Basic Gameplay[ | ]
The main goal when playing Cosmo's Quickstop is to earn as much profit in a given day as possible. Each day is 6 minutes long (or longer depending on what amenities are equipped) with customers steadily coming into the store with various demands. To earn money, you must satisfy all of the customer's demands by completing tasks around the Quickstop. Once all of their tasks have been completed, you can undock the customer to get paid.
Customers[ | ]
Each customer is assigned to a dock between 1 and 8, with each pair of docks being color coded by location: red, purple, blue, and yellow. The customer's demands will be displayed in their numbered task bar on the left, with each task represented by an icon. A customer can have between 1 and 6 tasks. As tasks are completed, its icon will disappear. Once all tasks are completed, the customer can be undocked by pressing that dock's undock button. While a customer is waiting for you to help them with a task, they will lose patience and the icon of the task they are waiting for will flash red on their taskbar. Their patience is also displayed on their taskbar, represented by the fill color slowly draining. If a customer loses all of their patience, they will leave without paying even if you have already fulfilled some of their demands. Failing customers should be avoided as much as possible, so it is important to prioritize customers with the least amount of patience left. Customers will not lose patience while they are walking to the location of a task or while you are actively helping them. The walking speed of customers varies by species, thus slower customers will have their patience paused for a longer time while they walk from place to place.
Tasks[ | ]
Tasks are divided into 3 categories: amenities, curbside services, and chores. Amenities are located in the large central room of the Quickstop and most of them require periodic maintenance for customers to use them. Other amenities provide bonuses that don't directly affect profit, but can help you manage the Quickstop. If amenities are maintained, they generally don't need additional attention. Curbside services are a more active task, requiring you to go to the customer's dock and provide a service for their space ship. Chores are a mixture of passive maintenance and active service, but unlike amenities and curbside services, they don't make much profit and they are always installed in the Quickstop.
Completing Tasks[ | ]
To complete a task, you must go to the physical location of that amenity, curbside service, or chore and complete a simple minigame. Each task's minigame is unique with brief instructions for how to complete it displayed in the tip window on the bottom left of the screen. Some tasks are completed as soon as the minigame is finished, while other tasks complete themselves over time after finishing a minigame. The progress of self-completing tasks like the Ship Wash is displayed as a ring of color filling around its icon on the customer's task bar.
Combos[ | ]
Successfully undocking 5 customers without any failures will earn you a Combo Level. The higher the Combo Level, the more bonus profit you earn from each customer. Your progress to the next Combo Level is displayed as a green bar in the top right that fills up with each successful undock. Failing a customer or losing one to an Asteroid impact will reset your progress to the next Combo Level, but the Combo Level itself can never decrease.
Controls[ | ]
Cosmo's Quickstop can be played with either a mouse and keyboard or with a controller. Button mapping and look sensitivity can be adjusted in the Options Menu. Each minigame has a unique control scheme described in the Tip Window when approaching the minigame. The inputs for minigame control schemes can also be modified in the Options Menu.