Hello everyone! This year Halloween comes a bit earlier to DevLife! 🎃 Starting October 25th you will once again be able to access special content prepared for this holiday. New decorations, camera filter, and spooky soundtrack await you!
The game is also available for -40% off during the whole week!
With this small patch, we've added better support for Steam Deck (auto UI scaling and showing steam input field when entering text). So if you own this device be sure to check it out!
As for the next big update, which unfortunately got delayed, we are still working hard on it and it is mostly done. All that is left to do are graphics for Interactive Events, then localization, and then testing. I can promise you for sure that it will be released this year though that of course means that the one with the new map will be moved to 2023. But the plan for full release next year is still a go.
If you want to be up-to-date with all the news and announcements for the game be sure to join our Discord server ;) You can also report any bugs there or give us feedback about the game.
Happy Halloween! Roman Studio Team
Changelog:
New Features:
Added auto UI scaling when playing on Steam Deck
Added auto display of keyboard when playing on Steam Deck
Mechanic Changes:
Changed the start date of the Halloween event (from now on it will be available from October 25 to November 5)
DevLog #5 - Updated Roadmap for 2022!
Hi everyone! As I wrote in the announcement post for the latest update with animals, unfortunately, things got delayed and we won't be able to release the full game this year. But today, I'll walk you through the updated roadmap for 2022 and share some more details about what's coming to DevLife ;)
As you can see on the graphic above we plan to release two updates before the 1.0 version that is scheduled for some unspecified time in 2023.
The first one will contain Interactive Events with diseases and some additional optimizations in the game that I didn't have enough time to do in the previous update. I'll also add additional, more informative tooltips for commissions and components that will help you manage your employees and projects more efficiently.
Finally, there will be a new company upgrade for you to unlock that will allow you to automatically assign your employees to work on a project. That way you don't have to micromanage as much and click on many things, especially in the later stages of the game.
The second big update planned for this year is going to introduce a completely new map for the game. It will be a middle point between Family House and Desert Office and you can see the first work-in-progress draft of it!
On top of that, we are planning to add new Interactive Events about music, like going to concerts or playing an instrument, and random life situations. But I don't want to spoil what they are going to be :P Another important feature will be simulating the same Interactive Events that player gets for employees. It will allow for a more dynamic gameplay and personality changes that will affect who they are and how they perform.
Initially planned for this year the full release of the game must be unfortunately moved to 2023. It is caused primarily due to the fact that I'm also working a full-time job as a game programmer and very often don't have the energy or motivation to work even more in Unity after an 8 hours day of already doing so 🙃 But I really want to bring this project to the state I envisioned for it those few years ago. It will simply just take more time.
Anyway, that's all from me for now. As always if you find any new bugs or have suggestions about the game, you can leave them at our Discord server or on mestoegames.com/bugsreport ;)
Have a great day! Roman
New Update! - Alpha Build #6 (0.8.77)
Hi everyone! It's been a while. But before we start happy pride! 🏳️🌈 As you can probably tell from the fact that this update, which was planned for Q1 of this year, was released in June things got delayed. So unfortunately we will have to reshape our plans for the future updates and the full release of the game. But I'll give more details about that in a separate post soon. For now, let's focus on this update!
But before we start there is one more thing. DevLife is available for -50% off during the Steam Summer Sale 2022! There's never been a better time to get your hands on the game than now!
The most important feature added in this update is pets! You can now own 4 different types of animals each with its own unique Interactive Events that will tell stories of their shenanigans. You can own a dog, cat, fish, parrot, or all of them at the same time! We also introduced a new trait for your characters - Animals Lover - that will drastically increase your chance of getting a pet. So definitely add it to your characters if you want to see as many of them as possible!
Additionally, we implemented a new tooltips system that allows for nesting and provides much more flexibility for us, so expect a lot of improvements and new data in them in the coming updates. Under the hood, we optimized a lot of things that should make the game run a bit smoother and have fewer hiccups during opening/closing windows. There are still things to improve and they will roll up in the next planned smaller update with Interactive Events about diseases.
Of course, we also fixed a lot of bugs and made some improvements to the game balance and you can find the full changelog below. If you find any new problems or have suggestions about the game, you can leave them at our Discord server or on mestoegames.com/bugsreport ;)
Changelog:
New Features:
Added pets
Added Interactive Events related to pets
Added new furniture and variants for existing ones
Added new tooltip system
Added UI scaling option
Added an option to continue gameplay after the natural death of the player character
Added a game time date to the save slot description in the Main Menu
Message about unlocking new furniture now shows all unlocked variants separated by furniture category
Mechanic Changes:
From now on, own projects will give 20 times more experience than commissions when working on their components
From now on, working on higher-level components will provide more experience points for the characters
From now on, selling a piece of furniture won't set back the progress of the company goal to buy them
The "Company Not Profitable" mood modifier is now checked quarterly (previously every 2 months)
Game Balance:
Increased the amount of experience gained for characters when working on components
Rebalanced furniture prices and mood modifiers, as well as the timing of unlocking them
Reduced thresholds required for some achievements
From now on, the death of a player character in a car accident will be treated as winning the game and will unlock the DevLife achievement
Increased the chance for bigger project success depending on the component distance from the skill tree root
Decreased the time of blocking the possibility to renegotiate employee salary to 1 month (previously 2 months)
Doubled the removal speed of the "Company in Debts" employee mood modifier after getting out of debt
Corrections:
Optimized game-saving process
Optimized game loading process
Optimized capturing screenshots
Optimized outline of furniture in build mode
Optimized memory usage of audio files
From now on, sales graphs of own projects will refresh only when the game time is not paused.
Moved permanent notifications related to employees to their workstation trackers
Improved sorting of projects in the panel on the right side of the screen (projects in distribution will appear at the bottom of the list)
From now on, search filters for available components/skills won't reset after closing the search window
Improved order of furniture in build mode
Changed the way of switching character stats in tooltips and panels
Blocked the ability to activate Interactive Events when going to the Main Menu.
Blocked the ability to add mutually exclusive traits in some Interactive Events
Added hover highlight for reward buttons in messages for achieving company goals
Fixed the formatting of the list of components in commission summaries
Improved UI animations in the Build Mode
Improved selectors animations in the Character Creator
Fixed animations of some UI elements that were dependent on the time scaling
Improved display of dropdowns in Settings
Added window scrolling in Settings
Added dropdown for changing language (instead of the horizontal selector)
Added missing Polish translations
Corrected some Polish translations
Added achievement icons in higher resolution
Bugs Fixes:
Fixed the game not starting on MAC computers with Apple silicon
Fixed bugs with loading ongoing skill learnings
Fixed the ability to buy not unlocked furniture after loading the game with an earlier date
Fixed not refreshing character avatars in the project and search panels after changing their appearance
Fixed not counting automatically completed commissions towards company goals
Fixed the incorrect counting of profitable and unprofitable own projects
Fixed the incorrect display of a component's unlock status after creating a learning project with it
Fixed the possibility of the Interactive Event window not appearing due to rechecking random conditions
Fixed a bug that corrupted the game save when an employee assigned to the Interactive Event could not be found
Fixed not adding/subtracting money/fans in some Interactive Events
Fixed not canceling the "Company in Debts" Interactive Event when the company balance was increased by taking a loan
Fixed a bug that allowed the same random Interactive Event to be activated multiple times when it should have been blocked after the previous activation
Fixed not blocking some Interactive Events from reappearing too soon
Fixed a bug that allowed employees to be continuously sick with COVID-19
Fixed not blocking employee interactions when they were taken to the hospital due to COVID-19
Fixed a bug that made it possible to pay the ransom twice in the Interactive Event "Hacker"
Fixed taking money from the personal account instead of the company's account in the Interactive Event "Terrorist Attack"
Fixed the display of a wrong employee in the "Employee Mood Improvement" Interactive Event
Fixed the display of a wrong employee in the "Employee Mood Improvement" Interactive Event
Fixed the mood modifier being added to the player character instead of the employee in the Interactive Event with salary reduction
Fixed the display of the wrong price for photovoltaics in the Interactive Event text (the cost itself was correct)
Fixed a bug with not automatically deleting expired fan commission messages
Fixed the empty message about the lack of found commissions
Fixed the text message not showing after the end of the search for employees that resulted in no employees being found
Fixed bugs related to marking the currently open message
Fixed the appearance of the company goals panel after loading the game when the player didn't own a company
Fixed the inability to send an employee on vacation while they were working from their workstation tracker
Fixed the lack of interactivity of the text tutorial after entering Skill Trees
Fixed a bug with loading automatic settings on the first game startup
Fixed the incorrect display of employee energy bar in their panels
Fixed the display of expired orders in the Commissions Manager when the Show All option was unchecked
Fixed bugs with the incorrect assignment of groups to selectable buttons in component/skill search filters
Fixed the lack of symmetry in one of the car models (this caused clipping of one of the wheels)
Fixed bugs in the car animations (wrong position of the wheels, staying after changing the location)
Fixed the lack of tooltips in the skill stats
Fixed the slower regeneration of employees' energy during vacation than while resting
Fixed the wrong price of the "White Worktop with Two Lockers and Sink" after selecting its variant
Fixed the lack of time panel after creating a new game after returning to Main Menu
Fixed a possibility for the summary text of the own project to stick out of the creator window (added the possibility to scroll the window)
SimFest: DevLife Developer Stream and Q&A 2
Because of my big fuckup with setting up OBS correctly on the last stream, I'm going to go live once again on April 1st at 5:00 PM CET and this time you will be able to hear my voice throughout the whole thing :P We are going to continue playing the same save so if want to catch up on the beginning you will get the chance on March 31st at 6:00 PM CET as I was recording it for the replay and in the video, the audio channels are set up correctly. So once again I encourage you to join me in previewing the next update for DevLife ;)
SimFest: DevLife Developer Stream and Q&A
Hi everyone! We are proud to announce that DevLife made it to the SimFest: Hobby Edition! Because of that I - Roman will be streaming from the work in progress version of the next update on March 30th at 6:00 PM CET. I'll show you the new changes and also answer any questions about the game. If you won't be able to make it on time don't worry as the stream will be replayed every day at the same time throughout the whole event! So please join me to see what's new in DevLife!
DevLog #4 - Roadmap for 2022!
Hi everyone! Happy new year! We wish you all the best for 2022! This year is going to be special for us as we plan to release the full version of DevLife! So hopefully this is the last roadmap before that happens :D
Today I will walk you through all of the plans and share some details mostly about the update coming in Q1 2022. Our goal is to deliver two content updates in the first half of the year and then go silent for a while as we work on the final release later in 2022. I hope that those updates will be finished closer to the beginning of each quarter rather than its end, but we will see how things go.
Interactive Events:
In the first content update in 2022, we will of course add new Interactive Events this time revolving around animals and diseases. Your characters will be able to obtain various pets and you will need to take care of them but also face things they do when you are not around. Additionally, you will be able to give them names to make them feel more like a part of the family.
As for the diseases unfortunately you and your employees will be able to catch various sicknesses that will force you to take a few days off work. There also will be some more serious cases that will require expensive treatments and will not always end on a positive note...
More Furniture:
Just like in the previous update we will add some new furniture that will allow you for more customization of your workspace. Some of them will be new variants of the existing pieces but of course, a lot of them will be completely new.
Reworked Tooltips:
In preparation for the final release, I've decided that the current tooltips system needs to be reworked in order to support sophisticated links and connections between characters that we want to add in the full version of the game. It would be very easy to lose track of who is who in the world and that's where nested tooltips come into play.
The whole system is very much inspired by Crusader Kings 3 just like the character's traits were inspired by the previous installment of the series. In texts and on various objects you will find links to tooltips that will show you more about the thing you are hovering over. Of course, those things will have their own links and tooltips and that's why they need to be nestable. Let's take employees in Interactive Events as an example.
As you can see on the work in progress screenshot above by hovering over the name of the employee in the event you will be able to see more information about them. For example their stats and traits. Let's say you want to read the description of an active trait of your employee. In the new system, you can move your mouse over the icon in the tooltip which will get you a new tooltip with the description of the trait! It's that simple!
Of course, not on the implementation level :P I'm trying to write this system in as much modular, versatile, and expandable way as possible so I can use it in future projects and maybe even release it as a plugin on the Asset Store. We shall see about that because it would require making some documentation and a few changes in the code. But if you would like to see a technical breakdown of the whole system in a separate devlog, then be sure to let me know ;)
Game Optimization:
The last important aspect of the first update coming in 2022 is various game optimizations that I've learned over the curse of my daily job as a game programmer in the last few months. Just to name a few things I plan to move saving of the game and overall operation on files to a separate thread, rework rebuilding of the UI layout, and optimize some other things in the code that probably most of you reading this would not understand 🙃
Anyway, that's all from me for today. You can of course expect more details about other updates coming to DevLife later down the road, but for now, thank you for your time reading this post. Once again we wish you all the best for the new year and we hope you will get to enjoy the full release of DevLife! :D As always if you find any new bugs or have suggestions about the game, you can leave them at our Discord server or on mestoegames.com/bugsreport ;)
Stay warm and stay safe! Roman and Roman Studio Team
New Update! - Alpha Build #5 (0.7.76)
Hi everyone! Today I'm glad to present to you a small, quite unexpected update with full Russian localization made possible by the hard and very quick work of @ZHE5TJ! It is added as an officially supported language on Steam and I hope we will be able to maintain full translation for future updates / posts. Alongside this new language, I've also optimized the way of how texts in-game are changed when you choose a language in the settings so it should happen faster ;)
If you find any mistakes or overlooks in the localization, you can leave them on the appropriate channel at our Discord server or on mestoegames.com/bugsreport ;) Once again big thanks to @ZHE5JT for making this update possible!
Changelog:
New Features:
Added full Russian localization
Corrections:
Optimized performance of the language change in the game settings
New Update! - Alpha Build #5 (0.7.75)
Hi everyone! As we announced previously in a post here on Steam we decided to split content planned for the next update and release as soon as possible which is now! This update introduces a lot of new furniture and random decorations on them that allow you for even more personalization of your workspace! And that's not all of them. There are also 6 new Interactive Events and many other changes that you can find listed below ;)
As always if you find any new bugs or have suggestions about the game, you can leave them at our Discord server or on mestoegames.com/bugsreport ;)
Changelog:
New Features:
Added 112 new furniture and their variants as well as variants of existing furniture
Added random decorations on furniture
Added separate statistics for each character specialization
Added 6 new Interactive Events
Added global pandemic variant of energy drink overdose event
Added Russian translation (courtesy of @ZHE5TJ)
Mechanic Changes:
Blocked the ability to hire and fire employees during Interactive Events that indicate a player character is away from work.
Blocked the ability to dismiss employees in the Employee Manager when this option should have been blocked by an Interactive Event
Blocked the ability to activate Interactive Events that require employees to be present when they have blocked actions
Blocked the ability to find employees with no skills
From now on, when an employee overdose on energy drinks and is hospitalized, their energy will regenerate ( this does not apply to the player character as they are not hospitalized)
Game Balance:
From now on, the Wroth trait is not mutually exclusive with Generosity and Good at Communication traits
From now on, the Rude trait is not mutually exclusive with the Shy trait
From now on, the Rude trait is not mutually exclusive with the Good at Communication trait
From now on, choosing to pay for a birthday party at the Beer'n'Grill pub is not blocked by having the Greedy trait, instead choosing this option gives you a 25% chance of losing it
Increased the difference between the employee's suggested salary and the current one needed to start Interactive Events about the employee's too-low salary and add mood modifiers by 10%
Corrections:
Changed the default furniture of the City Center Office and Desert Office locations
Improved location lights look at night
Quick notifications in Build Mode have been hidden
Improved the look of some furniture
Improved the display of furniture outlines
Fixed many typos and errors in the English translation (courtesy of @DomsTSGS)
Added missing translations for the bills of the Desert Office location
Added missing translations for trait gain / loss notifications
Removed two languages that didn't have any translated lines (German and Japanese)
Fixed formatting of text in furniture info depending on the length of its name
Improved description of company accounts transactions
Bugs Fixes:
Fixed a bug with the UI elements not displaying after starting a new game
Fixed the incorrect loading of the status of the bills (after loading the game, the bills were accrued after 3 months of play, instead of at the end of the corresponding quarter)
Fixed the incorrect behavior of bills after a change of location (they were accrued after 3 months from purchase, instead of at the end of the corresponding quarter)
Fixed the remaining of selected search criteria for commissions and employees after the company has been dissolved
Fixed the possibility of selecting the search criteria for commissions and employees by changing the value of the slider when it should not be possible
Fixed the search criteria for commissions and employees not resetting after loading / starting a new game
Fixed a bug with the ransom request in the Hacker event being too small when the player's company had more than 10.000.000$
Fixed a bug causing zero investment cost in the “Investment Proposition” Interactive Event
Blocked the possibility of duplicating the “Employee Leave Request” Interactive Event for the same employee
Fixed a bug that allowed you to select a piece of furniture through the UI element after loading the game
Fixed the lack of display of the button to change employees in Skill Trees
Fixed incorrect display of text messages
Fixed the incorrect marking of the currently opened message in the message list
Fixed a bug that caused skill learning to remain active after purchasing a new location
Fixed an issue with the notification about ending skill learning that could prevent you from finishing a learning project
Fixed the incorrect functioning of condition checks in Interactive Events in case the next node was only one Text Node that had a condition for its activation
Fixed the ability for Interactive Events to remain active after returning to the Main Menu which caused errors in the console
Fixed the appearance of the Pause Menu when exiting a window using the Escape button
Fixed the appearance of the Pause Menu when exiting Build Mode using the Escape button
Fixed an issue with taking screenshots for save thumbnails when playing in a window mode at a resolution other than the native
