Plutocracy
Plutocracy. Early Access Release
At the moment, the game has only tested game mechanics - for example, politics is still being developed. Furthermore, we haven’t added more languages, voice acting and Mac OS and Linux version.
So, after the early access release, we are going to add different new game stuff including multiplayer and campaign. And from now on, you can start taking part in the game development by getting all updates.
We got a great community! We will be glad to see your reviews and any constructive suggestions for improving the game.
See you soon!
Completed verification on Steam. The EA release date is November 21, 2019!
Hello!
We have good news - last week, finally we have completed the verification of the game on Steam, and after fixing the shortcomings from Steam, we were at the finish line!
Officially, the early access release date is November 21, 2019! Less than 3 weeks left!
We were not able to avoid some troubles like all developers - we were putting off the release date several times. But, while we still had resources, we were trying to make the game as good as possible.
November 21, we are waiting for the transition to the next stage!
Thanks to everyone who supported us and believed that it would happen.
Build sent for verification on Steam
Hello, everyone!
We are pleased to announce that we have recently sent the game build for verification on Steam. We are currently waiting for the end of verification to inform the exact release date of Plutocracy.
In the meantime, we are keep going to develop the game by adding lots of new things there. We will update the alpha version again in the next few days for our alpha testers.
This time we added the opportunity to improve your game avatar through the knowledge system.
Knowledge points can be obtained by fulfilling various requirements and then spend them of your choice.
You can improve your economics skill to get more competitive advantages to improve your companies.
Or use them to boost your diplomacy skill in order to negotiate successfully as well as getting other skills related to diplomacy.
Do not miss the announcement on the alpha test thread on Discord to get a fresh build.
Statistics and management. First look + teaser!
Hello friends!
We are breaking our long radio silence with good news! We have completed work on the economic part of the game. Frankly, we didn’t expect to be so stuck in this. 11 different mechanical developments during the whole time! And spent a lot of time on this part of the game.
And finally we are satisfied with it. Some mechanics can still change after releasing in early access (Steam), by September 20, we will try to give what we have to the alpha testers for testing, and as close as possible to the release of the game in Steam. There is not much to wait. it remains to do simpler things.
Here, for example, looks like the window of the financial statistics of the company:
https://youtu.be/CjhPGPTys9o
As a basis, we took the concept of a single window, which would fit the key indicators of the company, and the whole structure and causal relationship of financial flows was understood.
Also, we wanted the player to be able to immediately make a decision in this window, make changes and influence the financial performance of the controlled company.
All indicators, more than 40, are interconnected with each other and technologies that provide growth can only be obtained from a merger with another company.
Moreover, we went a little further than the original plans and realized the influence of both the CEO and the board of directors on the company and its financial performance.
Now, being appointed to the board is not just a way to improve loyalty with any influential character, but also a way to raise the image of the company, i.e. it buzzed, and give an impetus to the development of any direction - whether it be an increase in the quality of processing of raw materials, or a decrease in accident rate.
You will have to skillfully maneuver between the desire to increase profits and the growing risks of strikes and accidents, placing directors in different directions. Then, the directors themselves will have different effects, depending on the strength of their abilities in the economy.
Also, having studied corporate law, we gave the board more functions. Now, the council will vote on key issues - such as issuing shares / bonds, or paying dividends. And the player’s relationship with each member of the council will play a key role in the voting.
We wanted to convey an important moment in the economic part of Plutocracy that people decide everything. And that the company inside is not just numbers, but, first of all, the relationship between company owners and top managers.
Because in most economic simulators, the emphasis is on pumping and creating production chains, and often rests on micromanagement. We decided to go our own way, and convey the impact of relations between people in the company on its growth.
This makes the game not so simple, because even your decision, as the owner of the company, to improve any obvious direction can stumble upon the director's sabotage, due to his low loyalty to you!
And you have to decide what to do in this case - to dismiss, try to convince again, or ...
In general, we will not disclose all the nuances - leaving them for personal review.
We will expect that you treat with understanding that we rarely communicate in the last time - the work is really going hard, and we need to be in focus. We will try to polish the game to the level of early access within a month.
We understand that many already have no patience - but there is very little left compared to what we have already passed! It is a fact. And the hardest part - the economic part - is finally behind.
If everything further goes according to plan, then on September 26 we expect to give the build of the game for verification to Steam.
Anyway, thanks for believing in us and Plutocracy! The game really becomes better every week, and as soon as we complete the check from Steam, we’ll give the exact date of the game’s early access.
After a lull
Hello, friends and everyone who cares about the game!
It has been more than 2 months of the development and you still have not got any updates. Actually, we feel like fixing it!
First of all, on behalf of all the devs, I want to calm everyone who cares about the game release – the development is going ahead and does not even stop on weekends, it really tires us out!
We needed to get our thoughts together and immerse ourselves in the game development at 100%; as a result, there was a delay in updates. We would not like to say one thing and do another one!
What's new? and what kind of troubles have we run up against?
Economical model
We originally planned to end the game economics and release a new build by May 15. Then the early access would be available on Steam.
Unfortunately, a completed build did not make us happy. Frankly, the game was more playable in my head than it actually was.
I think the reason for that is so that we had lots of economic formulas, indicators, and so on – something around 35 ones –, that the player needed to manage! We really were out of line, guys…it was not clear, difficult for us and the gameplay in general.
As a result, we were upset because we wanted to make the game rather than an accountant simulator… Eventually, we decided to remake the economic model of the game!
We did not want to drop any updates, news about the release dates in mid-May because we did not understand how much time we needed to remake the economic model.
Actually, we were able to make a new economic model and practically implement it in the game. We really hope it will be a good one to show you.
By the way, it is the 10th version of the economic model for over 2 years of the development!
We have done a lot of work to make a company management simulator and get rid of boring micromanagement.
We have implemented a new company update system through technology and patents. Now, if you buy a profitable company, it will not always mean you are on the right way!
Before, you buy one company then one else and so on to achieve a monopoly. As a rule, it became a boring routine after a while.
Currently, the player has got a difficult choice: buy a profitable company or a company that has a certain technology to get multi-effect after merging with your main corporation?
It allows you to obtain different strategies to achieve monopoly, is it? If you combine companies with different technologies, in the long run, you will get more profit than just buying up the most profitable companies. Sometimes it makes a sense! It definitely makes the gameplay more playable.
FPS
The next trouble is too low FPS. By implementing new game stuffs, we, devs, usually do not think about how powerful computers are needed to play a game. As a rule, devs start thinking about that at the end of development. So, many games have poor optimization.
When we saw a level of 4-8 FPS in mid-May, it took us a while to fix it. Now we have a level of 45-60 FPS on computers with average performance.
Influence agents & diplomacy
https://youtu.be/akNgCtZZFEU
They are currently clearer and simpler. However, to get them, the player need to complete a character's request (I have mentioned about them above). For example, agent 'Goon' will be knocking out debts. Meanwhile, there is a risk of being caught by the police despite of the efficiency of this method.
We are adding 3 new influence agents into the game. You are gonna find out more about that in the next update
In addition to the economic model, we have implemented – and we will be implementing – some characters' ambitions and goals. For example, the request to give a loan, eliminate opponents, look for extra resources to start up new companies, help take an office position and over.
By helping, the player gets extra loyalty to himself, which in turn allows to get more game stuff.
Plans
We are hard grinding to release the game on Steam as soon as possible so that not only backers are able to play it but also many thousands players from different countries who has Plutocracy in their wishlist.
We are really interested in it because our financial resources are not limitless. It makes some troubles for us. However, there is a positive point in it - we are making the game better and better every day!
We will announce the release day as soon as we make sure the game lives up to our expectations in 3 out of 5. We hope it will happen soon rather than in six months or a year.
We are gonna need something around 1,5 months to polish the economic model and release the EA on Steam. We hope we will no longer postpone the release date.
We are very strict with ourselves, and we will not allow the mediocre implementation of our project. Is it worth blaming us? It is up to you.
Furthermore, everyone can still participate in the game development by purchasing the alpha through the IndieGoGo page.
We want to not just release the game by pleasing to someone but also get a good reputation, guys. So, our goal is to give a good gameplay and bring something new into economic and political simulators!
Thanks to everyone who understands it and support us! It is cool that the game idea joints people from different countries! We are happy to realize that we have the international project and the team! It gives us extra motivation!
Plutocracy news
P.S. We decided to return to the "newspaper" format on the site, which was released before the alpha release last September.
It will have been being updated more than news in the blog so that you can see our progress, and how much time is left before the early access release on Steam.
We are planning to make a big update for the alpha testers soon!
Wish us good luck!
The patch #3
The patch #3 is ready. Go to update, guys!
What's new?
It's partially implemented the political system:
1. It's released one of three branches of the US government - Legislative (at the level of a state legislature)
2. Divide into two chambers, the upper chamber headed by the Lieutenant Governor and the lower chamber headed by the Speaker of the majority party
3. Divide politicians into two factions (Republicans and Democrats)
4. Politicians stick to the faction views but, now and then, they can vote against that or abstain.
5. Added a few laws (taxes, working conditions, etc.)
6. Lobby a law through politicians
7. Governor's veto (the full functionality will be available in the next update)
8. Run your assistant for any post
9. Election campaign
10. The player can select the election campaign strategy
11. The player gets influence points, votes (during the voting for a law) for a politician puppet.
During this month, we're fully planning to implement the legislative branch of the US government
What else?
1.Added the hotkey 'Space' to skip a turn
2. Fixed the logic of rising property prices
3. Added new luxuries
4. The player gets influence points by purchasing a item at auction
5. The salary of an assistant matches his skills.
Game balance:
We have a request to check the influence balance the player gets from his politicians puppets, the stake in a company, luxuries. We're waiting for your feedback.
Next update:
1. Implement an economic model for running a company after purchasing a controlling interest.
2. Implement the judicial branch of the US government
3. Implement the executive branch of the US government
4. 'Plutocratopedia' (guide)
The next patch
We're gonna release a patch #3 at the end of this week.
So, what's new?
- modified the auction gameplay
- Election campaign
- Lobbying laws
- and much more
We'll post the details on the patch release day. Now we feel like telling you about the details of the political system: the structure of the legislative power, individual differences in political ideology as well as a political campaign.
In the mentioned patch, you'll be coming across with state politicians - members of a state legislature. As you know, every state legislature is divided into two chambers, the upper chamber headed by the Lieutenant Governor and the lower chamber headed by the Speaker of the majority party.
We've started developing the system at the bottom of the political hierarchy; in future updates, we'll be releasing the next executives - the US President, the Supreme Court, etc. - so that the player climbs from the bottom to the top of the political ladder.
There are 2 factions - the Democrats and Republicans - in which all politicians have different ideological views in the game world:
- Democrats are aiming at lobbying for a law that reduces individual income tax but increases corporate tax;
- Republicans are supporters of an open market with low export duties. At the same time, they support protectionist economic policy that erects tariff and other barriers to trade with other nations.
To get max benefit, you should be flexible in the confrontation of two ideologies.
The election process: select a candidate and run him for the opponent post. Most influential politicians, also having an impeccable reputation, have a good rating among voters so it'll be hard to win.
To win, you need to get more votes than your opponent. You can choose a right track - finance a campaign, participate in debates, give promises to feed the electorate - or bribe voters, get dirt on your opponent (so that the rating is low) or even, eliminate him...
Watch the opponent's behavior and, as a result of that, the dynamics of change in the electorate's mood. Control the mass consciousness, take a look at the number of voters so that your opponent does not to get more voters than you.
Then you'll have your puppet in a state legislature to spread the influence and make more money!
What further differences in the political ideologies do you think we should incorporate? Actually, only you can run for your assistants at different political posts. Would you like to run openly or as a secret ruler in the shadows?
While we're preparing an update, leave your thoughts about that.
'Plutocracy' is based on politics and lobbying laws. We're planning to integrate it with the economics before at the end of March.
What's scheduled for the EA?
- Run a company: you'll have more than 30 economics indicators which effect a company's income - use that to make more money! (it'll be available in 2 weeks)
- Bonds/shares issue
- Company technologies
- Director's orders and strategies (these are automatic settings to get rid of routine micromanagement)
- AI (your opponent)
- Game balance (to be happy playing the game, it's necessary to fix different inconsistencies because the game has a lots of figures and data. Your feedback will help us a lot!)
- Fix bugs and the game optimization. It takes much time, guys! We don't want to release the raw game because we know it's always irritating! So we want to meet you halfway by giving the opportunity to get the alpha before the early access run. The game will be up for grabs after we are all set to start. Thanks for your understanding!
We are an indie studio and, in some sense, we have one attempt to get ahead. You need to understand us - not be disappointed - if we pull off the release date. We do want you to like the game otherwise 2,5 years will be wasted.
We have good news, we're gonna hire a few programmers to speed up! We see you're looking forward to the early access release, it's like a breath of fresh air!
Eventually, we should make game footage to cheer you up!
All the best,
Redwood games team!
EA news
It’s high time to share the development and EA launch news with you.
Right now we have 2 directions:
Firstly, the alpha testers and we find a plenty of bugs (around 200), the game logic breaks and so on in every patch. It takes extra time to fix.
Secondly, it’s scheduled to add important game stuff into the game, and it makes no sense to release the EA without that. We’re talking about the US political system that made up of three branches: legislative, executive and judicial. We do want to implement the political system at the level of the states level though so that the player is able to appoint his assistants as a judge, governor, legislature congressman and so on. After the EA launch, we'll add the federal government (the president, the US Congress and over) into the game.
Furthermore, we’re trying to combine the US economics and politics in order to manipulate tax rates, strikes, the rights of African Americans and women, and working conditions, respectively, in a sense, plutocrats do the same things to make big money and gain influence.
In addition, to launch the EA on Steam, we need to get the verification of the game build - it’s gonna take something around a week - hence the range of the EA release dates is February, 27 - March, 28
We cannot be sure of the exact date because new game things make new bugs even in places where we fixed them. Therefore, some games have a lots of bugs because devs try to release their game as soon as possible. We’ll be taking into consideration the opinion of the alpha testers - if they tell us the game is ok, we’ll run the EA on Steam.
At the moment, we’re grinding pretty hard because we’re aiming to add all the planned stuff into the game before the EA.
Stay tuned, follow us on the Discord thread: https://discord.gg/puWw7N
Thanks for your support!
The patch #2
The patch #2 is ready. Go to update, guys!
What’s new?
1. Updated influence logics
- The player gets influence points by buying companies’ shares. The larger a company, the more influence points you have;
- The player spends influence points to negotiate;
- In negotiations, you can only decrease the failure risk by spending influence points.
2. Updated loyalty logics
- At the beginning of the game, characters’ loyalty to the player is up to his political views, religion and marital status;
- The higher a character’s loyalty to the player, the less influence points you need to negotiate;
- New modifiers of loyalty have been added into the game.
3. Updated assistants stuff
- Hire an assistant without power points;
- Your assistants won’t be able to move between states.
4. Auction
- Added ‘Quit’ button;
- Fixed bidding logics;
- Fixed the price balance of property;
- Fixed the process of generation of lots (it depends on the player wealth - of 0 to 10%;
- Fixed the bug ‘zero ask of lots’;
- Added new types of property;
- Fixed the mechanics of lots selling at auction;
5. Fixed save/load.
6. Added the opportunity to hire a director through shareholders vote.
7. Fixed some critical bugs:
- Economics;
- Negotiations;
- Fixed news bugs;
- Other bugs - music, texts, images and so on.
8. Updated the logics and gameplay of some agents:
- Agents can fail their missions avoiding arrest;
- Use the agent ‘Courtesan’ to improve a character’s loyalty to the player.
9. Updated ‘time’ button:
- Right-click to speed up game time or go to the next event.
10. Board of Directors
- Being a board member, the player gets influence points.
11. Director’s skill ‘economics’ . It increases a company’s profitability.
The patch #1 is ready!
The patch is ready! Go to update!:)
Added:
- If you hold down the button ‘End turn’, the time will speed up 3 times
- To hire an assistant you need to spend power points
Fixed (the game balance):
- Hiring assistants, influence agents
- Price of property
- Achievements, power points
- Starting influence of the player is decreased
- Skills of influence agents
- The frequency of the pop-ups (Increase salary, strikes/accidents, auction, character invitations) is decreased
Fixed (bugs):
- Some crashes (we’ve not managed to fix all the ones)
- Events: horse race, dinner invitation, charity event
- Purchase of shares, sale shares to a brokerage
- Information in the tips
- Sound settings in the game menu
- News
- Companies’ economic indicators
- Player’s financial indicators: income, wealth level, etc.
- Other
We read your feedback on the Discord channel and take a lot of ideas\comments into consideration concerning the gameplay, balance and bugs.
Thanks so much for your great feedback again! You guys are awesome! By seeing a host of the comments, bugs, we need some time in order to fix them and implement your ideas.
The first patch is quite large due to different added changes. After January 7, we’re gonna update the alpha 1-2 times a week.
In addition, we are currently working on an update that will be released in January, including much more game stuff. So the most interesting is ahead!
Waiting for your feedback!
Have a great one!