for the finale of the Chemist and Cat's adventure and wanted to make use of some balloons, I found that the options were limited. There are only two balloon decorations currently available freely in the market - the Balloons (keeping it simple with the name there!) cost gems, leaving the Carnival Balloons as my choice.

Carnival Balloons in The Garlic Tree

But for my purposes the Carnival Balloons didn't look great. The white base really stood out like a sore thumb against the dark surfaces all around, and as a result I was left feeling a little disappointed.

So let's have some new balloon designs. We need some new styles of base, but also some variety with regards to the types and colours of the balloons themselves. They could be moulded for different special occasions throughout the year, and in many cases, a recolouring might be all that's necessary, so this doesn't have to be a great deal of work for the game's developers.

Moving into a fantasy world, we could even have a feature allowing players to customise balloons to match the surrounding environment. Now that would be revolutionary!

 #170: Fix the resetting tick bug

This is a glitch I've been dealing with for a very long time. When using the 'gift back' button to send a gift, the player the button was associated with is placed at the top of your list of neighbours in the checklist. In addition their box is automatically ticked.

 Previous Suggestion Box posts

 14/05/16 May 2016
 16/04/16 April 2016
 26/03/16 March 2016
 20/02/16 February 2016
 23/01/16 January 2016

But I tend to use the gift back button as a shortcut for gifting individuals instead of going through the Social section (at least now that that bug has been fixed!) and something strange happens if you quickly untick the player at the top and tick someone else. The game almost resets, with the original selection returned.

This is somewhat frustrating as it leads to me having to scroll back up to the top of the checklist and repeat the action of unselecting the automatically ticked player before moving back down in search of the player I actually want to gift. So take a look at this Storm8, I need it sorted!