Hi,
How does one begin making this? I assume it’s a lot of intvalues etc. Is there perhaps a tutorial on this?
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Hi, I’m also trying to make something like this, but I don’t know how so I also made a post on it.
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I actually do have some experience with ‘Retail Tycoon’-like game so I will basically tell you what I did. The best thing to start off with is everything else. I had no NPCs almost until game completion, since nothing depends on NPCs (except few things) but NPCs depend on almost anything. Once you have the building system, product buy/restock system and any related systems, you can start making the NPCs.
For NPCs, I suggest thinking in advance. Maybe you would want to add special events later? Maybe some sort of security? You get the idea - just think about what you’d want them to be able to do.
I for example had 2 types of NPCs: customers and staff. Both of these had the same movement system but different logic.
The customers always had a routine. They started at an entrance (default world spawn, metro or bus station,…), then they had some sort of shopping list (buy apples, books, CDs,…) so they went to where the items sell, then they were to checkout themselves (cashier, self cehckout,…) and then they left.
The staff too did have a routine, but a bit different one. They spawned, found an available working position (they reserved it so 2 staff NPCs don’t go to one working place) and then walked there. Once the player left or, in my case, there was a shift system and their shift was over, or they were tired and went to rest, they left and made that position free.
In conclusion, get inspired by real life (what I did), think about the future and be creative!
Hope I helped at least a bit 
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