This update cycle is focused on performance optimizations and bug fixes. Don't worry, new features and content will be back for update 0.10.
Patches Notes
0.9.0
Changed: Multithreaded pathfinding has been optimized to better make use of multi-core processors and remove the occasional lag when a lot of characters request a new path at once (typically every in-game hour, when stores close or employees end their shift).
Changed: The builder tick update has been heavily optimized in order to get rid of freezes when building on big/endgame malls. From tests on a 4000+ peak customers mall on a 3Ghz CPU, the builder tick update has gone from an average 150ms to an average 12ms, roughly 12 times faster. This change involves very advanced programming and is prone to introduce glitches (although intensive testing has been done to reduce this possibility). Please look out for bugs and unusual behaviours when building is going on and report them!
Changed: the 'fast builders' option has been removed as it no longer worked with the above optimization.
Fixed: a bug where the game would wrongly warn about deleting a zone when at least one zone had less than 3 walkable tiles.
Fixed: roadwork boundaries displaying improperly.
Fixed: staff becoming invisible when they wrongly assumed they were in a toilet cubicle.
Fixed: ability to transfer employees to Bars.
Fixed: ability to transfer employees to incomplete zones.
Fixed: customers no longer use objects located in a closed business.
Fixed: the game process displaying a proper icon.
0.9.0.1
Fixed: guards frequently pausing while chasing a thief when building is going on.
Fixed: minor issues with the builder tick update optimization.
0.9.0.2
Fixed: a rare bug where Buses would get stuck when exiting the mall.
Fixed: a bug where employees would get stuck when arriving to work by car.
If you have bugs to report, please post in the appropriate Discussions: http://steamcommunity.com/app/521150/discussions/1/
Update 0.8.1 released
This update brings one of the most requested mechanic: Shoplifting and Security! As always, it is subject to evolve based on your feedback and suggestions.
Patches Notes
0.8.0
Added: New mechanic: Shoplifting and Security. Shoplifters are now rife at your mall! Build Security centers and hire guards to patrol around the mall and catch the thieves red-handed. Research the security projects to greatly increase your guards' effiency.
Added: New zone: Security Center.
Added: New job: Guard.
Added: New research project: Security I. Unlocks the anti-theft detection system: place anti-theft detectors strategically to catch thieves all around your mall.
Added: New research project: Security II. Unlocks self-balancing scooters for your security guards: some shoplifters are suprisingly fast! Equip your guards with scooters to give them an edge over thieves.
Added: New object: Anti-Theft Detector.
Fixed: a bug where Bars with rotated counters wouldn't attract customers.
0.8.1
Added: New tool to assign anti-theft tags to product shelves.
Added: Theft is now logged and accessible in the Stats menu. Guards also individually log the value of the stolen items they recovered.
Changed: the ASSIGN menu now uses radio buttons instead of a combo box.
Changed: Lowered the distance at which guards catch thieves red-handed (without detectors). Increased the distance at which guards respond to detector alarms.
Changed: Guards will now directly go back to their patrol after satisfying a need instead of going to their security center first.
Fixed: a bug that could cause employees to go home early, especially with staff needs enabled.
Fixed: missing security skill tooltip.
Please note:
You have to start a new game to enable shoplifting and set its severity (mild/serious/massive).
For your guards to work properly, you have to create patrols (Assign>Patrols) AND pick a patrol for each guard (Manage>Security Center>Staff): select each guard in your staff and click on the patrol of your choice (it will turn green).
Once you have researched Anti-theft detectors, you will have to setup shelves with Anti-theft tags (Assign>Anti-theft Tags).
If you have bugs to report, please post in the appropriate Discussions: http://steamcommunity.com/app/521150/discussions/1/
Translators can check the strings.xml changelog in this post:
http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/discussions/18446744073709551615/3183345000083768650/?appid=521150
Update 0.7.1 released
I'm pushing this minor update since it fixes 2 issues that affect a lot of users and build 0.8 is not quite ready for testing. Some of the upcoming content is present but will be left undocumented until 0.8 is released on the unstable branch.
Patches Notes
0.7.1
Fixed: a major issue with font caching which resulted in massive lag in languages with a lot of characters (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) and possible crashes when switching languages.
Fixed: a game freeze when there are inaccessible work orders on computers with few available threads.
Fixed: some typos.
Added: bartenders now use a shaker when making cocktails.
Changed: the message box warning when a user's anti-virus software might silently crash the game to include instructions for the free version of Bitdefender.
Update 0.7.0.2 released
PSA: If you are experiencing random but regular crashes while in-game please read this http://steamcommunity.com/app/521150/discussions/1/2381701715716313963/
Patches Notes
0.7.0
Added: New business: Bar. Open a bar for your customers to relax and boost their satisfaction after (or during) their shopping duties. Waiters are not required, but if you do have them, patrons are much more likely to stay longer and order another drink. Patrons with the alcoholic trait will stay until the bar closes.
Added: New research project: Bars.
Added: New objects: Bar counter, Bar counter with stools, Bar shelf, Cafe table.
Added: Customers now use the benches to relax.
Added: All checkouts and counters are now displaying their max queue size in BUILD mode.
Changed: Builders and Janitors' hunger and bladder needs rise slower than other employees.
Fixed: the research warning showing up when all research has been done.
Fixed: objects soft walls remaining after deleting/moving the object and until another thing was built.
0.7.0.1
Fixed: cashiers and cooks will now directly go for an unmanned workstation (if any) after satisfying a need, instead of wandering a bit.
Fixed: bartenders' experience rising too fast.
Added: an alternative executable in the ongoing effort to fix crashes for some users. (removed in 0.7.0.2)
0.7.0.2
Fixed: a major bug where failed pathfinding requests were not handled properly, resulting in a number of bugs and glitches (the most common being peeps getting stuck).
Fixed: a possible corruption of Bar queues.
Fixed: ability to build any number of Bus stops while paused, regardless of the research limit.
Fixed: waiters still serving Bar patrons when the shelves are empty.
Added: a message box warning when a user's anti-virus software might silently crash the game (see http://steamcommunity.com/app/521150/discussions/1/2381701715716313963/ for more info).
Update 0.6.0.4 released
Patches Notes
0.6.0
Added: Staff Needs. When starting a new game you can now enable staff hunger and bladder needs. Build restrooms and vending machines near their working place to minimize their downtime when taking a break. Employees that can't satisfy their needs will be deeply unsatisfied and operate at minimum efficiency regardless of their skills.
Added: Marketing. Your office workers can now design and maintain marketing campaigns (Billboards, local newspaper, radio and TV ads, targeted online banners and videos) to boost attendance and sales.
Added: New research projects: Sales monitoring, Big data, Marketing I and II.
Added: you can now assign a product to multiple shelves in ASSIGN mode.
Added: a tooltip for the research button and a warning icon when no projects are being researched.
Changed: how your mall's attractivity is determined, to accomodate the Marketing mechanic.
Changed: removed the Restrooms research project, as you might now need toilets before you build an office.
Changed: Builders will now do their best to complete roadwork blocks one at a time.
Fixed: peeps getting stuck/corrupted when deleting the object they interact with.
Fixed: employees showing up to work furious for no reason.
Fixed: a possible corruption of fine dining restaurants' occupation.
Fixed: a possible corruption of restrooms' occupation.
Fixed: bugged customers endlessly eating their fine dining meal at bus stops.
Fixed: the possibility to build fountains and benches over roadwork.
Fixed: a rare occurence of employees cloning themselves endlessly.
Fixed: a bunch of minor bugs and glitches.
0.6.0.1
Fixed: (attempt) to fix a random recurring crash for some users.
Fixed: hungry employees now go for the closest vending machine.
Fixed: employees who remained angry for an hour after satisfying a need.
Added: hotkeys to delete (DEL) and move (M) objects when selected.
0.6.0.2-4
Added: tools to help debug miscellaneous crashes.
Update 0.5.0.2 released
Patches Notes
0.5.0
New business: Fine Dining Restaurant. Research the second Restaurant project to open your very own Michelin-star-worthy gourmet restaurant. Hire skilled cooks and enough waiters to ensure it runs smoothly. A cashier will act as a Maître d'hôtel to welcome guests and assign tables to them.
New job: Waiter.
New objects: Fine dining cooking range, Kitchen pass, Bench.
Added: You can now transfer staff from one business/job to another (in MANAGE mode, select an employee and click on the transfer button).
Added: You can now order builders to move objects (in SELECT mode, select an object and click on the move button).
Added: You can now order builders to remove objects in SELECT mode.
Changed: the build menu now uses buttons instead of a drop-down menu.
Changed: the max fast forward speed now goes up to x16.
Fixed: customers no longer try to access vending machines that are behind staff doors and get stuck.
Fixed: peeps that were stuck due to various earlier bugs.
Fixed: minor bugs and glitches.
0.5.0.1
Fixed: fine dining restaurant patrons no longer stand on their table.
Fixed: opening a fine dining restaurant properly completes the 'open a business' objective.
Fixed: fine dining restaurant cooks now keep a better track of pending orders.
Fixed: moving objects no longer costs the building price.
Fixed: filtering office workers and waiters on the manage staff menu now works properly.
Fixed: some missing and faulty strings in the localization xml.
Added: font support for Thai and Hebrew translations.
0.5.0.2
Changed: the maximum pathfinding threads has been raised to 32. However, in most cases, you shouldn't set it higher than the maximum threads supported by your processor minus 1 (the text will turn to red as a warning if you do this).
Added: a color legend for the Needs menu.
Changed: fine dining restaurant cannot be open longer than 23 hours a day.
Added: a new Bold default font (NotoSansUI-Bold.ttf) and a Latin/Hebrew font (SecularOne-Regular.ttf).
Translators can check the strings.xml changelog in this post: http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/discussions/18446744073709551615/2217311444335412354/?appid=521150
Update 0.4.0 released
The game is now ready for localization and community translations via the Steam Workshop.
German, French and Russian translations are already available, with hopefully much more to come. You can browse for translations on the Workshop:
http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/browse/?appid=521150
If you want to help translate the game to your language, please follow the instructions in this thread:
Not much new for English speakers this time, but now that that's done we can focus on the fun stuff :)
Patches Notes
0.4.0
Added: Language menu and Workshop translations.
Changed: removed the requirement to build 4x4 foundations at minimum.
Changed: pressing ESC from Manage mode now goes to Select mode instead of opening the game menu.
Update 0.3.2.1 released
Patches Notes
0.3.2
Added: Arcade Games (Arcade cabinets and pinball tables) are now functional and included in the customers' demands. They are independent from their location (do not contribute to a business's profit). You can see how much money they make by selecting them individually.
Added: Vending machines are now functional. Hungry customers will look for a nearby vending machine to have a quick snack. They will compete with restaurants for hungry customers, so you might want add some to alleviate the pressure on overcrowded restaurants. Just like arcade games, you can see how much money they make by selecting them individually.
Added: ATMs are now functional. Customers will randomly look for a nearby ATM to withdraw cash and shop some more (they are not needed until you have multiple businesses).
Changed: you can now rotate the following objects: fast food cooking range, arcade cabinet, pinball table, vending machine, ATM, trash can.
Changed: Bus transport is now split into 4 research projects, each allowing the construction of 10 bus stops.
Changed: improved parking selection logic.
Changed: delivery guys are now much less likely to deliver stock far away from their loading zone.
Changed: the research time for many early projects has been reduced.
Changed: garbage trucks will now pick up a limited number of bags per stop, to avoid blocking traffic. It is still recommended to build your garbage pickup zones in dead ends to avoid this problem.
Changed: tooltips for the build objects and assign zone lists no longer hide the rest of the list.
Fixed: cars that were stuck after removing their parking place.
Fixed: peeps that were stuck due to earlier bugs.
Fixed: work stations that were wrongly flagged as occupied.
Fixed: a rare freeze possibility.
0.3.2.1
Fixed: research projects not completing properly.
Fixed: speed hotkeys not reflected on buttons.
0.3.1
Fixed: traffic freeze when the max number of actors is reached.
Changed: raised the max number of actors from 4096 to 8192.
Fixed: ability to build walls over objects.
Fixed: staff stuck in traffic when their work area doesn't include an empty tile.
Fixed: office desks access (fixes office workers going home immediately).
Fixed: cooks not showing up for work in a variety of situations.
Fixed: the wrong main product category displayed on stores' manage menu.
Fixed: minor glitches and typos.
0.3.1.1
Changed: by default pathfinding requests are now flushed as much as possible to avoid peeps freezing while waiting for their path. This results in a more stable simulation and a less stable framerate, especially on fast forward. You can switch back to the old system in the game options, which is recommended if you are recording or streaming the game.
Changed: staff now has priority over customers in the pathfinding queue.
Fixed: impulse purchases are now properly triggered regardless of the direction the customer is going.
Fixed: a rare crash possibility.
Fixed: pressing space on the rename menu pausing/unpausing the game..
Update 0.3.0.2 released
A big thanks to all those who reported bugs on the unstable branch for everyone else to enjoy this update without too many hiccups! If you share your mall on the Steam workshop, make sure to agree to the latest Steam workshop agreement in the Steam client for your mall to be downloadable by everyone.
Patches Notes
0.3.0
Added: Offices. Research now requires staff to actually make any progress. Build offices and hire office workers to do research, administrative tasks and find wholesale suppliers. Office workers will be needed to keep up-to-date customer demand monitoring (surveys) and perform various marketing tasks in a future update.
Added: Workshop. You can now easily share your mall with other Steam users on the Steam workshop from the in-game menu.
Added: Outdoors decoration. You can now plant trees and shrubs outdoors.
Changed: the builder update cycle, which was causing massive frame drops, has been heavily optimized. This is highly experimental, likely to introduce new bugs and might be reversed.
Changed: stock clerks are now slightly smarter and will try to restock different shelves instead of going for the same one.
Changed: deliveries will now better adapt to low stock situations.
Changed: the way customers are dispatched between various businesses. (Improves the attendance of small businesses).
Changed: your 3 starting builders now have an extra building experience (and the auto salary that goes with it).
Fixed: a bug where fast food cashiers would leave when their first customer shows up.
Fixed: a rare bug that would leave a counter permanently flagged as occupied.
Fixed: interior walls wrongly shaded as if being outdoors.
Fixed: minor bugs and glitches.
0.3.0.1
Added: sound for office workers (typing).
Fixed: sfx echoing, especially with fast builders.
Fixed: a possibility to build double roads, which break traffic.
Fixed: stock clerks dispatch logic.
Fixed: customers dispatch logic.
0.3.0.2
Fixed: peeps getting stuck in storages.
Update 0.2.2.2 released
Patches Notes
0.2.2
Added: Rats! Unattended trash bags and floor tiles that have been left dirty for a long time will now spawn rats. Your builders are responsible for rat extermination (make sure you have enough of them). Rats that are not quickly exterminated will multiply and colonize neighboring tiles. Customers that encounter rats will get a massive nausea penalty and most likely leave your mall on the spot (only customers with the strong stomach trait will continue shopping no matter what).
Added: janitors will now spawn a trash bag every 15 tiles cleaned. Make sure to add garbage pickup areas close to their maintenance centers (and preferably in a dead end) to account for this change. This mechanic will be refined when littering is properly implemented.
Changed: when a cashier ends its shift, customers will now stay in the queue if another cashier is ready to take over.
Changed: fast food cashiers will now fetch meals from the nearest stocked warmer.
Changed: raised the demand for products with a tier 3 demand, to make specialty stores more consistently profitable.
Changed: stock clerks will now restock shelves as soon as their stock falls below 90% instead of 50% (they still prioritize shelves with the lowest stock). As a result they are much less likely to be hanging around.
Changed: customers with the incontinent trait now can't resist diapers.
Fixed: a potential crash when the game fails to initialize the sound driver.
0.2.2.1
Added: you can now select to enable rat infestations when creating a new game. All older saved games have rats disabled.
Changed: when a stock clerk refills a shelve with above 60% stock, the stock crate is 'refunded' to avoid an unfair strain on storage stock and the subsequent stress on deliveries.
0.2.2.2
Fixed: safe mode works properly again.
Changed: launching in safe mode now enables vsync by default.
