DevLog #8 – From Playtest to Demo
The recent playtest has been an important step for Ghost Receipt. With the core systems now in place, development is shifting more toward balancing, bug fixing and preparing the game for its public demo and release.
Over the last weeks, I have been spending more time playing through the game as a complete experience rather than developing individual systems in isolation.
That has helped expose smaller problems that are difficult to notice while building features separately.
The current focus is simple:
Make the existing game more stable, improve progression and prepare the first public demo.
Playtest Progress
The Steam Playtest allowed me to test the current gameplay loop in a more complete environment.
This includes:
running the grocery store,
ordering and stocking products,
serving customers,
negotiating pawn deals,
examining suspicious items,
managing the shop,
and progressing through the early story.
At this stage, I am intentionally avoiding large new systems.
Most of the major mechanics already exist.
The priority now is making sure they work well together.
Bug Fixing and Stability
A large part of recent development has therefore been focused on smaller bugs and edge cases.
Systems that work perfectly during normal development can behave very differently once an entire in-game day is played from beginning to end.
Recent work has included fixes and improvements related to:
shop interactions,
item handling,
cleaning and store maintenance,
customer behaviour,
progression,
save and load behaviour,
and general gameplay flow.
Many of these changes are small individually, but together they make the game feel much more reliable.
That is especially important now that development is moving closer to public builds.
Balancing the Store
Balancing has also become a larger focus.
The grocery store needs to provide enough income to support the player without making money meaningless.
Pawn deals should offer larger opportunities, but they should also carry more uncertainty and risk.
At the same time, progression needs to happen at a pace that feels rewarding without unlocking everything too quickly.
I have been adjusting areas such as:
grocery income,
product prices,
customer demand,
pawn item values,
store upgrades,
and general progression speed.
The goal is not to make every day perfectly predictable.
I want the player to gradually become more comfortable running the store while still having reasons to make difficult decisions.
Reputation Progression
Reputation is one of the systems currently receiving additional balancing.
It influences how the business develops and what kinds of opportunities can eventually appear.
Early progression needs to feel noticeable, but it should not happen so quickly that new products and opportunities lose their value.
The current balancing pass is therefore looking at how reputation is earned through normal store activity and how quickly new parts of the business become available.
Progression should feel like something the player builds over time rather than something that happens automatically after only a few transactions.
Preparing the Demo
The next major milestone is the public Steam demo.
The demo will focus on the early days of the game and introduce the main gameplay loop:
operating the grocery store,
managing money and stock,
meeting pawn customers,
examining unusual objects,
and slowly discovering that something larger is happening in Neo Haven.
I do not want the demo to show everything.
Instead, the goal is to let players become comfortable with the shop, begin building their business and then reach the point where the larger mystery is starting to unfold.
The demo should end while the player still wants to know what happens next.
That means some systems, items, customers and story developments will remain reserved for the full game.
What Comes Next
Development is now entering a much more focused phase.
Instead of continuously expanding the scope, I am concentrating on the parts of the game that already exist:
polishing interactions,
improving stability,
balancing progression,
refining the early story,
and preparing Ghost Receipt for more players.
There is still work to do, but the game is increasingly being tested as a complete experience rather than a collection of individual systems.
And that is an exciting point to reach.
The store is running.
The pawn counter is open.
And the first strange pieces of Neo Haven's larger story are beginning to appear.
Ghost Receipt is currently in development.
Run a cyberpunk grocery store and pawn shop, negotiate with customers, examine suspicious objects and uncover the mysteries hidden behind everyday transactions.
A public Steam demo is currently in preparation. Wishlist Ghost Receipt on Steam to follow development and be notified when it becomes available.