Night Twelve: your first store and daily commissions
Learn the 24-hour tycoon loop, customer preferences, specialties and saves.
Your first five minutes
Your apron-wearing character is marked YOU. Use the left stick or WASD to move, drag to look, and tap clear floor to walk. Follow Guide: order at the computer, collect and open the delivered carton, carry it to the shelf and stock one item per action. Set prices beside the shelf. Behind the checkout, scan every item before taking payment. Hire staff later from Store.
Time and the neighborhood
At 1×, a full game day takes 12 real minutes; 2× and 4× accelerate business. Esc pauses and leaving the window pauses automatically. Commuters favor coffee, lunch customers want hot food and neighbors buy groceries. The Notebook shows today’s event window, which increases footfall and demand for its featured product. This is a game-day schedule, not a real-world daily login reward.
Accept and claim a commission
Choose one commission per game day from Notebook → Today. Only sales completed after acceptance count, across all your stores. You have 10 in-game hours; a pause freezes that deadline. Reach the target and select Collect reward once. Completed rewards remain collectible after the deadline; unfinished commissions expire. Rewards are fictional credits with no cash value.
Your interior studio
Open Store to choose Sage & oak (included), After Hours (360) or Blue Hour (420). Each store owns its finishes separately; switching an owned finish is free. Window garden costs 140 and Twelve lightbox 190. Owned decorations can be hidden or shown free. These are cosmetic game-credit purchases with no daily fee or sales bonus; all choices save with the store.
Offers on your doorstep
Notebook → Today offers a decision for the current store every six game hours. Office breakfast reserves 4 groceries, 4 meals and 6 coffees immediately, then automatically pays 180 after one game hour. The wholesaler offers 8 groceries, 4 meals and 4 coffees for 34, only when there is space and no delivery pending. Sponsoring the film crew costs 80 and adds 40% footfall for three game hours, without guaranteeing sales. Accept or pass once per window. Pausing freezes active timers; accepted offers survive a reload.
Choose a specialty
After an individual store serves 12 customers, Store unlocks Coffee club, Late kitchen and Daily market. Each refit costs 320 fictional credits. Coffee earns +4 per cup, hot food +5 per serving, or groceries +2 per item, and that specialty also attracts matching baskets. Returning to General is free and does not refund a previous refit. Stock and checkout upgrades remain separate.
Welcome back, neighbor
Notebook → Locals tracks 12 familiar faces separately for each store. Only completed purchases build the relationship. After 3, 6 and 12 visits, their next purchases include tips of 2, 4 and 6 fictional credits. Customers who leave without buying do not earn a stamp.
Grow your team
Staff earn experience through real completed work: checkout orders, restock cycles and repairs. In Store, train at 12 and 48 experience for 180 and 420 credits. Training improves speed; stock teams also buy larger batches. Each level adds 15 to that employee’s daily wage, so watch the ledger. Existing saves start with level-one staff and no retroactive experience.
Choose a neighborhood invitation
Today offers one optional investment per game day, separate from commissions: market setup costs 120 for 40% extra footfall for 6 game hours; the tasting costs 90 for +3 per coffee sold for 6 hours; maintenance costs 100 to clear current spills and outages and delay the next scheduled incidents by 4 hours. Benefits cover all stores. Skipping is free. The choice is final for that game day. An earlier active benefit must end before choosing a new invitation. Time freezes on pause.
Read the ledger and expand
Wages and rent settle at 06:00; supplies and refits are paid immediately. The ledger reports operating income and costs; commission and milestone rewards are separate. Save 1,250 to open Metro Steps, then grow across six neighborhoods with different rents and peak hours. New branches include a cashier and opening stock. If your cash turns negative, the game pauses and offers an explicit consolidation choice that removes expanded branches and their upgrades.
Facilities and stock transfers
Store → Development offers an espresso bar (480; +3 per coffee; 35/day), a fresh-food display (620; +4 per meal; 45/day), and reserve storage (540; +20 grocery capacity and +12 food/coffee; 25/day). Fees join the 06:00 bill. Lean, Balanced and Rush ready purchasing trigger at 25%, 55% and 80% capacity with batches of 4, 6 and 10, plus training bonuses. A hired stock team is required. Send 4 units to another branch for 4 credits; arrival takes 10 simulation seconds. The destination needs free capacity and no incoming delivery. Stock is deducted on dispatch and cannot be duplicated while paused.
Your floor plan
Open Store → Design your floor plan. Business pauses while you drag shelves, rotate pieces 90°, or place a bench, display table and two planters. Arrow controls move by 0.25 m; R rotates a focused piece. Apply commits a valid layout and charges only newly purchased furniture. Store an owned piece and place it again for free. Undo changes the draft; closing discards it. Two pantry shelves remain required. Utility counters and entrances stay fixed. Keep every workstation reachable; customers and collision follow the applied layout. Each branch saves independently.
Room to grow
After this store serves 12 customers, Store → Open the rear annex adds a connected 36 m² room for 980 fictional credits. Rent rises by 35 per game day; grocery capacity grows by 12 and food / coffee by 6 each. Each store expands separately. Use the Annex camera to inspect it. Six new movable pieces join the collection: lounge chair, café table, pastry cabinet, magazine rack, reading lamp and two-seat sofa. Accessible chairs, benches and sofas now seat paying guests. Tables within 1.85 m add 1 service credit per seated order. A reading lamp and magazine rack within 2.5 m make guests stay longer; plants improve comfort. An accessible pastry cabinet offers some coffee customers a 6-credit pastry, consuming one food stock. Lamps cost 2 and an active cabinet 3 credits per game day. These figures appear in Store and the layout preview. Furniture ownership and positions are saved with the branch.