A few small but important fixes. Most importantly, the Concert Hall (the new building which gives passion) won't consume your friends any more when you visit.
Version 0.10 summary
Fixed: Concert Hall won't eat the character that you visited with any more.
Fixed: New game couldn't be started if the Windows used non-Gregorian calendar (this was broken since 0.11)
Made game intro texts more readable
Minor UI tweaks
New Location: Concert Hall
Visiting the new Concert Hall with a friend and wealth gives about 50% chance to receive some passion. We added 8 new musical tracks in the game, each associated with different feelings. We've also fixed a few bugs as usual, including the one related to Social Animalism upgrade.
Summary
New Location: Concert Hall
New feature: Clicking on a emotion in Emotionarium now also plays one of the musical tracks associateed with that feeling or condition.
8 new musical tracks
Various balance changes (and the current balance is still subject to change)
Added save/quit confirmations
Clarified wording in painting value calculations, Exhibition Opportunities
Fixed painting erotic paintings, it is now possible again.
Fixed minor issues both in the game and in demo
Readability +1 upgrade
This update makes event result texts appear dynamically, meaning most of the game should be easier to read now. This feature can be switched off from settings, and holding down LMB while the text is appearing speeds it up). Additionally, we've made some small balance & typo fixes. Next up, there's some important reworks still to be made for the upgrade tree. Hopefully we can tell you more next week. Wishing a merry weekend to all struggling artists following this game!
The Begging action, new content & features
We are enjoying polishing the game and adding interesting detail. Artist Life Sim is designed to be a fairly challenging roguelite that will result in defeat (or death) if the player is not masterful in balancing their key stats such as health, sanity, wealth and passion. That’s why the game has 10 different defeats and 7 different victories, and that’s why we will keep expanding the features that increase replayability. The begging action is a skill that appears by itself during destitute poverty, and provides an additional chance for the player to postpone or escape being defeated by poverty. It can be used when talking with a friend or for begging in the city streets. It usually only resets the poverty timer, but sometimes a generous passerby can donate more than just pennies.
Version 0.10 summary
New action: Begging. Only available during destitute poverty.
New content: 12+ new background images.
Better music: dynamic music tracks now have greater variety thanks to cross-using some tracks for multiple related emotions, plus some totally new tracks.
New feature: many painting types now allow painting 1 of each card type, instead of excluding using certain card types entirely.
New feature: some card slots now have indicators showing if they consume, merge or reset cards (this feature will be further expanded).
Friendship progression levels now have updated visuals.
The highest level of friendship is now represented as a variety of different fruits.
The game now shows artist lifetimes in playable character victory legacies
Tweaks & Fixes
Drinking routine, alcoholism and cravings now consume wealth or any alcohol, instead of just wealth.
Updated the image representing the Cravings of Charles Eiffel.
Some card timers sometimes displayed incorrect numbers, now fixed.
New friendship options & background visuals
The game feels already a pretty complete and pleasurable, but there’s still a number of smaller features we want to add, so we remain in Early Access for now. If you have any ideas or suggestions, feel free to post them as comments here.
Certain locations now show a hint about the feelings originating from these locations
All very good friends (the highest friendship level) can be now visited
Added 13 new background images for visitable locations
Added 2 new achievements, related to new traits of Andre and Charles
Added visual “liquid fill” progression bars to traits, habits and addictions
Updated loss condition sounds
Balance/Fixes
Rebalanced alcohol consumption effects
Rebalanced location visiting result chances
Significantly optimized game loading times
Fixed Alcoholic Downfall not triggering after drinking alcohol and losing sanity/health
Made sure that receiving consumable medicines gives also the consume action
Fixed issues that prevented advancing certain victory ideas or victory plans
P.s. Check out these fancy medicines if you haven't seen them ingame yet:
Patch 9: Seven major features, tons of fresh content
We've now completed almost all planned major features, so if you want influence it’s development with your ideas and feedback (please do it!) or buy it at the Early Access price level, now's a good moment for this. There will be a few more updates before the full launch, but the game is already a complete, rich experience.
New feature: The Previous Paths. This allows you to keep track of your victories and defeats, and an option to review them.
New feature: Character friendship progression. Talking to people about their personal interests (by talking about passion, or other relevant topics) can now improve your relationship (from acquaintance to very good friend). Becoming very good friends with someone allows you to visit or paint them, give you a victory idea or provide other benefits.
New feature: dynamic background images (30+ individual images, more TBA).
New feature: dynamic music. Most unwanted conditions now change the background music to a specific track associated with that condition (more tracks will be added later).
New feature: Unfinished paintings. In about 22% of cases (might be modified by upgrades later), trying to paint gives you an “unfinished painting” that requires further work before it’s ready to be sold.
New feature: player-specific traits for Andre & Charles. Charles for example has the Cravings trait, a lifelong addiction that demands regular consumption of alcohol (with serious effects to sanity if these cravings are not met). It can be only removed by a special Charles-specific upgrade in the life upgrade tree.
New feature: Larger studio upgrade now allows simultaneously working on two different paintings (the life upgrade tree will change in the coming versions).
16 New pawnable items.
4 medicines now represented as cards.
New (rare) side job: The Shady Opportunity.
All 17 ending types are now implemented. Victory ideas can be found either as visiting results from various locations, or from people after becoming good friends with them.
New updated effects for various feelings, memories and ideas.
New updated sounds for many ingame events (such as losing health, gaining wealth etc)
Balance/Fixes
If countering an unwanted condition with counters during painting/thinking/talking is unsuccessful, the used counters will be lost.
Updated effects of various unwanted moods and feelings
countless smaller issues
Patch 8: fresh improvements
If you’re looking for some good time, try the artist’s downfall with poverty & alcoholism, using your trusty Artist Life Simulator. An important fix plus a few small improvements.
Dark Alleys can now be painted like other locations.
Minor updates to some results and message illustrations.
Fixed game loading issues caused by Windows language and location settings.
Fixed sounds not playing for some locations like Bookstore and Drugstore.
In case the game load fails, it now shows an error on screen. Compared to locating Player.log, it is more convenient to just screenshot the error for sending to devs.
Patch 7: regular update
This update adds new visuals to the main menu, increases the variety of certain action results and fixes a number of issues, also providing behind-the-scenes upgrades to overall game stability.
New, ever-changing visuals in the main menu.
Minor balance improvements
Victory fade animation is now white
Fixed game not being able to start if Windows language is Turkish
Fixed an issue that hovering a card on board didn't properly highlight suitable card slots for paintable cards
Fixed screen fade animation stuttering on game load (and in other similar situations)
Patch 6: Poverty, alcohol and addiction mechanics!
Merry approaching end of the year, lovers of art! Today’s major update provides a lot of new game mechanics and content. Also achievements for game endings, together with fixes and balance changes. A new losstype (entrapped by poverty) means total number of different game endings is now 17.
New mechanics & content
New alcohol mechanics. You can now buy alcohol from Bar Avenue, Dark Alleys or Liquor shop, and consume it alone or together with someone. You can also become addicted to it.
New poverty mechanics. Cost of life can now evolve into Creeping Povery and beyond
New City mechanics: you can now sell up to 5 paintings together in the city streets
New Bar mechanic: It is now possible to visit the Bar Avenue with reputation instead of wealth, relying on your fame for drinks
New locations: Liquor Store, Pawn Shop (names self-explanatory)
New ending type: entrapped by poverty
Added almost a hundred new outcomes for selling paintings in the City
Added many new outcomes for selling paintings in the Bar Avenue
Added some new outcomes for visiting Dark Alleys
New achievements for every loss and victory type
Some job opportunities have new (positive) results added to event pool
Updated or changed many ending texts
Game end animation is much smoother now and features music.
Cards in action and result panels now use grid layout where all cards/stacks are fully visible.
Action cards panel will now only show other slots when the first is filled (can be changed back in Settings).
Balance
Charles Eiffel now starts with the "Drinking Routine" habit.
Finding job opportunities is now more common when visiting the city
Shops can now be paid directly with wealth, without using the visiting action.
Value of locations as inspirations is now “0” (but using a 0 value inspiration still increases the painting max value by 1, because the extra inspiration uses extra passion, which creates the increase).
Reduced timecosts of upgrades
Increased chance to meet characters in Bar Avenue
Wealth is now more important because of the risk to become entrapped by poverty
Fixes
Fixed an issue that caused cards used in an action not being able to evolve sometimes.
New game and load game now start as paused and camera panned to the center of the board.
Fixed wrong card stack numbers shown in action results.
Fixed card cycle timer filler not appearing when it should.
Fixed memory card cycle timer values, there was no variation.
Fixed some minor hover text readability issues.
Cards that were left unusable due to errors in game data are now recovered on game load (Paying on Personal sacrifice card, for example)
