After 4 years in development and almost as long in Early Access, the full release of Above the Fold is finally here, in the form of its biggest update yet!
This update covers everything, from some much needed stability and bug fixes to loads of new content to unlock and play through in the game, including a long, chained series of events that has multiple possible endings that can give you very different experiences playing through the game.
There are 10 new achievements too, of the more exotic variety. In an homage to the game being set in the 90s, you can now unlock achieves that are special nods to the popular culture of its time, whether its Seinfeld, Friends, or Spice Girls.
Note that the new achievements and some other features, are not backwards compatible. You will need to start a new game to get these, and to post your game score on the brand new Full Release Leaderboard!
There are several graphical updates as well, like the new Challenges screen shown below. As always, you can find a (more or less) complete list of changes and updates below - this time split into 3 sections, because there is so much to cover.
Changelist
NEW CONTENT
New: 45 chained events, as a main storyline for the game. It breaks down into 6 storylines, leading to one of 3 possible ending-storylines. Each contains 5 events.
New: 39 in-game celebrities added, making it a nice round 100 characters, nicely tying in with celeb politics (more details below).
New: 10 new Steam Achievements to unlock, paying homage to some of the most popular TV shows of the 1990s. Note, these are not obtainable via older save games.
New: Added tutorial tip about dismissing stories, and why you should love it.
New: Full Release Leaderboard added on Steam. Note that only games created in this version or later, will count towards this leaderboard!
New: Happiness goes up more for the top-billed reporter (diminishing return as more top stories are published).
CHANGES
Changed: Initial office-expenses raised to $10,000/month, and scale up to $16k, $23.5k, $34.5k and $58k at subsequent levels.
Changed: In-game celebrities now have political bias, and their reactions to your coverage of them is stronger, if their opinions are close to the newspaper political spread. There is also a lower chance that they will react to being written about one way or another.
Changed: The Owner interaction screen got an update with all new graphics, closer matching what you see in the rest of the game.
Changed: Slightly increased the line spacing on the strategic goal cards, to make them easier to read, and removed the previously visible "reward group" (it was just a letter in brackets, anyway).
Changed: The Challenges screen got a visual overhaul and isn't just blocks of text and buttons any longer.
Changed: Made slight changes to the default political bias of different story types, including lowering the max political impact of a single story. History stories no longer bias towards conservative, which should help balance out the politics of stories in the first stage of the game.
Changed: Story score calculation streamlined. Slightly lower scores for matching interests, similarly lower penalties for disinterest, and slightly higher potential score (depending on skill, experience, and happiness) for stories that are neither on the interest or disinterest list of the reporter.
Changed: Score bonuses for front page placement have been streamlined. The new score multipliers are: 3.25 (top spot), 2.75 for second row (2nd and 3rd place), and 1.5 for the bottom 2 spots. Stories not featured on the front page are counted at 1/3 of their base score.
Changed: Stars displayed at the top when building your front page have been streamlined across game levels. Now, it is a little harder to get lots of stars until you can produce high scoring issues.
Changed: Advertiser's political influence on the perceived political bias of your newspaper has been rebalanced.
Changed: The ticker on the map now has a dark red background, to better catch your attention.
Changed: Added more tips to the ticker on the map screen, and allowed more items to run per day
Changed: Lowered the chance that a reporter will call you out for favoritism, just because you give someone else the top spot two days in a row.
Changed: Lowered the chance that a reporter will quit due to low happiness, especially later in the game.
Changed: Lowered the average happiness penalty for writing about a topic you don't enjoy working on.
Changed: Lessened happiness punishment triggered by certain procedural events.
Changed: Slightly increased the happiness reward for writing about a topic you really enjoy.
Changed: Slightly lowered the chance that reporters become friends/rivals on the job.
Changed: Lowered the happiness penalty/reward when a reporter's friend or rival leaves the newspaper.
Changed: Reporters won't lose happiness below 35% for lack of raises given, and now expect a raise for every 6 top stories instead of four. It is also not a given that happiness is lost every day the ratio is off, as it was before.
Changed: Slightly increased the chance that a reporter will take a personal day off, if below 35% happiness.
Changed: Increased the cumulative chance out of 1000, from 1/200 (max 10) of your previous issue's score, to 1/120 (max 30) of that value, that your newspaper will win an award when publishing a themed issue, regardless of whether it is the theme of the month.
Changed: Cut the daily happiness loss in half (almost). It still fluctuates by season; more happiness lost in winter, less in summer.
Changed: Halved the happiness penalty for Reporters whose stories did not appear in the top 5 on the front page.
Changed: Reduced spawn rate of surging stories; still higher than normal but without flooding the city with just one story type.
Changed: Added a warning on the main menu, letting you know if a save game is too old to be supported (it means: it might crash)
FIXES
Fixed: Crash, caused by certain procedural events trying to refer to reporters that have left the newspaper.
Fixed: Completed challenges did not show a notification on the office screen until after you already looked at the challenges screen.
Fixed: Sometimes, the text color didn't update right, when you changed the look of your editor's desk. Now, it switches as expected.
Fixed: Story line progress was not being properly saved, making story lines repeatable within the same game.
Fixed: The "Ads ending soon" panel did not show the corrent $-amount of ads ending before the end of the month.
Fixed: Some in-game events were not showing up for the player, when multiple events were scheduled to run.
Fixed: Crash caused by reporters taking time off for mental health. How dare they!?
Fixed: Reporters could have the same interest twice and have the same topic as both interest and disinterest, if that topic was surging when the reporter spawned.
Fixed: The text would get screwy-looking in the background when the options menu was open on certain screens.
Fixed: Procedurally triggered surges sometimes triggered the wrong topic.
Fixed: Well and Ill received issues were displaying the wrong issue number (it was one ahead).
Fixed: Associated story line didn't trigger after publishing a History-themed issue.
Fixed: Crash in older saves, when clicking Challenges.
Fixed: Various typos and spelling mistakes
What's next for Above the Fold?
At the time of writing, there is one major post-release update planned, for some of the features and content that didn't make it into the full release, as well as anything the community inspires me to add. On top of that, there may be bug fixes and other such minor updates. There is no specific date planned for the update - it depends a bit on how many bugs that show up, and demand in general.
Thank you for playing Above the Fold. ♥
Fixes and Tweaks
Writing continues on the next major updates, but in the meantime here is a minor update with a few balance changes and bug fixes.
Changed: Increased the overall chances that personality traits trigger a new event
Changed: Reporter personality traits have much greater influence on the score of an issue than previously
Changed: Greater chance that Kellum Ded will murder a celebrity in chapter 5 of the game, after you feature that celeb
Changed: Unlocked desk element data is no longer part of the save file. Available desks are calculated based on progress.
Fixed: Stories taking more than a day to write, were not registering properly.
Fixed: Keyboard shortcuts for changing the map scroll speed were not updating the meter on-screen.
Fixed: New desk surfaces now unlock properly when you level up, and can be used to customize your Editor's Desk.
Fixed: Backwards compatibility issue with older save games, from before the last update to Challenges.
Fixed: The filler content no longer refreshes every time you reload the office screen but remain consistent for each issue.
Beta 10.0.2 : Celebrity Hot Fix Update
This minor update fixes a crash, which happened in certain instances, where an in-game celebrity was associated with a random event.
Once again, thank you to everyone who takes time to report bugs. You are helping to make the game better for everyone! ːfh4crownː
Beta 10 : The Strategy Update
The features added in this update are the last major additions to the game play before Above the Fold's full release.
Zooming
The number one requested feature for a long time was being able to zoom in and out on the city map. That’s in the game now, and it adds a whole new layer to your strategy: spend less time looking for matching stories, and more time finding better ones.
Tip: Some players prefer to assign any story of a preferred type early on, and look for higher value replacements once every reporter has an assignment.
Auto-Sorting
The second huge feature is the addition of auto-sorting your stories when building the front page. Previously, stories were always sorted by straight point value. Often that may not be your top priority however, so now you can sort by politics and age groups as well.
Auto-sorting gives you better insight into how each story affects your overall issue, and more time to fine tune the front page.
Tip: Different story types appeal more to specific age groups than others. By assigning stories that match, you will attract more readers of that age group.
Upgrade to Upgrades
The in-game upgrades screen for your office has gotten a visual redesign, honoring the mighty White Board. Alongside the visual boost is another 5-event storyline, that plays out after your research “Web 2.0”. Will your newspaper publish a special edition with a Goodbury Online CD-Rom?
Tip: Storylines can unlock Awards, cash, or allow more Angry Letters. They trigger through upgrades, themed issues, and reputation, each playing out only once per game. Every storyline has 3 possible outcomes - the exact effect depending on your newspaper’s direction and your choices, so consider each one carefully.
The Final Beta
With the next update, Above the Fold will be leaving Early Access. There is still more in-game content, polish and balance tweaks to come, but the basic gameplay loop is now done. Thank you to everyone who supported the game getting to this point!
There are several other changes and additions in this update. As always, there’s a detailed list below.
All the changes in Beta 10
Added: 101 new headline elements for more variation
Added: Zoom in and out on the City Map using the scroll-wheel on a mouse, or comma (zoom out) and period (zoom in). Hit the equals-key to reset the zoom level.
Added: Sort buttons on the Editor's Desk, that let you automatically sort your stories by score, political lean or age group appeal.
Added: "Going Online" a 5-event storyline that may trigger after you research the "Web 2.0" upgrade.
Added: Buttons for switching and picking elements on the Desk Customization screen, making it easier to design your desk. The old shortcuts have been removed.
Added: New reporter quotes, for when there is competition for those front page slots.
Added: More variation and flavor to the occasional event "Your Mom Called".
Changed: The Upgrades screen has a visual update, inspired by a classic office accessory: whiteboards.
Changed: When starting a new game, your Editor's Desk is now randomized.
Changed: The "Ads Ending Soon" panel now shows data compared to the end of the month, incl. how much your stand to make.
Changed: Kellum Ded will wait longer, before he might start killing off celebrities in Goodbury.
Changed: Sometimes reporters will have interests, you haven't unlocked yet.
Fixed: Screenshots are now saved locally in their own folder: \Users\[your username]\AppData\Local\AboveTheFold\Screenshots
Fixed: The game might crash if you ran outta cash!
Fixed: The game would crash if the reporter who landed the top story, was also leaving the paper on that same day.
Fixed: Celebrity NPCs added to the game after a save game was started, are now integrated on game load. Fixes a crash where events would try to load NPCs that were not present in the save game file.
Fixed: Panel text made darker to increase readability.
Fixed: The "Clear the Front Page" Challenge no longer require 25 Awards to unlock (that wins the game). 20 will do.
Fixed: Sometimes desk customization was not displaying the proper labels for the graphics.
Fixed: Triggered events involving a dead celebrity no longer trigger.
Fixed: Several minor bugs, typos, etc.
Beta 9 : The Flavor Update
This is a major update to Above the Fold. It comes with 5 new storylines to unlock, more than 3 dozen new events and visual updates from improved buttons and notifications to complete redesigns of several menus and screens. There are quality of life improvements, balance adjustments and lots of bug fixes. Check the highlights below, read on for a detailed breakdown of the main changes, or check the full, itemized list at the end.
TL;DR Bullet Points
You now win the game, if you last all 4 years
37 new in-game events (5 storylines)
126 new elements for random headline silliness
Improved graphics, buttons and notifications
A dash of 90s flavor!
Because this update adds more meat and richness to the game, we're calling it The Flavor Update.
Events and Storylines
Reputation Based Events
Your newspaper's reputation in the Commercial Bias category, may now trigger new storylines. With each day your score is either very high or very low, one of these might trigger. As always, they play out over 5 events, and depending on your decisions, will end 1 of 3 ways.
A similar 5-event storyline was added for reaching a high reputation in the Fairness category. With these 3 new storylines, each reputation category now has both high and low score storylines associated with it.
Making a Profit
Every day your newspaper is profitable (not including advertisements) is a chance to unlock the new storyline associated with profitability - be prepared to negotiate with unions and more!
Climate Theme with Global Science
The 5th storyline in this update unlocks under different circumstances than the others. You must first research the Global Science upgrade, then you have a chance to trigger these 5 events by publishing a "Climate"-themed issue. Note, you may have to try more than once!
Recurring Events
Each month has 1 new event, recurring on a specific date - as long as your newspaper is in operation that day. Since you start the game without any weekend editions, it means that any event falling on a Saturday or Sunday, won't appear for you until those upgrades are unlocked.
Each recurring event gives you two ways to respond. But the results are not set in stone - what you get out of your choices depend on the newspaper you are running. For example, if you're running a business oriented, current events style newspaper, your audience will react differently to wholesome Christmas coverage, than if you're running a lifestyle or local news focused publication. So pick wisely!
A Little More 90s, Please
There were already several retro elements in the game, but none of them are as cool as the new dot matrix-style info panels. Even though many had moved on to laser printers by the late 90s, there were still plenty of working dot matrix machines in the back rooms of businesses everywhere.
More nods include the new buttons, featuring the beveled look inspired by the early Internet days, the new Win-screen uses a font that was popular at the time (Copper Plate Gothic Bold) - there are more little nods like these for you to find. Also, 30 new first names for reporters were added, based on names that were common among young adults at the time.
Names and Headlines
Speaking of adding names, there are also a slew of new last names for reporters to have. In the past, I have added last names of writers, musicians and other journalists, and this batch of names are mainly pulled from women who are pioneering or otherwise famous reporters, except for a handful of names from comedic journalism. Adding last names of real world influences is just for fun. First and last names are randomly combined in the game and any match to actual people is coincidental.
Randomized headlines is another big part of the game, and this update comes with a boost of 126 new headline elements. They add more silliness to story headlines you'll see in the game, and if our player survey says anything, it's that people like those headlines. Don't forget to share your favorite front page screenshots, and that survey is still open!
Numbers in dots!
Notifications were added to some of the features in the game. On the Office screen you might see yellow notifications on your Upgrades button. These indicate how many things you are currently researching. Clicking through to the Upgrade screen will show similar notifications next to the items you are currently researching, displaying how many days are left on each one. Those you've already completed, display a checkmark in a green bubble.
Another button on the Office screen that has a green notification is Challenges. This will now alert you to any new Challenges you've completed. If you see a notification there, click through to claim your challenge reward!
All Changes in Beta 9
There are even more changes and additions than what is covered above. See the list below for a full list of what's new and changed.
Added: 126 new headline elements for more variation in the generated stories
Added: New repeating event for every month. Each is tied to a real-world occasion or holiday and offers a choice. The wording of the event and the results of the choice made, depends on your newspaper's politics and credibility. Choose wisely! (12 events)
Added: New story line that may trigger after your newspaper is profitable (5 events)
Added: 2 new story lines that may trigger after your reputation in Commercial Bias goes either high or low enough (10 events total)
Added: a story line that may start after you hit a high Fairness-reputation score (5 events)
Added: New story line that may trigger with a "Climate"-themed issue, after you research Global Science (5 events)
Added: Toggle the ambient background noise off and on. Use the N-key as shortcut, or use the Options menu to change the setting.
Added: New button designs for features that are separate from gameplay controls (main and options menus)
Added: Notifications on the button leading to Challenges, indicating any unlocked and unclaimed challenges.
Added: Notifications on the button leading to Upgrades, indicating how many upgrades are being researched right now.
Added: Notifications on the individual upgrade buttons, indicating how many days are left before research is completed, and if they are fully researched, it displays a checkmark.
Added: 30 new reporter first names for more variation. Names were picked based on the era, the game is set in.
Added: 20 additional reporter last names.
Changed: More subscribers will either cancel or choose not to renew their subscriptions, scaling as you progress through the game and rival media grows stronger (TV and Internet news)
Changed: The in-game YES/NO/OK buttons have been redesigned
Changed: Options screen now uses checkboxes instead of yes/no buttons
Changed: The in-game labeled buttons have been redesigned to more closely match the 90's aesthetic
Changed: If you make it through 4 years as editor, you now WIN the game for going the distance. Previously, this counted as a loss. With this change also comes a new stat, for how many Time-based wins you have accumulated.
Changed: the panel windows on the office screen were given a dot-matrix inspired visual update to better capture the era the game is set in.
Changed: The Game Over screen has gotten a redesign. It has more data on it and looks different, depending on whether you won or lost the game.
Changed: The main menu now features an animated background and pop ups have been replaced with displaying the contents directly under the logo in the center.
Changed: Reworded the Award info-panel to display more clearly, whether you have already secured the monthly theme award.
Changed: When it's a reporter's kid's birthday, there's a more variation in their quote of the day.
Changed: (and added) Several in-game fonts.
Fixed: Sometimes, firing reporters who had an in-office rival, could make the game crash.
Fixed: Some challenges did not unlock properly, when they should!
Fixed: Sometimes the Morale Event button would be visible, even though the event was still locked
Fixed: The achievement for publishing a 2,500 point issue now triggers as expected (was accidentally set to 25000!)
Fixed: Random surge events could cause an error if queued at the wrong time.
Fixed: Surge-markers on the map guide would still show, even if you hid the guide.
Fixed: Crash based on a personality trait effect not firing correctly.
Several minor bugs, typos, misspellings and oddities.
Above the Fold - Player Survey!
As Above the Fold gets ever closer to leaving Early Access, the last couple of beta releases is where your feedback will be key to deciding what to prioritize and expand on. It also gives a good indication of what parts of the game needs improvement - but it all comes down to getting that feedback in the first place.
Thank you in advance - and thanks again to everyone who has taken time to send feedback and suggestions along the way. As a solo dev, my ideas aren't always the best ones, and I appreciate those who take time to share their thoughts. You rock! 🤘
Beta 8.2.2 : Win Condition Change + Bug Fixes
This is a relatively small update, but nevertheless features an important change to the game. Specifically, the strategic goals victory condition has been cut in half. If you complete 25 strategic goals, you win the game - where before you had to complete 50 goals. Strategic goals are given to you periodically throughout the game, by the mysterious Owner.
On the backend, this patch also marks an update in the game engine. Several bugs popped up after the update, and were promptly eliminated before the update. However, if you find one I missed, please do not hesitate to report it.
With the win condition change, you are that much closer to unlocking the achievement. Good luck!
Changes in 8.2.2
Changed: You now need to complete 25 strategic goals to win the game (down from 50)
Changed: Upgraded the game engine, which led to several new bugs, all of which were hopefully caught
Fixed: Crash caused by trying to load a non-existing sprite on the Editor's Desk screen at the end of day
Beta 8.2 : A Little Story, A Lot of Action
There is some new content in this update, but first, this patch continues where the last one left off, with more stability and bug fixes. Thanks to the added debug tools and a few dedicated fans of the game, some tricky bugs were finally tracked down and eradicated.
Breaking News Storylines
More exciting than bug fixes is new content! This update comes with 2 new storylines (10 events total) that may trigger based on your reputation in the "Breaking News" category, depending on whether you're scoring high or low. As always, each story line has 3 possible endings and outcomes depending on your choices and the type of paper you're running.
Fixes and Tweaks
An area that needed a little love was surges. Any topic can surge in interest among Goodburians, and when that happens these type of stories will score higher and attract more subscribers. Previously, only specific events in the game would trigger a new surge. Those triggers are all still there, with the addition of a new, monthly surge of a random topic. A few other parameters around surges were tweaked for better balance, as well.
It would seem that the introduction of friends/rivals left a string of rather nasty bugs in its wake, specifically tied to not properly removing all references to said friends and rivals, should one of them leave your newspaper.
I want to give a special shout out to two players of the game, who went above and beyond in their help tracking down bugs for this update. Richie Whiteman and Stephanie "Gohst Prncss" Krueger - Thank you both for your patience and for helping to make the game better for everyone!
Changes, bullet point style
Added: 2 new 5-event plot lines that may trigger if your credibility gets either high or low enough in "Breaking News" (10 events)
Added: A random topic will surge in interest every month
Fixed: Certain desk customization options could cause the game to crash when loading the editor screen
Fixed: When starting a new game, you could get negative subscribers and have a very short game
Fixed: Sometimes reporters would have multiple quotes instead of just one
Fixed: Two new occurrances of a previously discovered crash, where the game tries to trigger an event involving a reporter that no longer works at the newspaper
Fixed: When one reporter is away, the AFK icon would sometimes not despawn when cycling through other reporters
Fixed: Surging topics would reset themselves after 0-1 days, which is a tad short
Changed: After fixing the above, Surges would last way too long, so that got nerfed
Changed: Too many stories of the surging type would spawn during a surge, so that's been reduced
Beta 8.1 : Stability Patch
This mini update includes some important bug fixes, including causes for some reported crashes, and some new ones discovered while fixing the aforementioned ones. In other words, your game will be more stable after this patch.
Huge thanks goes out to those who have submitted log files, save games and helped hunt down some of these issues.
Here are all the changes in 8.1.2
Added: Logging of in-game events for debug and curious people. In the Office screen, use F3 to toggle on/off
Added: A few safety measures were implemented to catch minor save game corruption and prevent crashes
Fixed: Bug preventing new strategic goals from appearing if you had tutorials turned off
Fixed: Crash caused by events that included reporters that no longer work at the newspaper
Fixed: Bug preventing positive effects AND achievement triggering from Morale Events
Fixed: Prevent crash, caused by minor corruption in save data, during creation of new monthly award challenge
Fixed: Bug causing crashes at the start of a new day/save load, and preventing certain events from queueing, due to previous issues being counted wrong
Beta 8 : The Achievement Update
The 21 new achievements added in this update range from the very easy to very challenging. Alongside these, we have another 6 new story lines to trigger, and a nice, new office background. In other words, Beta 8 adds more content and fleshes out the game.
Story lines
There are hundreds of events in the game. Some are completely random, some are based on Reporter personality traits, some historical with set dates - and then there are story lines. These are chains of typically 5 linked events with 3 different conclusions and rewards, depending on your choices. Story lines always trigger under specific circumstances, and in this update we are adding a bunch of new ones.
For the first time, we have story lines that trigger based on your Credibility scores. If your Sensationalism or Sources score high, they may trigger story lines. Likewise scoring low in these same categories, as well as Fairness, triggers different story lines.
More of these are planned - eventually all Credibility categories will have two unique series of events associated with them, depending on whether your paper is scoring high or low in that category.
Finally, Beta 8 comes with a story line that may trigger any time you publish a Fashion-themed issue. Themed issues and completed upgrades are two other ways to trigger story lines throughout the game.
Achievements
Who doesn't love unlocking achieves?! Most of the basics are covered in this round, but more achievements are planned. These initial 21 include rewards for exploring the basic features of the game, such as firing a reporter or buying an upgrade, but also a number of achievements that are harder to get.
The hardest one is winning the game, or publishing an issue scoring over 5000 points. But if these still seem too easy, don't worry, there are several tough achievements underway, including a few hidden ones. To the Completionists out there, I am sorry.
New Menu Backgrounds
This update also features new original 3D art by Jay Sanchez, namely an editor's office as background for the office menus. You can find representations of every aspect of the game, scattered around this office. It's also a taste of things to come. As we get closer to final release, more UI updates will add more polish and niceness to the game.
This is beta 8 of 10 planned, after which the game will have its final release. I hope you like the new direction and additions to Above the Fold.
All Changes in Beta 8
Added: 21 achievements! Go forth, and achieve!
Added: 2 new story lines that may trigger if you have good Credibility scores in Sensationalism or Sources (10 events)
Added: 3 new story lines that may trigger if you have low Credibility scores in Sensationalism, Sources or Fairness (16 events)
Added: New story line that may trigger if you publish a Fashion-themed issue (5 events).
Added: Credits-button on the main menu, in case you want to see who's helped get us this far
Removed: Wiki link button, because the wiki is somewhat outdated. May add it back later.
Changed: The main menu has a new background and the screen elements have been re-arranged
Changed: The Office screen got a graphical update with new background and slightly more space, art by Jay Sanchez.
Changed: Reporters for hire during the first 3 issues now have fewer interests that have yet to be unlocked
Changed: Upgrades, Challenges and Office Management got their own take on the new office background
Changed: Lunches Bought renamed to Morale Events in the lifetime stats
Changed: Slight tweaking of how Monthly Award Themes are picked in the early game
Changed: Several story lines now also trigger surges of interest in a related topic
Fixed: Bug in the delay between chained events, causing some events to have incorrect trigger dates
