Hello and Happy Midsummer! We’re back from our vacation in Spain and have returned to the coding dungeon. The trip was very nice and we’ve managed to collect alot of inspiration and material from the two airport visits (Copenhagen and Alicante) we had to make. This weekend has, for Swedes at least, consisted of celebrating midsummer and so we’ve hade quite a long weekend which is also the reason to why this week’s development blog is a bit late (midsummer requires a lot of schnapps).

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Bathroom zones

Since the number of buildable items we’ve implemented is outgrowing the UI we’ve made some improvements for interacting with the build panel. A scrollbar has been added and players’ can now search within the panel for different items. If you for example want to find a toilet you simply search for “toilet” and the relevant item is presented, if you want to see items related to bathroom you simply search for “bathroom” (or if you want items related to an employee type, “janitors” displays a trashcan, for example). We’re using a tag system in order to make things as easy as possible for the player when building rooms and infrastructure alike and since the number of items in the first early-access version with all likelihood will be quite a few, it is important that this system works well.

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Franchises

Another thing that we’ve started working on is the concept of franchises. Moving on from bathroom zones, the next step is implementing shops. Our ambition for the first version of this system is to allow the player to build and fully customize each shop (consisting of one shop zone) by building cash registers and different shelves. Once a shop has been constructed, the player can accept contracts with different franchises who want to purchase an area within your airport. Franchises come in several different classes from small to big and from cheap to exclusive. Each franchise will have different requirements and so for example a big franchise will require a larger shop (the area in square feet of shop zone), a specific number of shelves or cash registers. Once the player has accepted a contract with its assigned shop zone the shelves in that area will be filled with items related to the type of business the franchise is involved with and employees employed by the franchise will arrive to your airport for work – once everything is up and running your passengers will visit the shop, walk around and purchase items. Contracts will include a number of different variables such as those mentioned (square feet, items) but also the agreed-upon rent, possible percentage cut from purchases and similar. We’d love to hear your thoughts on how you would like to interact with the businesses that reside in your airport!

In additional news we want to give a shoutout and a huge thanks to all of you who have voted for Airport CEO on the Steam Greenlight Concept page. The game is currently ranked as the top 86th 83rd game out of 2300 titles which is truly amazing and gives great hope for the real Greenlight Campaign. Your support is as always humbling and it is only with your help that we’ll be able to bring this game to Steam!

Steaming ahead without interruptions like vacations and holidays it is now time to really start progressing. See you soon!