City Game Studio cover
City Game Studio screenshot
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Genre: Simulator, Strategy, Adventure, Indie

City Game Studio

Patch v1.20.0-rc6

Default version of the game, we want to make sure to have a chance to discover bugs and adjust the balancing, to give you the best game experience possible.

Access the Unstable branch on Steam by right clicking City Game Studio in your Steam library, and then select ‘Properties’. In the new window, select ‘Betas’. The Unstable branch should now be available for you to choose from.

Please leave any feedback you may have in the appropriate channel in our Discord, or in the subforum on Steam.

As always, remember to be considerate towards players not partaking in the Unstable, in case they want to avoid spoilers.

Please make sure to make backups of your save files before playing.



Changelog


Misc

  • Add 13 new competitors
  • Add 10 new logos for your company

Bugfix

  • Fix an issue when sorting released game panel games

More pagination, more performance
Hello everyone!

A busy week has come to an end, and a new one is beginning.
I've been busy working on City Game Studio, and glad to have made some progress on the game's interface.

I've focussed this time on the published games section.
While it's important to be able to browse the list of games you've published, showing a huge list doesn't really make sense.
Mainly because the game itself has to handle so many games to display.
So while you don't need to see every game you have available on the market, you should be able to view them all.

This is why the published games panel now displays only the 10 most recently released games. You can still view other games by switching the page displayed.
This is useful when you have 50 games published at the same time, and above all, it saves your resources.

Next week, I'm going to start adding more content, mainly about competitors.
If you have any ideas of competitors you'd like to see in the game, I'd be delighted to draw their logo!

In the meantime, I wish you a pleasant week.
Take good care of yourselves.
Xavier aka Binogure

Patch v1.20.0-rc5

Default version of the game, we want to make sure to have a chance to discover bugs and adjust the balancing, to give you the best game experience possible.

Access the Unstable branch on Steam by right clicking City Game Studio in your Steam library, and then select ‘Properties’. In the new window, select ‘Betas’. The Unstable branch should now be available for you to choose from.

Please leave any feedback you may have in the appropriate channel in our Discord, or in the subforum on Steam.

As always, remember to be considerate towards players not partaking in the Unstable, in case they want to avoid spoilers.

Please make sure to make backups of your save files before playing.



Changelog


UI

  • Add a pagination to the released game panel, including:
    • Self-published games
    • Trade-published games
    • Publishing deal game
    • Remake
    • Gameport
    • Game of the year

That's it! It's here!
Hello everyone!

Yet another hot and busy week!
I hope everything is going well at home! Because over here, everything is going great.

The Banker implementation has progressed well. It fits in well with the game, and makes for much better endgame management.
I think this addition will make the game easier for newcomers to City Game Studio.

Whereas in the past, certain decisions led directly to bankruptcy, now you have a banker to help you out. Frankly, it's one of the best additions of 2024.

Well, that was for the additions of the week just ended. However, for the coming week, I'm planning to add even more choices to the banker, so as to give you even more freedom.

Version 1.20.0 already contains quite a few changes, but I've still got a few things up my sleeve for you. For example, the list of published games on the right-hand panel is nice when you've got 5 or 6 games published. But when you've published dozens and dozens of games, this list becomes difficult to navigate. So I'm planning to rework it to make it easier to read, and to optimize it too.

I don't know if I'll have the time to do all that in a single week, but I'm going to try.
I'm also planning to add new competitors. There are currently 23 different competitors, so it would be nice if I could add at least ten.

Anyway, I've still got a lot of work to do, so I'll leave you to it.
Take care of yourselves.
Xavier aka Binogure

Patch v1.20.0-rc4

Default version of the game, we want to make sure to have a chance to discover bugs and adjust the balancing, to give you the best game experience possible.

Access the Unstable branch on Steam by right clicking City Game Studio in your Steam library, and then select ‘Properties’. In the new window, select ‘Betas’. The Unstable branch should now be available for you to choose from.

Please leave any feedback you may have in the appropriate channel in our Discord, or in the subforum on Steam.

As always, remember to be considerate towards players not partaking in the Unstable, in case they want to avoid spoilers.

Please make sure to make backups of your save files before playing.



Changelog


Banker

  • Game over is now only triggered by the banker
  • The banker offers you the possibility of selling your game engine to avoid bankruptcy
  • The banker offers you the possibility of selling your latest custom platform to avoid bankruptcy
  • The banker offers you the possibility of selling one of your studio (including all of its employees) to avoid bankruptcy

Banker is there but you can't see him
Hello folks!

I have some great news. The banker's integration into City Game Studio has begun.
Under the hood, the banker is there, but visually nothing has changed for you. Only the presence of a `banker.gde` file that allows me to show the banker and his interaction.
Nothing has changed in the game, for the moment. Because the banker doesn't provide any solution, he just appears, you click a button and it's game-over. So I'd rather not to show him in-game.

Hopefully, by next week, you'll already be able to sell your game engine or console to replenish your company's treasury.
Which means that next week, you should be able to start negotiating with him.

After all, this week I've mainly been working on optimizing the game. As last week I reviewed Steam's detection algorithm, I've took a close look at what happens when you launch City Game Studio.

As I keep adding new features to City Game Studio, I want to make sure it doesn't get any slower. So I've looked at memory consumption in detail. As an example, opening the game and staying on the main menu takes up around 2.5G of RAM. Then when you load a savegame and land in the middle of your studio, City Game Studio uses around 3G of RAM.
Therefore, I've overhauled the way the game's assets are loaded. Rather than preloading everything in memory, assets are now loaded on demand when the game needs them.

City Game Studio launches faster, and takes up less memory. It saves around 1G of RAM. Furthermore, as assets are loaded dynamically, performance is not affected. So it's really a win-win situation.

I also took the opportunity to fix a few more minor bugs that were affecting the gaming experience. Thanks to XHFlame for pointing them out!

That's about it for this week, next week will be more exciting for sure!
Until then, take care
Xavier aka Binogure

Patch v1.20.0-rc3

Default version of the game, we want to make sure to have a chance to discover bugs and adjust the balancing, to give you the best game experience possible.

Access the Unstable branch on Steam by right clicking City Game Studio in your Steam library, and then select ‘Properties’. In the new window, select ‘Betas’. The Unstable branch should now be available for you to choose from.

Please leave any feedback you may have in the appropriate channel in our Discord, or in the subforum on Steam.

As always, remember to be considerate towards players not partaking in the Unstable, in case they want to avoid spoilers.

Please make sure to make backups of your save files before playing.



Changelog


Misc

  • Clean up the code base, removing 2 files that are no longer used
  • Game launches faster (uses slightly less RAM):
    • Main menu uses ~1.3G of RAM instead of ~2.5G
    • In game uses ~1.9G of RAM instead of ~2.7G

Bugfix

  • Move camera using WASD while building studios
  • When a competitor buys another competitor, it buys it at a lower value as the player can acquire it.
  • Employees' generated points are automatically cleared as soon as the task they are working on is over.

Many thanks for sharing your ideas
Hello everyone!

Summer's here, so I'm easing off a bit. I admit I haven't been very productive on the development front lately. Lots of small fixes, some rather old bugs and a few small visual improvements.

Community-wise, as always, I've been present, I've read you, and you've come up with some great ideas for the banker. Thank you for the ideas you've shared, and let me tell you what's going to be added for the banker.
For the easiest difficulties, the banker will offer you some nice choices, but not without consequences.
Following on from your ideas, in the first three difficulties, the banker will suggest that you sell your game engine, if that's possible of course.
Or maybe sell your console, or your competitors' shares. He may also require you to work with a competitor to publish one of their games.
Granted, these aren't always pleasant choices, but a banker is still a banker, and a banker rarely gives you good news.

OK, let's move on to higher difficulties. The banker will force you into more painful choices. He may force you to close one or more studios and lay off all its employees. You're going to give a good impression of a responsible manager who pleases his creditors. The banker may ask you to resell one of your games to bail out the company. He may also demand that you sell your dematerialized store, which you can only get back in exchange for a substantial fee.

In short, implementing the banker's discussion is easy, though it's the choices he'll give you that give me a hard time. There's nothing in the game about disabling certain features, or reselling a game, console or game engine. However, closing studios is already an easier thing to do, as is laying off employees, selling market share or even working for a competitor.

As for the banker's face, it may change and I may draw a more contemporary one.
Next week, I'm going to start reviewing bankruptcy management in depth.
Until then, take care.
Xavier aka Binogure

Patch v1.20.0-rc2

Default version of the game, we want to make sure to have a chance to discover bugs and adjust the balancing, to give you the best game experience possible.

Access the Unstable branch on Steam by right clicking City Game Studio in your Steam library, and then select ‘Properties’. In the new window, select ‘Betas’. The Unstable branch should now be available for you to choose from.

Please leave any feedback you may have in the appropriate channel in our Discord, or in the subforum on Steam.

As always, remember to be considerate towards players not partaking in the Unstable, in case they want to avoid spoilers.

Please make sure to make backups of your save files before playing.



Changelog


Bugfix

  • Fix a bug with the employee panel where it generates ton of errors in early stage
  • Fix a bug with the employee panel there's no studio selected it always by the current studio instead.
  • Add the file "steam_appid.txt" next to the executable, so the Steam API is initialized correctly (not more Steam cannot be reached)
  • Rework the Steam detection algorithm
  • Rework the "Steam cannot be reached" panel.

The interface is done
Hello everyone!

Yet another busy work week, and frankly, it's looking better and better.
Last week, I simplified the employee management interface.
Until now, if you wanted to hire an employee and assign them to a studio, you had to open the relevant studio, then open the employee panel and finally hire your employees.
But if you wanted to change studio, you had to close the employee panel, then change studio, then go back to the employee panel. It wasn't very convenient.
From now on, the hiring panel directly includes the studio you're hiring for. It's much more practical.

I've also reworked the game's marketing and conventions, and I think you'll like the changes I've made.

Game-over


Right, let's get down to business. At last, I've chosen the banker I'm going to use as a model: I've opted for JP Morgan. His rather stereotypical look will let you know right away who you're dealing with. The banker, I warn you, is not going to be a sympathetic character. You're not the one who's going to see him, he's the one who's going to come up to you and demand accountability.

So I had to make him a tiny bit scarier, and I'm happy with the current result. I do hope it works for you too. At some point, he might smile, but I'm afraid that'll only make him scarier!

So, when you go bankrupt, he'll be there to rescue you and give you impossible choices. Which means you'll hate him, but really, you should love him! Sure, he might ask you to give up your digital store, or to sell your game engine, or even to sell your console, but it's all for the best!

Anyway, if you have any ideas for impossible choices that the banker can offer you instead of going bankrupt, post them in the comments - I always read you!
That's all for this week, starting next week, I think I'll have more to tell you for the gameover panel.

Until then, take care.
Xavier aka Binogure
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