Any time JoJaMart comes up in the game it's cited how cheap they are and how much of a selection they have, but when you, the player, go into the store their prices are laughable and they barely have any more stock than Pierre does (That being, exactly the same stock as Pierre and then also a JoJa wallpaper, lamp, and cola). No player in their right mind would actually shop at this store. And I totally understand where ConcernedApe is coming from with this. He doesn't want people to support JoJa because, technically, that's the bad ending. That's a problem, though. We shouldn't be railroaded into going a certain way when the game explicitly states that going the way we aren't supposed to go is much more efficient, but it turns out to be a bold faced lie when we try that route and it's not. Going to JoJaMart is already a time sink in early game because it's directly on the opposite end of the map from your farm, but once you go there the first time and realize the place is BS you will literally never, ever return. JoJaMart is not actually a threat in the game because it isn't allowed to be. It's specifically designed to be as inconvenient as possible so that no one would ever want to visit JoJa more than once. So! My suggestion. ------------------ Make JoJaMart actually run the way the game says it does. Cheaper items. A broad variety in their stock, maybe even out of season items (that could be understandably more expensive). Let them sell furniture, prepared meals, fishing rods, etc. JoJaMart is supposed to be direct competition and a threat to the livelihoods of Pelican Town's key shopkeepers. Let it be that. But don't let it be that with nothing in exchange. Set an invisible goal for JoJa to achieve where if they meet or exceed a certain amount of profit (say 50k or 100k) they are able to purchase the Community Center from Mayor Lewis, who is cited in game to have said doesn't have enough funds for several important things in town (fixing bridges, fixing the bus to the desert, keeping the Community Center at all, etc.) so that they can build their warehouse. Let JoJaMart send out letters to the player at certain milestones of their goal (20%, 40%, 70%, 90%, 100%) thanking the community for 'coming together' with JoJaMart. And at these milestones have the shopkeepers of the other stores, Pierre, Robin, Gus, Willy, either hike their prices because the prices need to go up for them to afford the roof over their heads or drop their prices bit by bit to try to draw in more customers for the same reason. Show the effect that JoJaMart actually has on the community and the power it has over its residents. If JoJaMart succeeds: The success of JoJaMart causes too much stress on Pierre, and the fact that he was already so work focused before JoJaMart and even more of a mess after their arrival causes his marriage to fall apart. Pierre and Caroline get a divorce. Pierre moves out of town and Caroline eventually becomes marriageable. Robin is forced to work at JoJaMart as a building contractor. While JoJa certainly didn't supply the ability to construct anything on the farm, something only Robin could do, the fact that they sold a wider variety of cheaper furniture, furniture sales that brought her much more revenue than doing the occasional fixer-upper or brand new construct which happened very infrequently because everyone in town but the player already had everything they needed, drove her almost entirely out of business. But rather than close up shop she goes to work for JoJa, doing the same jobs but with a different uniform. She's not happy about the change. She misses the freedom. But she has bills to pay and mouths to feed and she's not about to lose her home and her family to changing times. Willy has no love for JoJa and doesn't intend to work for them. His small shack is thankfully cheap enough that he doesn't have to worry too much and his fishing lifestyle keeps him mostly self sufficient, but he ends up hanging out with Linus at his tent more. He wants to have a friend who will be able to help him survive... just in case. Willy teaches Linus to fish so he doesn't have to rifle through people's trash cans anymore and Linus teaches Willy how to be more self sufficient as an outdoorsman. Good spots to find berries or edible roots, how and with what to bundle up in the winter so that you don't lose your limbs to the cold, and how to fend off stray dogs or hungry wolves that wander into your tent in the night looking for food. Gus is the least effected, being the only shopkeep whose main business model is something JoJaMart can't do. Be a full fledged bar and diner. His prices are steeper, due to JoJa's cheaper prices sending most customers looking for quick meals and alcohol elsewhere, but he understands that he's still untouchable by them, for the time being. He tried to buy his stock exclusively from Pierre while he was going out of business, but one store can only do so much. He still tries to buy mostly from the locals but JoJa has been offering him deals and if he wants to lower his prices again and keep the restaurant profitable, well... But! Before it reaches the end. Allow the player to turn it around. If the player sees that supporting JoJaMart by buying from it is actually harming the community then let them switch sides and buy from the local shopkeepers to support them, instead. Money spent on the local shopkeepers is lost profit from JoJa, and if JoJa loses enough profit (350k or 400K, some high number to make it achievable within a few years but understandably difficult in the face of a giant corporation's wallet) they will be forced to shut down due to a lack of commerce. And at certain milestones of JoJaMart's decline have them send out letters to try to entice the players back. Discounts, freebies, "For today only!", maybe even an offer to buy your items instead, offering higher sale prices for you to maximize profit etc, and doing this would replace your farm's shipping bin with a JoJa bin. If their plans fail and JoJaMart has to bail out, then allow the players to do something with the now vacant and ugly portion of the map. With all the funds the mayor now has due to the influx of revenue that the player brought to town by supporting the local economy he has more than enough to refurbish the old JoJaMart into something new and exciting for the town. But what should it be? Being the driving force that brought such life back into the town, the mayor turns to the player for suggestions. But whatever you choose, the Mayor does have one more surprise for you. A new Festival for the town. Something to commemorate the town coming together and supporting each other in the face of adversity and to remind the townsfolk to be there for one another in times of hardship. The Community Festival, which will be held at the old JoJaMart location once it's done being refurbished. The player is the main celebrant of this festival, but on the day of the festival the player has the ability to ask the mayor to have Linus be the center of attention for the night/be the player's wingman for the celebrations. ------------------ These are just my suggestions to improve the feel of the game and make JoJaMart something to actually consider and have it make a real impact on the game, rather than a portion of the map we see one time, maybe twice, and then never again. Please feel free to make suggestions of your own, tell me if you think something I've suggested would work better another way, or just give a thumbs up!
This is very well done and thought out, and I do wish Joja was a lot more economically useful to the player, but IMO perhaps Chobin's incremental suggestions are a bit too complicated. I think purchasing the Joja membership should offer a significant discount on their prices, to where it is a lot better to buy from Joja (say 50% discount), but that the up-front cost of the membership should make it difficult for newbie players to afford. I think that buying the Joja membership should NOT immediately axe the community center, it should be an additional player-driven decision, perhaps with a Gold reward for doing so, to help offset the Joja membership cost. I agree that it should be the players decision and there should be financial incentive for siding with joja, but I very much like all of the negative storyline implications proposed by Chobin. I kind of like the idea of Joja being able to help min-max players get a ton of gold, with the un-desirable storyline implications attached; something that would incentivize players to discover on a second or alternate play through, or if they get blinded by gold coins maybe on their first play through.
The incremental changes are a bit complicated to look at, yeah, but not too difficult to implement from a coding standpoint. The game would keep track of how much money was spent at either JoJa or the local stores, with two goal points, X (locals) and Z (JoJa), with the starting point, Y, being somewhere in between leaning toward Z (Because JoJa has a smaller goal to succeed than to fail). Buying locally would take points away from the score (Lean toward X), buying from JoJa would add to it (Lean toward Z). At certain points in this score JoJa would send out letters, shops would raise/lower prices, etc. And it seems convoluted, but when you think about it it actually works exactly the same way as the villager heart system. At certain heart levels they send letters and gifts, they allow you into their room, you can date/marry them, you get cutscenes with them, etc. What I was suggesting would basically just be a more complex, story driven heart system with JoJa. I agree that a simpler change would be to allow the JoJa membership to give the player a discount and that no negative consequences should immediately come of purchasing the membership. JoJa really does need to have a bigger story impact to the game and more interactions with them in general. They're supposed to be the economically efficient choice which, early game (before you get the minecart working), is already a time sink to get to because it's further away than Pierre's store and time is a huge commodity in these types of games. Hell, allowing JoJa to reduce their prices would make the hardcore farmer's dream come true with the minecart right outside JoJa allowing them to get to the store and back to the farm within seconds. But regardless, I feel that JoJaMart does need a big change. The point of JoJa is to be competition to the local market, but right now its only purpose is to press the "I want to be a bad guy" button for 5,000 gold, and all it really does is replace the item collection aspect of the Community Center's fixer-upper status to a money collection fixer-upper. Arguably easier, arguably harder, since the old CC gave you things to make life easier as you completed each subquest, but JoJa's CC just sets you back monetarily each time, meaning if you weren't cozy enough monetarily to afford both the town upgrade and all of next month's seeds you set yourself back by a lot of time in addition to the money.
I never understood the point of the Joja Mart. It was obvious right away that it was the bad route, and that you'd typically want to avoid it if you want the town to flourish, but I never once thought joja mart was useful, and after I went in once, I never returned. It's a wasted building from the very start of the game to the very end. You don't use it while it's open, and when it's closed it never changes, it just sits there.
Absolutely, and that's the point of this thread. JoJaMart is nothing but an unused blemish on the map in its current state, both while it's open and when it's defunct. JoJa was built up to be a scary and powerful entity through the opening cutscene, character dialogue, and letters you find laying around. But really all it is is a boogieman, and not a very scary one at that. It's on the other side of the valley, occasionally shouting "Boo!" at the top of its lungs, but no one pays it any mind because it's entirely harmless.
Warning in advance, long response, sorry but I have Opinions (TM) Well, I'll start by saying I agree that some of the suggestions in the first post are a little... over-the-top? There's a lot of new mechanics involved, Caroline being a marriage candidate seems a little odd-ish to me (seeing as you're around the same age as her daughter, who is already a marriage candidate), the new festival would have to track a bit of data (when was Joja chased out? Did you clear the Community Center bundles? Did you Chase Joja out first or clear the Community Center first? What route did you take when doing the Community Center? etc etc) and a lot of writing (a festival to, what, worship the player? Honestly I can't say I'm very interested, in the concept or any potential conversations/activities that could happen in it. If it's just a get-together thing, I feel like the tone of being centered around the lack of Joja is a little odd.) What happens if you support JojaMart, Pierre moves out of town, and then you flip it back over to supporting the other side? Caroline takes over the shop Pierre used to run? Pierre comes back? Just a "glitch" where there's now no seed or produce shop? Having said that, I agree with the overall point of the post, and some of the other things suggested in this thread. For example, JojaMart should be the cheaper option between it and Pierre's (I'm not sure what the best way to accomplish this would be. Perhaps have them match prices at first, and then the 25% discount would drive JojaMart's prices lower. Or make Pierre's prices a little higher so they meet in the middle, excluding the discount? Options, options. In either case, it's implied that the player is not the only character with a membership, so the 3/4 price is the one most of the shoppers are actually getting). A broader variety in stock, including out-of-season selections. Limited produce (food crops and fish, specifically, in addition to foodstuff available at Pierre's like Vinegar) and some "instant" foods, like salad, pizza, bread, cakes and pies, etc, and some animal and artisanal products like eggs, mayo, honey... so on and so forth. Make it like a real super market (like... Wal-mart, but like the tiny Wal-Marts you find in small towns, not like the Wal-Mart super centers you'll find in more metropolitan areas). Make it worth going to. HOWEVER - Pierre's will have higher quality produce for sale (which, currently, doesn't actually matter much mechanically, since iirc the quality of items you use when cooking/crafting/putting crops in a seed maker isn't reflective on the ingredients used. Perhaps this kind of overhaul could introduce such a mechanic, it's a much-needed one imo.) Further balancing options could include Willy selling fish in his shop, Marnie selling certain animal products (the edible ones, excluding truffles), all wallpapers and flooring being moved to Robin's shop (why isn't it there already? I don't know much about wallpaper, but flooring, paneling, and paint is usually sold at hardware stores, and Robin's is the closest the game has. Though I guess the catalogs can stay at Joja and Pierre's, that seems reasonable.) I also agree that NPCs should behave to reflect the economy. The town is small enough and is mentioned quite a few times to be a community, but with the exception of a few cliques, everyone mostly just keeps to themselves in their families? I'm not saying everyone should get along with everyone else always, but characters should interact (or be implied to interact) with each other. It's mentioned when greeting characters that "a local farmer can improve the economy" so I don't think a milestone-approach is the best way to handle it. I think, instead, smaller changes should be happening. For example, currently Pierre's closes on Wednesdays, unless you complete the community center... Ignoring for now how flat of a character he is, this seems to be mostly for gameplay purposes, but doesn't make much sense to me story-wise. With such heavy competition, wouldn't it make more sense for him to be open more days at first, and then later close on Wednesdays when he's not feeling as threatened (and after he went as far as to give a speech to the entire town about the value of a strong community) close one day a week (when you will have at least one seed maker from a bundle reward, and likely be able to make more, so there isn't as strong of a drawback for him having the shop closed on Wednesdays, instead of early game) to spend time with his family, or... whatever he does when the shop is closed, since you can't actually enter on Wednesdays even though the building is also a house, have I mentioned how frustrated I am by that btw? Oh well, this probably isn't the place for that. I don't mind Willy closing on Saturdays or Robin's schedule as much, since they're less-frequented (or at least, less-frequented early game) and at least they DO stuff when their shops are closed. Okay, now with that out of the way... This isn't something I'm going to expect very much, but I'm already not expecting too much more from added content after this upcoming update to be honest, so I might as well say it now: Pierre is too flat of a character to make much of this work, and feel like a coherent update. He's flatter than a pancake turned into a piece of paper and then run over by a truck. He's super flat. The other characters, they may be based on archetypes and not have a lot of dialogue, but Pierre seriously does not exist beyond his role of shop-keep. And he doesn't even talk about anything other than money. Even Sandy, a (potentially) late-game character with similar, lesser purpose to Pierre, talks about the world around her (the desert), gives tips (desert foraging), talks about other characters (occasionally mentions Emily). Pierre's connection to the world, and the other characters is... He appears once or twice in a few of Abigail's heart events, he's a grocer, and he goes to the saloon on Fridays (and if you talk to him at the saloon, he just says he "has been working hard and deserves a Friday night's relaxation." Alright, fair enough. But what are you actually doing? Just drinking? Do you even have any friends???). Robin has a social/active life. Willy has a schedule, and presumably talks to other people. This isn't me just ranting about Pierre (and I... honestly don't hate the guy. There's just not enough there for me to feel about either way). This is a list of things that would have to be "fixed", to make him a compelling character (or at least as compelling as the rest of the characters). Because the other side of this would be to also make Morris a character. Since he's generally viewed as the "antagonist" of the game, I don't think giving him heart levels is necessary. Or maybe make his heart levels invisible, so he could have "heart events". There's a few options here, and each of them is complicated in its own way. (See this thread for why I'm saying what I am about Pierre and Morris. Please note that I do not actively agree or disagree with every comment in the thread, and don't feel particularly strongly about all the points that I do agree or disagree with. Also that whole "which is your least favorite character" thread has a lot of people bringing up Pierre, which, y'know, that's a thing if you feel like digging through a bunch of negativity. I don't, right now.) As for what can happen after JojaMart is closed, here's another thread on that subject (where I've already given my opinion, so I'm not going to restate it here). The problem with that is, you would then be locked out of that content if you went the Joja Route. But yes, I agree it's very important that something happens, and so it should be a community-based feature that the characters actually interact with in some way.
Don't worry, mate. I, too, have opinions, and they're equally as long winded and then some. To your first point about Caroline; Honestly, I feel like there should be more marriageable characters in the game in general. There isn't anything wrong at all with dating or marrying someone older than you whether it be Marnie, Pam, Gus, Gunther, Lewis, etc. And there certainly isn't anything wrong with dating or marrying someone who already has their own kids. There also isn't anything, to my knowledge, stating your character's age. Everyone assumes the character is young because most people make the character young looking because it's a self-insert or a fantasy and who wants to be old in those? But you can give them gray hair, full beards, etc. And in the introduction scene it does say "XX years later", implying a double digit time lapse. But even if you make the character look young they could still be anywhere between mid 20s to early 40s. Some people just age gracefully. But regardless. Is it a mutual love between consenting adults? Alright, carry on. To the point about 'swapping sides' after one side has been completed; You're basing what you're saying there on the events being coded poorly. If you think CA is such a terrible programmer to the point he can't plan or code for someone buying things after the event has taken place that's not really something you should be bringing up with me. But if you just meant what happens if Pierre moves out and then you suddenly start supporting the local community again, nothing. All the things I listed, Pierre moving out, Robin going to work at JoJa, etc. were all 'final events' that happened upon JoJa's success. The flag would have already been triggered and there's no going back on it. To your points about the event; It isn't about worshipping the player. It's a thank you to the player, like any 'feel good' ending is supposed to be. You've done 'the good thing' and everyone appreciates you for it. As for when the festival is supposed to take place, if it's thought out properly and coded correctly it would be on a pre-determined day regardless of when JoJa was actually taken down. Did you run JoJa out in Spring 1 of year 2? The festival will take place in Fall on the 13th. Did you run JoJa out in Spring 28 of year 2? Still on Fall 13th. Summer 12 of year 3? Winter 15th. Did you magically take down JoJa on Spring 5 year 1? Fall 13th. Neither CA nor the game should have to account for people cheating. Basically, just pick a day two seasons in advance (For 'realistic' time required to tear down the building and construct something new) that has no events/birthdays on it, and that is the day the event will take place. For tracking the Community Center, a secondary objective to make it easier programming-wise could just be that it has to be completed to truly drive JoJa out (as the main reason Lewis was considering selling it in the first place was that it was run down, he didn't have the ability to repair it himself, and he was low enough on funds that he couldn't fix a good number of things around town). And to your last point about being locked out of content if you go the JoJa route; That's kind of the point of having branching paths in a video game. When you decide to go one way you can't turn around and go the other way, too. You've made your choice and you need to handle that as best you can. If you don't like where the road you chose is going your options are: restart from your last save, restart entirely if you can't go to a previous save/if previous save is too late to change anything, or keep on trucking and follow through with your decision. Games don't need to be made to give every single thing to the player. You're only locked out of content if you make the conscious choice to lock yourself out. You, the player, have locked that door on yourself. You know what you're doing by making that choice. To turn that around on you, you could say the same thing for supporting the local community. You'd be 'locked out' of the events of the town as the shopkeepers struggle to stay open in the face of an invading, well funded corporation, something that some would consider much more... I'm honestly not sure what word to use here, but 'enjoyable', I guess? to go through than the incredibly complex strategy of just never going to JoJa at any point ever and eventually getting rewarded for it. ---------------- Now! With all that out of the way. I absolutely agree that Robin should be the one to stock the wallpapers and floors and I'm not sure why it never occurred to me as strange that she doesn't stock them but Pierre does. Willy should definitely be able to sell fish, as well, possibly with quantity limited, weekly rotating stock. Although I'm not sure how much of an impact that would even have with some fish being completely unimportant and more expensive fish not having a use beyond selling because you lose money by cooking them. Same as above for Marnie. And on that note, I am completely behind cooking being buffed. I don't know why cooked foods aren't either much more expensive or don't have the star grades that their components do. Or, and I know it's much more complicated to balance, take into account the value of the ingredients being used for the dish. Agreed also about using quality crops in the seedmaker to get quality seeds, although I don't see how quality crafting would effect anything beyond maybe higher grade sprinklers covering more area and higher grade fences lasting longer. Agreed also about characters needing to interact outside their personal cliques more often. I feel that the milestone approach I suggested is the easiest way to go about developing the town, though. Your suggestion for Pierre could absolutely happen when one of those milestones hits, though. Pierre absolutely, positively, one hundred percent needs to be either rewritten or fleshed out. Or given flesh, in his case, as beyond the skeleton structure of "struggling shopkeeper" he literally has nothing going for him. But to make it work with what I suggested for the JoJa overhaul, it could be that as JoJa becomes more prosperous he becomes more money oriented/talks about business/complains about sales/competition as he tries to stay afloat, but as JoJa declines he develops more as a person, thus making his selfish and weak character we currently see as a symptom of stress from the struggle of competing with JoJa and making him an enjoyable character when the looming threat of being run out of business is gone. I wouldn't mind Morris being made into an actual character, either. There's nothing wrong with getting to know the antagonist.
My only problem with Caroline is less the age gap (like you said, consenting adults and a more-or-less silent protagonist in a game with character customization) but more like.... Divorce exists in this game, and Abigail is also a bachlorette. So if you marry one, divorce her, and then marry the other... Not even a problem with Caroline herself, I suppose. I do agree that there should be more marriage candidates, and I like the idea of there being "unlockable" candidates. But I digress... Swapping sides: it's not necessarily that I think CA (or a hypothetical modder) would be bad at coding, but that I lack the imagination to come up with how that very specific occurrence would/could work. (I also want to clarify now that my experience with anything code-related is both something I'm severely out of practice with, and something I've executed differently from any of the game's actual content afaik. So in terms of what is/isn't possible or likely to be buggy, I'm not 100% positive.) If Pierre leaving town is an end-game change rather than something that happens over the course of the game, then it wouldn't be a problem, so my concern would be moot. The event: I'm still not necessarily on board with it, as the "cutscene" when you complete the bundles should, in my personal opinion, fulfill the "Feel Good Ending" role that you're saying the festival would accomplish. Perhaps change it to make it a "playable cutscene", and have it be like, a one-time festival (instead of an annual one)? But yes, that clarification does make it more agreeable to me, even if it isn't something that I'm quite sure I want, still. I do agree that otherwise there should be a specific date being set, and I agree that the vanilla game should not account for cheating. I like your proposition as making the community center a partial/secondary objective, rather than the primary one; currently, in-game, Joja is run out when Pierre suggests boycotting them... Which, with this kind of overhaul, is something that would happen over time/already happen. The lack of content... I'm not saying there should be the "same" content both routes, just that the content you gain is roughly equal. To be completely honest, I've never even gone the Joja route before, so I don't know if the warehouse has any functions at all, but the community center does... kind of. It's mostly just a place for the NPCs to go though, so it's not a big deal. But when it comes to replacing the abandoned JojaMart (which I agree is an absolute necessity, literally do anything with it), you're getting something where someone who went the other route is getting nothing. Having said that, I don't really have any ideas, either for what that content would be or where it could go (if it were a place, which it doesn't actually have to be, it's just something more "solid" that you can visit is easier to imagine.) Though as for "you know what you're doing when making that choice", I'd say there would have to be in-game context (maybe some mail?) to make that true? I mean, I'm assuming that we would be told about it (or at least given one of the mini-quests? Like the one when you unlock the community center, you have to talk to the wizard, but you don't have to do anything other than go to his tower). But there aren't a lot of characters who both care, and lack the personal stock in which way it turns. Lewis maybe? Or just merge that conversation with the "Lewis shows you the community center/Wizard gives you the potion" cutscene(s). *shrug* I only bring it up because the game currently lacks a tutorial for a lot of things, which is nice given that it's supposed to be open-ended and sandbox-y, but otherwise even now I wish there was just a liiiiiiittle more direction. I like your idea for Pierre, I think definitely his "simple" character that we see now would make more sense if Joja was more of a threat... Or at least an obvious one? Or an obvious one to the player? As for Willy, maybe have him sell cheaper seasonal fish, carp and sardines for cooking, and a few rare or weather-restricted fish for the bundles. Right now his store is especially, how do you say... Useless. I mean you buy the fishing rods, and maybe if you don't have excess iron/wood (or copper/wood if you chose that perk) to buy crab pots. But iron and wood are both easy to come by, so you just save up enough money to get the fishing rods and then you don't really need his store for anything. I don't really know how else to make him relevant though, especially without introducing other mechanics (... a better/iridium quality crab pot? idunno. Something that could be crafted in case he goes out of business, but is otherwise just more efficient to buy. My brain isn't cooperating with me right now I guess). Marnie's main benefit with selling animal products would go hand-in-hand with a buffed cooking mechanic and would likely be more useful early game. I don't think incremental changes are a bad idea, I just think there should be some more minor tweaks made as well, like smaller steps between each increment with a few individual flags as well? Not sure how much sense that makes, but oh well. I'd also like to apologize, re-reading my earlier comments, one or two of the things I said may have been more aggressive than I meant to. And to boot, it seems like most of the things I said I disagreed with had more to do with my misunderstanding some of the things you said in your original post. Good news is that long discussions gives us more food for thought though, or at least the way I see it.
I really like this idea. It'd be a challenge to add to the game as requires changing a lot of things in small ways, but it could make the experience of trying to support the community and keep JoJa out more realistic while also keeping it fun. One of the reasons big corporations are such a problem for small towns and businesses is precisely because they do offer short-term benefits that make it hard for people to resist what they offer. Especially people who already don't have many local resources to call upon.
I think that the Joja Mart building should go on sale, and if the player decides to buy it, then they could contact out to Robin what it should become. Whether you want to give it to Pierre so he can increase his selection, or turn it into a farmer's market or a fabrication shop, or a hotel for visitors, an aquaponic facility or a fish conservatory that you can watch the fish you catch swim, a public radio station where the town NPC's can make a new newscast that you can watch on your TV next to the Queen of Sauce, an actual arcade, or even a miners camp so they can slowly increase the depth of the mines, etc.
More with Joja Mart would be fun (especially if you want to do a playthrough where you go the evil corporate route). Here are my thoughts PRICES AND SELECTION: we want to fix the disconnect between Joja Mart's low prices that are stealing Pierre's customers and what you experience when you go there, but we also don't want to reduce early game challenge too much or give players too big an incentive to buy there. Make it so a wider selection is unlocked only after the player buys a Joja membership. Maybe make there prices 10% cheaper than Pierre's for same goods (this may or may not be contingent on player first buying a membership). REVITALIZING THE TOWN: so if you go the Joja route you pay money to get the bridge, etc. fixed that you'd normally do by completing the community center. What if supporting Joja revitalizes the town like this and in any of the other ways the community center does but in return Joja advertisements get posted all over the place?
