Game Dev Studio
Progress Report #8
The only remaining feature in the "What's next? #3" post is Steam Workshop support, and that's exactly what I will work on next. Aside from Steam Workshop support, I will also be going over all the new suggestions left in discussions, picking out the best ones and adding them to the game. I will most likely add new content after the Steam Workshop update, but don't be surprised if you see new features/gameplay mechanics get added to the game before that!
Once the Steam Workshop support update is released it doesn't mean that it'll be over for the development of the game. Quite the contrary, there are still things I wish to add and improve upon for it.
It goes without saying that with Update #19 released my main focus for the next couple of days is making sure that any found bugs/crashes are dealt with quickly, so if you find any, be sure to report them here, it helps a lot, and it makes for a better game for every one of us.
Lastly, I would like to say thank you to all the active members of the community for your continued interest in the game. I hope you enjoy playing the game with all the new features added in the last 3 months as much as I enjoyed making them!
Thank you for reading!
Update #19
Hello! This update adds achievements, female workers, Russian and French translations, and fixes a couple of issues
- added 28 achievements
- added female coworkers and pedestrians:
* employees in existing savefiles will remain the same, but new generated employees may be women
- added Russian and French localization
- fixed rain sprites not being updated after changing the resolution
- fixed incorrect setup of player-made platform IDs, resulting in some UI issues
- fixed discontinued player-made platforms still being selectable for new games
- savegames are now sorted by the save date when selecting a savegame to load
- various text corrections
- various UI tweaks and fixes
If you encounter any bugs or crashes, please report them here.
Please allow up to an hour for the game to update, alternatively you can restart Steam to instantly queue up an update for Game Dev Studio.
What's next? #3
#1 - Achievements. Some people have asked for them, and I think that those that haven't would definitely appreciate their presence.
#2 - Female characters. One thing that's absent in the game at the moment are female employees and player characters, so this will be added in one of the updates in the near future.
#3 - Russian and French translations. I've mentioned a Spanish translation, but plans have changed and it is now on the backlog. It will be taken care of for sure, but right now the aforementioned russian and french translations will be delivered first.
#4 - Steam Workshop support. Now that the biggest content updates that I've wanted to release are finished, this is something that I will definitely add to the game. The reason for Workshop support coming in last was to have more gameplay mechanics and content, so that modders interested in the game would have more things to play around with.
The features mentioned in this post will be done out-of-order and released one-by-one when they're ready. I estimate that the translations will become available first, with female characters second, followed by achievements, and Steam Workshop support coming in last. You can also expect various bug fixes, balance tweaks, and overall improvements to be done to the game in-between updates that add these features.
Thank you for reading!
Update #18
- added the ability to create your own platforms:
* added "Console Domination" scenario, which serves as an introduction to this new gameplay mechanic
* console creation is the biggest risk-to-reward source of income (even more so than MMOs!)
* in order to create a platform you will need to select the hardware that it should be composed of, the amount of time it should be in development for, it's appearance, and optionally a lead architect, which provides an additional boost to a specific aspect of the platform
* various issues may arise with the platforms you create, the probability of some depends on how much development time you provide for the platform
- when placing walls, the side of placement will now automatically adjust based on the side that's closest to your mouse (manual wall side adjustment still possible via right-clicking and mouse wheel), right mouse click now destroys walls on the selected side (manual side adjustment still possible with the mouse wheel)
- fixed theme list button incorrectly showing a brief overview of the currently-trending themes
- fixed fake games providing a double boost to platform attractiveness
- fixed music playlist shuffle working incorrectly, resulting in repeating tracks in the same playlist
- fixed publishers evaluating games released in the last 25 years, instead of 5
- fixed being able to create expansion packs for non-existing games under certain circumstances, resulting in crashes
- slightly changed how rival game projects receive popularity
- optimized music playback to only store up to 2 tracks in memory per playlist, which reduces memory usage
- 4 new music tracks that play during gameplay for your listening pleasure
- various UI tweaks and adjustments
If you encounter any bugs or crashes, please report them here.
Please allow up to an hour for the game to update, alternatively you can restart Steam to instantly queue up an update for Game Dev Studio.
Progress report #7
Console creation was designed to be the biggest risk-to-reward gameplay mechanic (even more so than MMO projects!). As such, don't be surprised if your first couple of consoles are making you bleed money, despite you seemingly having a good grasp on the rest of the game's mechanics.
Currently the branch comes with a work-in-progress scenario called "Console Domination". It serves as an introduction to platform creation, and players new to this gameplay mechanic are advised to play through this scenario to get a grip on this new mechanic, since it explains the basics of how it works, and provides a rather stable starting point of $10,000,000. This scenario temporarily uses the map for the 'Back in the Game' scenario, but will have its own separate map once the update nears a full release.
Keep in mind that savegames saved on the 'develop' branch will not be compatible with the current stable release of the game, until this new feature is available on the default branch, since it has new content that the non-develop branch doesn't.
To opt-in to the 'develop' branch, right-click on Game Dev Studio in your Steam library, click on 'Properties', switch to the 'BETAS' tab, and choose 'develop' in the drop-down list of betas.
With the right version, the game's window should say "1.0.3.0 DEV", so if you opt-in to the 'develop' branch and it still says "1.0.2.11", give Steam an hour to update everything, or restart it to instantly queue up the latest update.
If you decide to try out this branch and have feedback (or bug reports) that you wish to share, please post it here.
Thank you for reading!
Progress report #6
Right now I am working on finishing up various aspects of the console creation system and balancing it. If all goes well, you should be able to try it out on the 'develop' branch in about a week. It will most likely come with a work-in-progress scenario, which will use one of the currently available maps, but will have its own map once the update is fully released.
Aside from console creation, this update will also feature a few fixes and improvements to existing things, as well as a few new music tracks during gameplay.
I will post another progress report once the update finally becomes available on the 'develop' branch. If you decide to try out this update once it is available on the 'develop branch, be sure to share your thoughts! Your feedback will be very much appreciated.
Thanks for reading, see you in the next progress report!
Update #17
- when denying a raise, the chance that an employee will consider leaving the studio is now 25% (was 100%), and will increase by 20% for every following raise that was denied
- greatly increased the time an employee spends considering leaving the studio after denying a raise
- employees will now take more time before they ask for a raise after you deny them one (minimum of 5 months, maximum of 8, and then some depending on how quickly they progress through their skills)
- fixed incorrect game name display in an MMO corruption event popup
- decreased the chance of MMO database corruption event occurance to 1.5% (was 2%)
- increased the rate drop at which every consequent MMO database corruption event occurs to x4 (was x2)
- procedurally-generated rival studios will no longer cost $0 to buyout if they have no employees
- added "Very easy" difficulty - 35% faster development, 30% lower employee salaries, 30% more game sales; the game will default to this difficulty setting until the Tutorial is finished at least once
If you encounter any bugs or crashes, please report them here.
Please allow up to an hour for the game to update, alternatively you can restart Steam to instantly queue up an update for Game Dev Studio.
Progress report #5
The next feature on my to-do list is Platform Creation, and is the biggest chunk of content that will be added in the game so far. This will be the highest risk-to-reward source of money in the game, even more so than MMOs.
When setting up a new console, you'll need to select 4 separate parts that go into it: CPU, GPU, RAM and storage.
Each of these will have 3 separate tiers, with every following tier being on the higher end. Selecting the higher-end components will increase the maximum game scale, development difficulty, platform attractiveness, and platform production price. Aside from that, packing your console with the best parts will also require more time to properly finalize the platform.
The amount of time your development team spends working on the platform is up to you. More time spent means higher development costs, but higher overall platform quality. You can cheap out and spend the least possible amount of time working on the platform, but that means your platform will be more prone to hardware failure and overheating issues (which translates to more repairs needed), easier to have its firmware cracked, and possibly more nasty stuff, which you as a platform vendor don't want to happen.
Aside from that, various specialists might be available for hiring as the lead platform architects, which excel in specific tasks related to consoles. Hiring them would mean even higher development expenses, but they will also bring a boost to specific aspects of the platform, thanks to their world-class expertise.
You will need to find the right balance between production cost, platform attractiveness, game scale, and development difficulty in order to ensure that your platform is not only attractive to customers, but to developers, too. A platform with no games might as well not exist at all, so making sure your platform is easy to develop for (and does not have a draconic development license cost) will ensure that game developers will want to develop on your platform.
I do not want to spoil too much, so I'll stop here. Just like with MMOs, this piece of content will first be available on the 'develop' branch of the game for feedback from the community, before being finally released onto the default branch. Please understand that this content will require even more work than MMOs did, so don't be surprised if there are periods of radio silence for more than 2 weeks.
Thanks for reading, see you in the next progress report!
Update #16
- new rival game studios will now be procedurally generated after at least one rival goes defunct/gets bought out:
* this can extend the longevity of your playthroughs, especially if you enjoyed messing around with rivals and wished they weren't finite
* this can be disabled on a per-savefile basis by going into the Options menu and opening the General tab
* all playthroughs started prior to this update will default to generation being enabled
* the time interval between rival generation is 12-15 months
- added a warning for when buying out a rival and not having enough workplaces for all the potential people joining your studio from the buyout
- added a backdrop to construction mode buttons
- fixed defunct rival game studios not being loaded properly
- fixed employee salaries being incorrectly accounted for in rival buyout cost
- fixed construction mode buttons being under office expansion UI elements
- corrupt preview files are now handled properly to prevent crashes when opening the loading menu with such files present
- various minor tweaks and adjustments to UI elements
If you encounter any bugs or crashes, please report them here.
Please allow up to an hour for the game to update, alternatively you can restart Steam to instantly queue up an update for Game Dev Studio.
Update #15
- expansion packs will now boost the sales of the original game, and can even bring it back onto the market for more sales, if it wasn't released too late
- expansion packs will now generally sell more
- game sales now span out over a longer period of time (don't forget that you can advertise games after their release to further extend the game's lifetime on the market!)
- hovering over the genre/theme buttons in project setup now show all currently-trending themes and genres
- game review event box elements now use a different icon & color to be more distinguishable
- expansion packs now transfer a portion of popularity to the game they're made for upon release
- expansion packs now transfer popularity to the base game, if it is on-market
- the market duration boost from advertisement will now be higher for some time, and will then go down to its usual value
- the "fans are asking for more content" pop-up will now appear only if the game has sold at least than 100k copies in no more than 4 weeks
- fixed some issues with ideal game pricing
- fixed an incorrect ideal price being told to you by a manager in some cases
- fixed expansion packs selling much less than they were supposed to
- fixed expansion packs taking a review score hit due to features that aren't even implementable not being present in the project
- various minor UI fixes and tweaks
If you encounter any bugs or crashes, please report them here.
Please allow up to an hour for the game to update, alternatively you can restart Steam to instantly queue up an update for Game Dev Studio.