Story Time - Mr. Jamali And His Bar
Author: PokingWaterGames,
published 5 months ago,
I've been doing a long-term playtest and recently came across an interesting dilemma which shows the experience I'm trying to create for players.
[img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//44216768/dd27afad59c237c83f25cf3beea3fe90b4ce55c2.png[/img]
This is Churrs! It's a bar in London run by Ahmadreza Jamali with occasional help from his friends Pei and Hertha.
[img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//44216768/8962c2c5c0f0d43f7d75efc93a79966c9ffc910b.png[/img]
Established in April 2032, Mr. Jamali was able to become profitable within 10 months thanks to his previous experience as a bartender and his love of alcohol keeping his spirits up.
[img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//44216768/ccdd2bddb1c8e3dbe8fbdbd473044ae0a5e871d4.png[/img]
Churrs! was doing so well that Mr. Jamali decided to move to a bigger premises and expand his operations in October 2033. He spent quite a bit of money on capital investments, which took a large chunk out of the household's savings...
[img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//44216768/917603c0ac0aade4ad50feacb27fce10b704d66e.png[/img]
...and hired more staff to help with the increased workload...
[img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//44216768/ad46e35b64e4a2f01dd8df30f919bcf897bda669.png[/img]
...until eventually the business was profitable again.
[img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//44216768/3ffef16863d5bc76de0219b775139111c90acd89.png[/img]
Unfortunately for Mr. Jamali, the economy was slowing down and within a few months had nose dived.
[img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//44216768/6a3dbb48ae76795e16417b07ed28f9bbed369b37.png[/img]
The revenue from bars are strongly affected by the food service and entertainment industries, and both were falling along with economic growth.
[img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//44216768/ae97f0c1768e42eafd4dbd10b85e5c4f5d213a8f.png[/img]
At the same time, expenses such as beer and cooking ingredients were rising due to increasing agricultural inflation!
Faced with this predicament, Mr. Jamali has a few options:
[list]
[*]Scale back operations, fire staff, stop advertising and hope the food service and entertainment industries recover soon. Maybe get a personal loan from the bank or sell the household's stock market shares to cover expenses in the meantime.
[*]Sell the business while it still has decent value before things get worse. Maybe leverage his experience gained as a bar manager in people management and customer service to find a job in a different (and growing) industry.
[*]Pretend everything is fine and don't change anything.
[/list]
What should Mr. Jamali do? Will the economy continue diving into a recession? Will the food service and entertainment industries recover before the household runs out of money? I don't know but I'm excited to find out!