Daily Update - September 5th, 2025

Hi all! Today's progress was mostly focused on preparing the Steam demo. Part of that work was allowing characters to have variable game-lengths associated with them, and a bit of playtesting/balancing the new demo character.

Getting variable amounts of weeks, days per week, and events per week wasn't too tricky from an under the hood data perspective, but the calendar was a bit hard-coded to always be a certain size, so there was a lot of UI fiddling to make the calendar UI a bit more flexible. Now, if you're playing a character that has a short Run, your Calendar should scale down to fit the lower number of days and weeks in your Run.

Oh yeah, there's a new character! The Part-Timer! When you play as the Part-Timer, you get a slightly better starting Customer Base, a more varied starting Daily Inventory, and start with the Glowing Orb to expose you to a bunch of random tactics. Additionally, the Part-Timer plays a very abbreviated version of the full game - you only need to pass 2 full weeks, and your weeks are only 5 days long with a single Relax day. The intention is to provide a more condensed version of a full game with a bit of a kickstart and reduced difficulty to get you excited for the full game. The part-timer's going to be the only playable character in the demo, but here on itch, they're just part of the crew now! I think keeping the part-timer as a short game option for players that want a shorter experience is a fun idea.

Also, speaking of reduced difficulty, I've added an easy mode to the game! In this mode, you start with a pretty discounted starting Rent payment, so you should have some more room to get your run going. You don't get any extra Quest or Achievements for playing this difficulty, but it's there if you want a more forgiving experience.

On the art front, _Jenbarb wrapped up the last of the Shelf art assets today! That means we're down to just the sales desk decorations, and then we'll have all but a few minor assets fully implemented! Woohoo! Here's a few more shelves to wet your whistle.

Solid productivity for a day when Silsong's just taunting me in my steam library, haha. Here's the changelog for the day:

Changelog (0.20.3)

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• New Shopkeeper: Added a new playable character. The Part-Timer! He's got a slightly improved starting daily inventory, starts with the Glowing Orb decoration, and only plays 2 weeks of 5 days instead of 4 weeks of 7.
• New Difficulty: Outpost. Weekly starting Rent is lower than Base difficulty ($650)
• Gameplay: If playing a character with a shorter week, Starting Rent now begins lower.
• Art: Added art for the Pantry Shelf, Card Cabinet, Little Library, Trophy Case, Menacing Shelves, Weaponsmith's Exhibit, and Potion Dispenser decorations.
• UI: Various adjustments to allow for shorter games while playing as the Part-Timer
• Bugfix: Fixed rerolling options in the Supply Shoppe sometimes not marking customers as too expensive
• Bugfix: Fixed locked tactics not being clickable in the compendium in some cases

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