Devlog #1 — Design Specification

Topic

The game is a narrative-driven shop simulator inspired by Coffee Talk, Potion Craft and Strange Horticulture, where the player runs a herb and tea shop. The player interacts via UI panels: dialogues, ingredient mixing, shop management. 

Visual 

• 3D scene with mostly 2D elements (hand-drawn pixel art).
• Implement post-processing: bloom, vignette, color grading.
• Use Shader Graph for a custom steam/wisp shader: animated vertex offset + alpha fade to reinforce brewing action.
• UI layout built using UI Toolkit (UIDocument + USS). 
• Layout is responsive: anchor and scale rules adapt for 1920×1080 (desktop) and 1080×2400 (mobile).

Planned visual structure:

Main Game Loop & State Machine

The gameplay follows a day-cycle loop divided into several states.

Core loop:

• Dialogue → Brewing → Evaluation → Progression
• Each day introduces new customer profiles and ingredients (optionally procedurally generated for replayability).

Requirements Plan

Baseline Requirements (R)

• R1 (PC + Android): Build targets for PC (primary) and Android (touch support)
• R2 (Sound/Music): Sound effects and music from Freesounds.
• R3 (Stable FPS): Mostly 2D elements with focus on UI and sprites
• R4 (Adaptive UI): UI Toolkit
• R5 (Plugin): Integrate DOTween for animation of UI elements and motion.
• R6 (Editor Extensions): Custom Recipe Editor for defining ingredients, brewing effects, and outcomes (ScriptableObject inspector tools).
• R7 (New Input System): Unified keyboard/mouse and mobile touch input mapping.
• R8 (URP): Use bloom, vignette, and color grading for atmosphere, adaptive post-processing.

Complex Requirement

• C9 – UI-heavy game: Gameplay primarily occurs via UI Toolkit panels and components: brewing minigame, dialogue system, inventory, and settings:
  • Drag-and-drop ingredient slots
  • Dynamic recipe cards
  • Data-driven customer dialogue panels
  • Custom UI elements (brewing meter, steam bar) built in UI Toolkit.
• If UI Toolkit proves too difficult or unsuitable, switch to C2 – Animation, focusing on brewing animations and character expressive states.

Additional Requirements

• A8 – Game Settings UI: Separate settings panel (volume sliders, text speed, color filters, custom controls). Implemented with UI Toolkit.

• A13 – Localization: Two-language support (English + AI-translated Czech). Text stored in localization tables for all dialogue/UI.

• A3 – Particle System (optional extra): Add soft steam, leaf fall, and brew sparkle effects layered behind UI panels. Adds atmosphere with minimal performance cost.