v0.1.3 is now available!
The biggest addition in this update is the new Music Player system. You can now listen to your own music from your computer through speakers inside your store with a real 3D audio system, and customize the sound to your preference with the Equalizer.
Alongside this, employee target-reaching behavior has been made more player-friendly again, empty pallets can now be stacked, a new in-game Report a Bug system has been added, the total employee capacity has been increased, and several requests from the community have been implemented.
As always, I continue to closely follow the feedback you send through Steam, Discord, Public Tests, and in-game bug reports. Many of the changes in this update were made directly based on your feedback. Thank you for your support. ❤️
Music Player: You can now play your own MP3 music from your computer directly in the game. Music is heard in 3D through speakers placed inside your store.
Equalizer: Equalizer support has been added to the Music Player. You can fine-tune the sound yourself or use one of the 11 built-in presets.
Pallet Stacking: Based on player requests, empty pallets can now be stacked manually. You can create stacks of up to 6 pallets.
Report a Bug: You can now submit much more detailed bug reports directly from inside the game.
Truck Horn: Based on player feedback, the truck horn can now be disabled from the settings.
The new Music Player was not designed as a simple background music player. Your music actually comes from speakers inside the game world and changes dynamically depending on your surroundings.
The game automatically creates a Home Store Simulator > Music folder inside your Windows Documents folder.
To use your own music, simply place your MP3 files inside this Music folder. The Music Player scans this folder and lists supported songs in your music library.
You can use the "Open Music Folder" option inside the Music Player to open this folder directly. After adding or removing songs, use the "Rescan" button to refresh your music library.
If your music is stored in another folder, you do not need to move the files. You can create a Windows shortcut to the folder containing your music and place that shortcut inside Home Store Simulator's Music folder. The Music Player will also scan supported music inside folders added this way.
Important: Individual music files cannot be added as shortcuts. If you want to use a shortcut, you must add a shortcut to the folder containing your music.
Only MP3 files are supported. Music files longer than 10 minutes will not be added to your music library.
While you are inside the store, music is heard directly from the speakers. When you move outside, walls and doors reduce the volume and filter high frequencies. When doors open, more sound reaches outside, and when they close, the music becomes quieter and more muffled again.
The way music is heard also changes dynamically as you move between the Store, Staff Room, Warehouse, and outdoor areas. The ambience system has been reworked in a similar way. Your current area and whether doors are open or closed also affect how environmental sounds are heard.
Speakers can be placed inside the Store and Staff Room. Speakers cannot be placed inside the Warehouse. This is an intentional design decision.
The number of speakers does not directly increase the volume. Placing many speakers next to each other in the same location will not make the music louder. Speakers are used to extend the coverage of the music. If you feel the music does not reach a certain part of your store well enough, you can place another speaker in that area.
The Music Player now includes full Equalizer support. You can adjust the frequencies yourself or choose from 11 different built-in presets.
Options such as Flat, Bass Boost, Deep Bass, Treble Boost, Vocal, Acoustic, Pop, Rock, Jazz, Classical, and Electronic let you quickly change the character of the music. You can also create your own custom Equalizer settings.
Especially if you have good headphones or a capable sound system, presets such as Bass Boost and Deep Bass can give bass-heavy tracks a much stronger punch. Of course, just like in real life, the final result still depends on the physical capabilities of your headphones or speakers.
One of the most important changes in v0.1.3 is the way employees reach their targets and complete their tasks.
Starting with v0.1.1, stricter accessibility rules were introduced before employees were allowed to complete their tasks. Although this system worked correctly in many situations, certain store layouts could cause Restockers or Unloaders to become stuck, repeatedly walk back and forth, or fail to complete their tasks.
I fixed most of these problems over time, but with the huge variety of store layouts created by different players, I found that similar issues could still occur in certain layouts.
Because I do not want these problems to continue affecting more players, only the employee target-reaching and task-completion logic has been returned to the more player-friendly system used during the first days of Early Access.
If an employee cannot reach the exact target position, they will now move as close as possible and complete the task from there.
In a normal store layout, you will usually not notice this behavior. Completing tasks from a distance generally only happens when access to an area is heavily obstructed or the employee's route has been completely blocked.
The entire employee system has not been reverted. Only the strict accessibility logic that was causing these problems has been changed. Other improvements and efficiency upgrades made to Restockers and Unloaders remain in place.
Making empty pallets easier to manage was one of the requests I received from the community, and that feature is now in the game. ❤️
Empty pallets can now be stacked manually by hand, with up to 6 pallets in a single stack.
After stacking the pallets by hand, you can move the entire stack together using a Pallet Jack, Electric Pallet Jack, Forklift, or another suitable fork-based vehicle.
This allows you to keep your empty pallets neatly organized or move the entire stack to the Loading Dock at once, making returns much easier.
This feature was added directly because of player feedback. I will continue reading your suggestions and considering ideas that fit Home Store Simulator.
v0.1.3 introduces a new in-game Report a Bug system.
When you experience a problem, you can press F8 to take a screenshot and attach your latest screenshot to your bug report.
A bug report submitted from inside the game provides me with much more technical information than a normal message sent through Discord or Steam.
Through this system, I can inspect your save file, log file, system specifications, and FPS-related performance information. This makes it much easier to investigate issues that only occur with certain save files or hardware configurations.
Your Steam username is visible in the report. You can also optionally add your Discord username so I can contact you more easily if I need additional information.
If a more complicated problem requires a video, you can record the issue, upload the video to a third-party service such as Google Drive, and add a publicly accessible link to the report.
Thanks to the bug reports you submit, I can directly load and play affected save files and test the problem in your actual game situation. This system has already been extremely useful during development.
I continue trying to bring player feedback directly into the game whenever possible.
Empty pallets can now be stacked up to 6 high.
The truck horn can now be enabled or disabled from Settings > Gameplay using the "Enable Truck Horn" option.
Just like you can enable or disable Shoplifters, you can now decide whether you want the truck horn enabled in your own game.
Employee Capacity: The total number of employees you can hire has been increased to 20.
v0.1.3 also includes additional fixes for various minor bugs, employee-related issues, and general quality-of-life problems reported by players.
The new Report a Bug system will also allow me to identify problems more quickly in future updates, directly inspect affected save files, and better evaluate performance data across different systems.
I am especially interested in hearing what you think about the new Music Player, 3D audio system, and Equalizer. I would love to hear how it feels to listen to your own music inside your store and your feedback about the system.
If you experience a bug, I strongly recommend using the in-game Report a Bug system whenever possible. Reports submitted this way provide me with much more information and help me investigate the problem much more effectively.
Thank you for continuing to share your suggestions, bug reports, Public Test feedback, and support. ❤️
And an additional thank you to everyone who purchased Home Store Simulator and supported the project. It genuinely means a lot to me.