This massive update changes the game in so many ways, with a new building, updates to some other buildings, new characters and a ton of improvements and fixes. I've spent the last little while putting some love into every part of the game that needs it. A lot of it was meant to be part of the expansion, but I'm just gonna add into the base game for free. Don't worry, there's still loads of content left for the DLC!
Many playstyles will need to change with this update, but I'm still gonna be tweaking the balancing of certain things over the next week or so depending on feedback, let me know your thoughts!
Now, since I've given something to you guys, I don't suppose you could do me a favour? Could you tell just one friend about CHANGE? Or maybe post about it? Maybe you stream? Currently we're selling less than 10 copies daily, but maybe someone out there can help us out with a little boost. I really think this game deserves so much more attention than it's had, but ah, of course we're still grateful for the small success we've gotten already!
Don't forget, the even bigger expansion is on the way too, next post will be with a new trailer and a link to the store page! Oh, and the Spanish version will be up in a couple of weeks or so.
Without further ado, here's the patch notes! Now, I need to go to bed because I've been up for 31 hours... but I'm very happy to have this update out. ^-^
Danny
New Features & Big Changes
⦁ A new restaurant building has been added! You can get expensive hunger/happiness and other random boosts here which use time, you can also beg for leftovers with a low success rate (depending what time of day you choose to do it).
⦁ The Addict now has a 50% chance of automatically consuming the item any time you receive an addictive item if happiness is below 60 (Many complained this character wasn't unique enough compared to the others, and it IS meant to be one of the more challenging ones)
⦁ Occasionally, someone might be willing to play pool with you at the bar for a little happiness boost
BIG JOBS/RENT/STUDY UPDATE:
There is now a new PAPERWORK stat! I always felt that STUDY wasn’t enough to get across what I’m trying to say with the stat, as some players think it means that homeless start off stupid and just need to study and work to get a job. But it's actually meant to represent the long struggle of trying to get a job. Hopefully this improves all that. Here are the details:
⦁ Paperwork now works alongside your study to increase jobs success
⦁ The new requirement for renting a home and winning the game, other than affording it, is now attaining 100 paperwork, rather than having a job. Though jobs are still important for raising your paperwork level
⦁ Increase your paperwork by gaining residency, opening a bank account, holding down a job, etc. It can be lowered if you develop a criminal record by being arrested. You also lose paperwork bonuses you have from residency or having a job if you lose them.
⦁ While the effect that study has on your job success is reduced, study now also affects salary levels so you get paid more if your study is higher. Base salary levels have been reduced to compensate for this, except for the Daily issue job, which works differently. So, lower base wages, but at 100 study your wages will be higher than the base level was before this update, making a high study before getting a job a worthwhile payoff
⦁ All characters now begin the game with 10 study.
⦁ All job study requirements have been reduced, but now have a required paperwork level
BIG SHELTER UPDATE:
Shelters now spawn with permanent "condition" modifiers that make different shelters more or less viable and these never change. Some shelters won't allow animals, others will have lower curfew times, or come with shower rooms, etc.
Additionally, shelters now all spawn with different curfew times, though most will be between 19:30 and 20:00. Shelters with good effects tend to have earlier curfew times, but you might get lucky!
AND, each shelter is now run by 1 of 3 organisations. Once you have residency, you can set any shelter run by the same organisation as your new resident shelter without having to wait a number of days. This should help with the game forcing you into one small area to grind in.
If you don't like the shelters, you'll have to move on to another area for the chance of better ones.
⦁ A person can sometimes be found sleeping on the benches...
⦁ A new pedestrian type has been added, the old lady has low begging chances and requires multiple beggings, but will pay out more than the average.
⦁ If you can find the charity collector in the streets, she'll help you out
⦁ Some new Maladies have been added...
Balancing
⦁ Reaching new levels of friendship/trust with Joe, Maggie or Bill now awards a happiness increase. If they come to hate you or you do enough things to make them like you a lot less than they used to, this comes with a happiness decrease. The SOCIAL perk and DYSFUNCTIONAL PAST malady affects this bonus.
⦁ Ok fine, time has been slowed a little more
⦁ Washing at fountains now uses a little time
⦁ The default choice of perks is now 3 when you get a new one, Street Savvy gives a choice of 4 (Because street savvy was pretty much a must have perk)
⦁ Winter now arrives after 4 days of "summer" rather than 3 by default
⦁ All city events are more punishing, especially the level 3 ones.
⦁ JOB SUCCESS CHANGE: Crime level has a greater negative effect on job success, happiness doesn't affect job success quite as much at base level, low hygiene affects job success more, study affects job success less (but also now affects wages positively), 25% of new paperwork stat is now added to job success. Also, a couple of perks which affect job success are now slightly more effective
⦁ Some other characters are more reactive to your actions over time, disliking you more for doing a bad thing and liking you more for doing a good thing.
⦁ New building layouts added to city generation that makes the buildings denser and closer together in some areas, so you don't have to walk as far on average (also because, as we add new buildings, it reduces chances of other buildings spawning, so we need to fit more into the city to maintain balance).
⦁ Virtually all negative night events now take more happiness
⦁ Increased chances of dog food appearing in shops when you have the dog
⦁ When arrested, you now also lose any bliss, alcohol or radios you were carrying (can be negated or lower chances of this with perks like concealment and other things).
⦁ Base crime level before police will arrest you and start a prison event has been increased from 50 to 80. (You can still turn yourself in at police stations with 50 crime)
⦁ Base happiness gain from first bliss use reduced by 5
⦁ Some more of the other homeless characters will now sometimes spend their mornings waiting for day labour at a day labour billboard, and they will compete with you
⦁ The teens that cause you to lose happiness when they say something mean as you go past, one group now cannot do this more than 3 times in one day. They also no longer spawn on the first couple of days.
⦁ Payphones are more likely to have small amounts of change left in them
⦁ Base chances of food/items found in trashcans reduced slightly. Waste desposal funding city events affect chances of items in trash cans a bit more negatively than before.
⦁ Very, very rarely, scrap items to pickup in the streets can now be a minor item like fruit or something else... You'll be able to see what the item is on the street.
⦁ Certain items/perks that affect chances of food/items found in trash cans are now a tiny bit more effective
⦁ Increased Survival perk points earn rate
⦁ Fixed Juice description saying "click to eat"
⦁ Increased number of bus stops on average
⦁ Significantly reduced chances of mystery events popping up in the park, also significantly reduced chances of the event being one where you're mugged
⦁ Happiness drain while working a job increased
⦁ The park entrances are a bit less far out from the city centre
⦁ Increased the base number of pedestrians in the street, especially during rush hour
⦁ Base hygiene decay is about 5% faster, but various perks/items that passively affect hygiene are more effective.
⦁ Slightly reduced vision distance of police, so they don't catch you when they literally have only one pixel on screen
⦁ Reduced base crime increase for being caught begging significantly
⦁ Scrap base spawn chances on the streets reduced very slightly. Waste disposal funding city event also reduces scrap spawn chances more.
⦁ Decreased rate of happiness decay in bad weather
⦁ Your money now is given back to you when you lose your bank account, rather than when you gain access to the bank account again
⦁ Base hunger/Happiness decay rate reduced while using benches
⦁ Chances of being mugged in the night increased when you have lots of items of any kind
⦁ Breaking into parked cars pays out a bit less if you find cash
⦁ Breaking into parked cars takes 1.1 seconds longer
Bug fixes and improvements
⦁ We've made a LOT of improvements and bug fixes. Enough to upgrade the entire feel of the experience.
⦁ Fixed speech bubbles not showing the subway
⦁ Fixed "Null" speech bubble showing in camp area
⦁ Newly acquired items and perks now have a small animation that plays when you view them in your inventory for the first time to make it more obvious which items you just got right away
⦁ Street Reputation changes in the streets are now shown with a floating icon and text just like hunger and happiness
⦁ Fixed a save/load exploit to get more stuff or cash
⦁ Fixed a bug where winter coat item combined with some other things could cause you to negate the freezing happiness drain completely
⦁ Fixed item names not being shown in inventory when viewing items
⦁ Gender selection button has been made more obvious in the character selection menu
⦁ Fixed a bug where coming starting a new game after playing a run could have you begin with a character you didn't select
⦁ Fixed those two homeless you could trade with being around basically every day, now different characters may appear on different days as intended
⦁ Fixed speech around bargaining with the day labour truck guy and other homeless not showing
⦁ Fixed other homeless characters teleporting to wait for day labour
⦁ Fixed crash bug that could occur at max level
⦁ Breaking into parked cars now has appropriate sfx
⦁ When selling the daily issue, a new cursor icon appears when hovering over pedestrians
⦁ Various new street decorations and graphics have been added
⦁ Fixed some bugs that could happen when switching characters very, very quickly in the character selection menu
⦁ When selecting left menu tabs like perks, maladies, city events, etc in the bag menu, they are now highlighted instead of disappearing depending on which menu you're in
⦁ Reduced clickbox sizes on pedestrians
⦁ Fixed the fish n chips food item not working with the eat button when it showed
⦁ Your previously played character is now usually the one first selected when opening the game and you've played before
⦁ Fixed teenagers insulting you and lowering your happiness when you first load in and they just happen to spawn where you are.
⦁ Added a slight fraction of a second delay to when popups are interactable and you can dismiss them, players were accidentally clicking it away too much
⦁ Reduced volume of stomach gurgle sfx, also changed pitch
⦁ Slightly sped up night event intro time
⦁ Improved clock timer popups timing, also various screens that cause time to pass such as taking shelter in the toilets now uses the proper clock timer popup
⦁ Tree foregrounds now properly fade out when moving into buildings, the way they stayed on screen before ruined the perspective
⦁ Fixed a bug where study could be decreased when loading into the game with certain perks
⦁ The dog now barks on dog related popups
⦁ Various sfx changes and updates
⦁ Certain buildings that didn't look closed when they are, now do.
⦁ Various texts within the game including speech is now animated
⦁ Auto eat is now off by default. Some players were confused after seeing no items in their bag after buying something.
⦁ When your food is taken by pests, this will no longer show as being done by foxes while sleeping indoors (it was a bit farfetched wasn't it?)
⦁ Fixed various bugs that could occur if you had the TRASH SCRAPPER perk with the scrap that appears around trashcans such as using the wrong non-scrap graphic like a cone or brick.
⦁ Other homeless will now move to another area if you keep begging in front of them
⦁ When paying for the bus, this now shows the cost in floating cash text
⦁ Fixed some bugs with charity events at higher reality levels
⦁ Fixed a bug where the charity perk was much less effective with certain reality level/city event combos
⦁ Fixed some typos in certain text
⦁ Fixed some texts running outside of borders in certain languages
⦁ Fixed scrap pretty much always spawning around trash cans if you had the related perk
⦁ Fixed Library Card button in library being lowercase text
⦁ Scrap pickup/hover animations have been improved a bit (makin' it juicier)
⦁ Fixed some scrap behaving as though you had the Scrap Master Library book effect when you don't
⦁ Fixed payphones not charging you for using them. Also the price has been reduced
⦁ Fixed there being no feedback after failing to find change in a payphone
⦁ Fixed a bug where you could fade in the menu music once in the game
⦁ Fixed scrap mouse colliders getting larger over time
⦁ Fixed various bugs with prison events and the day not ending properly for everything
⦁ Fixed a bug/freeze that could occur if you had the dog at the start of the day
⦁ Fixed various issues/bugs with playing the game in non English languages
...And probably some other stuff that I forgot to write down for this one.