This is it, we're in business. City Game Studio is moving to version 1. For you who are just discovering City Game Studio you need to know that the journey began on 2019 when v0.12.0 was launched on Feb 21st.
Since then, City Game Studio has been showcased at prestigious events such as Montreal ComicCon 2019 and DreamHack 2019. All of this happened thanks to the Gameplay Space which helped me organizing playtest sessions, attending many conferences and other social events.
All those events made it possible for City Game Studio to reach maturity and indirectly to release version 1. But before speaking about the future of the game, first let's have a look at the content of this update.
Console overhaul
Creating a console is quite intuitive, but selling a console is a challenging task. The algorithm which calculates the sales of consoles has been completely revised, even if there are still tweaks to do, it is much more pleasant to build your own console now. Moreover you can manage a marketing campaign dedicated to your console. Be careful though, because a successful console can put you out of business if its selling price is lower than its manufacturing costs.
To inform you about the latest news, a new notification appears. It is about new components available for game consoles design. It includes a short message, with an image of the component concerned.
Interface revision
There is much to say about it. Firstly, the 1983 krash is really hard on you. So I made things a bit more clear by adding useful information to the post-mortems. Apart from that, I've added color codes and tooltips to distinguish the profitable consoles from the others. On top of that, I added an algorithm that automatically selects the profitable consoles instead of the ones that are affected by the crash of 1983. These welcome changes will help you publish profitable games.
Post-mortems are important, and their content is even more important because it helps you understand how to make good games. That's why game reports also make a brief statement when you don't use all the capabilities of a console. Handy!
Since 2019, City Game Studio's interface has been revamped 3 times. Yet one panel had never been redone until today. This panel was the summary of the sales of a game when a game is withdrawn from the market. City Game Studio being a management game, I decided to put some statistics and accounting details. I hope you will like it!
Many of you have been asking for it, and for a while already. It took me a while to set it up properly but you can browse your old creations while you develop new games. It's really convenient as it helps to better adjust the gauges when making games.
Miscellaneous changes
When you create your first console you like to publish many games to it. In order to make it more accessible, you can have several publishing offers at the same time. All it takes is a ton of money.
Many of you have also asked for this change. Being able to port a game to multiple consoles at the same time. So instead, I've implemented a system that lets you create a game port list. Gone are the long moments of selecting one by one the game consoles, now in a few clicks you can port your games across as many compatible and available platforms as you want.
One last change, minor this time. It consists in adding a basement to the city map. It took me 5 minutes to do and I like the effect.
Closing words
I really hope that you enjoy this update, at least I had a lot of fun and I'm not hiding it from you, I also had to work hard on some features.
The first version is complete, and I' ve already started to work on the second one. The real question is when do I stop working on updates? I honestly don't know. I have another project in mind. For the moment I focus on City Game Studio while working on this new project on the side.
RU: Improve translations (Thanks to Riken and KamemaruTr and FolioNov9m)
KO: Improve translations (Thanks to LIMECAKE)
ZH: Improve translations (Thanks to zsh2401)
DE: Improve translations (Thanks to MichiShyGuy)
Fresh clean build
Hey,
Another really small update for the default version of City Game Studio. This time it is a fresh build of City Game Studio without any delta build. It leads to a faster and a more stable verson.
Steam beta branch
Meanwhile, I'm still working on the upcoming version, which is the v1.0. The more I work on it, the more I keep adding new features. Feel free to try it out already on the unstable steam branch. The unstable Steam branch is the bleeding edge version of City Game Studio. If you want to play the very latest version of the game, follow these steps:
Go to your Steam Library
Right-click on City Game Studio and select "Properties"
Go to the tab marked "Betas"
In the drop-down box, select "unstable"
Wait for the game to finish updating, you should see the branch name listed after the game name.
Saves
Most of the time, the save from your main game will work in the Beta Branch. But a beta branch save won't work on the main branch unless those branches are synced.
v1.0
While I plan to release the v1.0 in few weeks I think City Game Studio will remain in Early Access for a couple of months. There are a lot of marketing materials to produce, but I'm running out of time and won't be able to produce everything by the end of April. What does it mean exactly? The v1.0 is still planned for end of april, but the v1.1 will be delayed a bit (I'm gonna try to make another bet August 2021).
Thank you for reading Regards Binogure
Balancing and bugfixing
Hello fellow gamers,
Long time no see! I'm busy working on the very next update which is going to be the v1.0, it'll include a lot of cool stuff. Such as marketing campaigns and mod support for custom platforms, new Steam achievements, a better UI...
However I published a minor update for the v0.34.1 because City Game Studio is a bit too hard. So I took a whole day to balance the gmae. Meanwhile, I fixed an audio bug for Linux. If your sound is crackling please you can adjust the -output_latency to 50 by setting a launch option. If it doesn't work you can also try to adjust the -mixer_latency
That's all folks! Regards Binogure
City Game Studio: v0.34.1
Hey folks,
I've been busy reading your feedbacks and working on the very next update. However, I also receive few bug reports, so this update is about fixing them all while improving a bit of the UI (it is a very light update).
Changelog
Bugfixes
Can open the digital store even if it is not yet available
Can publish an update for a trade publishing game
Cannot list all the controllers available for the custom platforms
Mod: mod without custom icons throw an error
Misc
Improve hold to click button rendering
What's next?
First of, I want to thank you all, because you sent me a lot of suggestions about how to improve the console manufacturing and also how to improve the game overall.
Console manufacturing
The next update will be the v1.0.0, and I plan to implement the mod support for console manufacturing. You will be able to design your own console cases and import them thanks to mods. I think this is really important because you will be able to make your dream console.
Currently, it misses an end of life panel for custom platforms. I think it would be better to have a panel that shows some basic information like: unit sold, catalog size, refund rate... Also, I plan to add a notification to announce when a new component is available. Because currently you have to check from time to time to see if there is a new component.
Besides that, you will be able to hire an other studio while you are working on your console, so they are going to make games for your console. You will be able to spend 1 million for 2 games, 5 millions for 10 games or 50 millions for 100 games (I'm still balancing that part atm). So you will have a great catalog for your console when you release it.
Some of you requested the ability to see all the games that have been published on your console, and it is coming, I'm working on it right now. It is not hard to do, but it takes time to do.
Other improvements
I plan to work on other improvements, I don't want to spoil anyone, so I'm going to keep that part secret until its release.
That's all for today, I hope you will enjoy that tiny update Regards Binogure
City Game Studio: Make your own consoles
Hello everyone!
Thank you for joining us, for purchasing and playing at City Game Studio. Thanks because it's been two years now since I can work full time on City Game Studio, thanks because it's been two years since many of you have been coming to play and sharing your ideas and suggestions.
I'm not going to go through all the features that have been added over the last two years, you probably already know them. However, I'm going to tell you about the many new features that come with v0.34.0.
When is v1.0.0, and the end of early access?
I know you're all wondering when v1.0.0.0 will be released? Well it's coming soon, and to give you more details, here is the list of stuff I have to finish before releasing v1.0.0.
Mod Support: Add/rename component for custom platforms
Custom platform: Add a discontinue panel
Custom platform: Add a notification when a new component is available
Digital store: Rework the feature panel
Game creation: Add a button to see previous game mades (same genre)
Competitors: Add the ability for a competitor to buys out other competitors
So what happens next?
Once these features are implemented, City Game Studio will leave the early access and I still publish updates to add new features. Game support is going to continue for months and after that it depends greatly on the outcome of its official release.
Back to the matter at hand and let's talk about v0.34.0 in detail.
Let's create game consoles
This is a feature that wasn't planned in City Game Studio, but considering your enthusiasm, I had no choice but to include support for video game consoles. Frankly, I thought it would make the gameplay cumbersome and boring to play because it would make the game too complicated, but you guys were right. Making consoles is a good way to enhance the gameplay, once the 2000's are reached, making your own console and popularizing it becomes a huge exercise.
In designing a console, you have to first select the type of console, whether it's a handheld or a home console. Next, you have to carefully choose the electronic components that make it up to customize its case, choose its color and pick the controllers that come with it. Finally, you can determine the price of the console in proportion to its manufacturing cost, which is greatly influenced by the design quality of the console. To maximize revenue while minimizing costs, use an accountant.
When the console is ready, you still have to wait, because you should develop a dozen of games for the console to meet its public. And then maybe you'll hit the holy grail with a console that reaches 5% market share so that your competitors begin to publish games on your console.
What happens if you fail to launch your console?
There are marketing tools available, you can arrange sales, or drop the price of your console. Since the price of the console has a great influence on buyers, selling a console at a discount at first might be a good idea if you want to appeal to competitors.
Revamping the digital store
The old panel was dull and colorless, with the addition of the consoles the time came to dust it off. Of course you will be able to publish games on the consoles you make via the digital store, both features are compatible. Just imagine the possibilities.
Make your own digital store, make it Skilight compatible and also compatible on your game consoles.
Server load
The server load calculation algorithm has been extensively revised. With a dozen servers you can already support nearly a million users. No more bankruptcy because of the digital store!
Additional changes
Difficulties have all been revised and corrected, it goes from very easy to a mode that is really hard. Obviously there's a whole world between these difficulties, and I'd advise you to start with the lowest difficulty in order to understand the inner workings of City Game Studio.
Important notifications are shown immediately so that you don't miss them. That means when someone applies for a job, or when there's a salary increase or a crash in the video game market, notification appears. You still have the possibility to flag it as spam, so this type of notification is not displayed anymore.
There are a lot of other changes, a lot of fixes, I suggest you either read the complete changelog at the end of this announcement, or you can directly enjoy this update by launching City Game Studio, be aware that it will be a real change for you!
Good day to all of you! Binogure
Changelog
Features
City Game Studio: Convention rework
Hello,
You were expecting v0.32.4 and not v0.33.0. Well I am sorry if I disappointed you but this update is way to big so I had to call it v0.33.0!
Convention rework
No more annoying pop-ups that interrupt each September! Now conventions are bundled, which makes the result not bad at all. Allocating a game to a convention impacts on its rendering, I think it's so cool that I'm thinking of adding illustrations to other panels for upcoming updates.
Game balancing
As you will notice, the game is more challenging. I created a tool that helps me to monitor the different game modes and to forecast the income generated based on the game type, the rating, fans... Thanks to this tool and also to the gamers of the unstable branch I could balance the game. The Easy mode remains almost as it is. On the other hand the other levels of difficulty greatly evolved.
Game interviews
City Game Studio is more challenging. But interviews are there to help you get through it better. I want to make it clear that any resemblance with real characters is completely fortuitous.
Closing words
Many things have changed in the game, and it will continue to do so. In the next version, v0.34.0, you will be able to make your own game console. Meanwhile, I invite you to take a look at all the mods available on the Workshop. Many thanks to all of you for your great mods.
Thanks for your great mods, Binogure
Changelog
Feature
Add interviews about your games
Balancing
Game is more challenging overall
No limit for AAA games
Balancing game sales according to the score and the game size
Adjust contract difficulties
Indie games stays less longer than AAA on the shelves
Competitor: Won't buy out all the available studios, will spare 1 to 4 studios accordingly to the difficulty
Rework GOTY, publishing offers and gameports note computation (less random, more profitable)
Balance game engine creation
Contracts: shows only manageable contracts
Balance game engine profits
UI
Add a button to edit conventions from the right panel
Bottom menu: Add keyboard shortcut to the tooltips
Bottom menu: Add animation when a button is updated
Staff panel: Add the number of employees
Game creation: Add fanbase requirement for every game size
History panel: Improve the tooltip about capacities produced
Game creation: Release panel has been re-organized (better animations and sound effects)
Staff panel: Add a "Hire & Assign" button
Staff panel: Add studio capacities of the selected studio
Platform panel: Re-organize the panel while porting a game
Rework the gaming conventions
Contract: Reward panel reworked
Contract: Offers panel reworked
Misc
Optimization, the game should load faster and should run smoother overall
Linux: Improve launcher (better logs)
Bugfix
Digital store/Platform unit sold ratio was wrongly computed
Cannot update/discount a trade-published game
Repair all the items button was not refreshed properly
Game engine: Fix issue with development costs
Mod support: Game might crash if loading too many mods
Mod
Can manage multiple Steam branches (default, unstable and oldstable)
Validation: Translations keys cannot get more than 64 characters
City Game Studio: Events bugfix
Hello fellow gamers,
Yesterday the better mod support version has been released, and I can tell events needed a better validation. With the v0.32.2, some of the mods won't load anymore because of the validation.
What does it mean?
If a savegame used a mod that doesn't pass the validation anymore, you won't be able to load it. No worries, it doesn't mean that the whole savegame is dead or corrupted, it means the mods needs an update. So I reached the mod creator and we are working on a new version of the mod that will solve everything (even 2020).
Sorry about that, if you experience any crash like those, please join the discord server and DM me.
Cheers, Binogure
Changelog
Bugfixes
Improve mod events validation
Fix crash for random notifications
Improve mod translations validation
City Game Studio: Better mod support!
Hey folks!
I hope everything is alright! You know how 2020 is already, so I'm bringing some good news.
Improved mod support
Are you bored about the conventions names? Let's rename them so, and add new ones! Yup you can add new conventions and rename existing ones! Also, you can add new events that impacts your studios. Many of you want more feature for the game engine and the digital store. You can now add more feature to the game engine and also more features to the digital store. If you want to, you can add a VR Voxel feature for your game engine.
Improved save games
The load game panel has a Copy button, and you can also add new mods to an existing savegame. Also, when y oucreate a logo for your company, it is saved, so for the next game, you will be able to reuse the very same logo. Isn't it great?!
Last week I submitted v0.32.0, and this update already contains a lot of improvements. So launch City Game Studio and start discovering them all!
Thank you for playing Binogure
Changelog
Feature
Mod: Add events
Mod: Add mods to an existing savegame
Mod: Add feature to game engines
Mod: Add digital store feature
Mod: Add/rename conventions
Duplicate savegame
Save old logos
Misc
Manufacturer: Add Linux Avatar
Manufacturer: Add Robinet Avatar
Adjust VBox series V unit sold
Top selling game panel: Show only the first 100th games
Rework the Leaderboards
Employee: Add a hire all button
Validate continue button
Bugfixes
Theme panel: No more sliding over the screen
Mail box: "Empty message" no longer appears when there is one message left
Old savegame: Games and events were not loading properly
Mod: Throw an error when there is no mod while creating/loading a game
Optimizations
Postpone the mod loading
Postpone the last save game loading
City Game Studio: Mod support
Hello everyone!
I'm glad to see you for this new update, which I hope you'll like as much as I do! There is a lot of content, and good content, let's have a look at it together!
Mods support
You have read correctly, you can create mods for City Game Studio. There are already a lot of them and you can already use them! That's really great.
For those of you who want to create your own mod, I've set up a tool that should make it easy for you. I call it the ModMaker, it allows you to create mods by filling out a form. For those who are more code-oriented, you can also create mods based on the documentation.
Mod support allows you to add and rename consoles, console manufacturers, indie companies and competitors. It also allows you to add new translations, new difficulties, new game speeds, new maps or new themes.
New consoles
It's 2020, this wonderful year brings us a lot of new consoles. You will see appearing the Gamestation 5 of Deny as well as the VBox Series V of Minisoft. The most recent consoles have been adjusted with more recent data (which allows us to have a more balanced market share).
Other improvements
That's not all, I've also added JPG format support for logos, and also a better interface to navigate through the files. The game porting panel now gives you information on platform compatibility, which will help you know if porting will be profitable or not. Other improvements include being able to select all the features of a game engine at the time of its creation or being able to reduce all the details of the games on sale with a single click.
The final word
I haven't detailed all the features, improvements, optimizations and fixes here, but you can find them in the detail of changes (a little below). Be aware that there are many of them and that City Game Studio should better support big games (with more than 1000 employees).
Regarding Mods support, a version v0.32.1 is in preparation, and it will contain interesting features.
In short, I don't say more, I wish you an excellent game, enjoy this update, and see you soon for the next one!
xoxo Binogure
Changelog
Feature
Add Mods uploader
Mod: Add/rename platforms
Mod: Add/rename concurrents
Mod: Add/rename manufacturers
Mod: Add theme
Mod: Add translations
Mod: Add/rename indie companies
Mod: Add custom difficulty
Mod: Add custom game speed
Mod: Add custom map size
Mod tool maker
Mod dependencies
Platforms: Added Gamestation 5 and VBox series V
UI
Improve UI for file dialog
Add JPG/JPEG format for company logos
Add a hand pointer for the dialogs and clickable texts
Add speed to the game speed list
Game engine: Add a select all button and better tooltips
Reduce all the chart of the release panel with a single button
Platform compatibility feedback
Bugfixes
Design icon was dispayed instead of the development icon
Selling an item was not giving you back the money
Some notifications were not sorted correctly
OSX: Crash when negotiating with competitors
Several minor fixes
Optimizations
Improved stdout handling (Windows only)
Graphic settings: Add auto adjustement option
Optimizations for very large companies
Balancing
Coffee machines and vending machines have monthly costs (750$ month)
Devlog #1 - Steam workshop
Hello folks,
Since I haven't published anything for about a month now, I though it would be great to give you an update about the Mod Support! I'm really excited about it! So let's talk about the technical challenges implied by this feature!
Steam API
Sadly, there was no working Godot Engine library that supports the Steam Workshop. So I forked the most used and implemented the steam workshop. Feel free to use it, but since it needs a 64 bits supports, you might want to use the custom version of Godot Engine I made. Since Godot Engine is free and open source, everybody has access to its source code, which is really convenient!
GDScript integration
What is GDScript? Now the Steam API is exposed to GDScript, I started implementing the Steam Workshop in City Game Studio.
I spent several weeks designing a state machine that returns human readable error messages. func get_error_description(error_code): if error_code == E_RESULT_OK: return 'Success.' if error_code == E_RESULT_FAIL: return 'Generic failure.' if error_code == E_RESULT_NOCONNECTION: return 'Your Steam client doesn\'t have a connection to the back-end.' if error_code == E_RESULT_INVALIDPASSWORD: return 'Password/ticket is invalid.' if error_code == E_RESULT_LOGGEDINELSEWHERE: return 'The user is logged in elsewhere.' [...]
So far City Game Studio can create, update, delete, validate and download mods. Since I'm a solo developer I went deeper and I added a Mod API version to City Game Studio. The version number is automatically added when you create a new Mod. In case a mod uses an older version of the Mod API, it will be automatically disabled to avoid data corruption or crashes. It means that City Game Studio downloads/validates a mod when you create/update one, but also when ou enable one. I think it is more convenient that way, because you won't have to deal with mods compatibility.
Is it ready yet?
Not yet but soon. So far I have integrated 4 of the 10 schemas. [table][tr] [th]Schema[/th] [th]State[/th] [/tr][tr] [td]Rename/Add platform[/td] [td]DONE[/td] [/tr][tr] [td]Rename/Add manufacturer[/td] [td]DONE[/td] [/tr][tr] [td]Rename/Add competitor[/td] [td]DONE[/td] [/tr][tr] [td]Add theme[/td] [td]DONE[/td] [/tr][tr] [td]Add InApp-Purchase[/td] [td]TO DO[/td] [/tr][tr] [td]Add marketing campaign[/td] [td]TO DO[/td] [/tr][tr] [td]Add furniture[/td] [td]TO DO[/td] [/tr][tr] [td]Add custom difficulty[/td] [td]TO DO[/td] [/tr][tr] [td]Add feature to the digital store[/td] [td]TO DO[/td] [/tr][tr] [td]Add feature to the game engine[/td] [td]TO DO[/td] [/tr][/table]
How do I make a mod?
It is not yet implemented A page of https://www.city-game-studio.com/ will be dedicated to that. Let's take an example. You want to rename a platform. So you open the website, go to the Mod creator, and click on Rename platform. Then you select the platform, enter its new name (you can also change the manufacturer). Once done, you download a zip file. Then you launch City Game Studio, click on Mod, select the zip file and you are good to go.
Note: Zip file contains clear text, so if you want to create mod manually you will be able to do so.
Closing words
I'm thrilled about the Mod support, and I think you will be able to make mods manually by the end of October. I wish I could release it sooner, I'm sorry about that delay. Indeed I had several mandatory appointments that I couldn't skip, plus I wanted to release Sneak In on Steam just after the Steam Game Festival
