First of all, thank you for your feedback, ideas and everything so far during the life of Pro Gamer Manager. Since we took over the development we have been struggling to get it right and many decisions and outcomes so far have not had the planned outcome.
Fixing the original game’s issues has been too big of a task for our small team. We’ve set our aim high but have missed the mark. Neither the patch in October, or the DLC in December, turned out as we’d hoped, and for that we are sorry.
We know what you guys want. We’ve read every tweet, forum discussion, email and review and have a clear overview of where we’ve gone wrong. Just to show you, here’s a few of the things that you’ve missed and requested:
Remove randomness, make every decision count.
Focusing more on gameplay than graphics.
Functioning tournament system where you can influence the outcome of matches.
Grinding and lack of depth.
All of this should have been addressed, but we failed in our attempt at doing so. Hard. Twice. But we’re still very much determined to make Pro Gamer Manager into the product it and you deserve.
So how are we going to do it?
The short answer - we’re going to make a sequel.
The long answer is that we feel the need of creating something of our own, not bound to someone else’s work where we keep getting stuck trying to put out fires. We want to base the sequel on the original idea, fixing all the things that were wrong with it, like the things mentioned above, and more.
The only way we are going to be able do it is to work with you all, our fantastically supportive community. Our plan is to release a public alpha for people to play and put their support behind in the nearby future and probably stay in alpha phase for a long time, making sure the product delivers on all promises of the initial idea and everything we say we’re going to do along the way.
As a token of our gratitude to all of you who’ve purchased Pro Gamer Manager so far, you’ll be able to access the pre-alpha for free. We’ll also throw in a special deal for you if you want to get in early on the alpha for PGM2. In any case you’ll be able to continue to follow the development as well as support it by buying the alpha from our website and with that purchase get free updates of the new game until it’s ready to be released here on Steam and until it’s fully launched. We’ll also set up a blog and a public Trello board so you can more easily follow our continued development.
We feel confident that if we include you all, our existing customers and make you happy, you will spread the word to your friends and the sales to fund the continued development will come.
We have invested everything we have into making this alpha a solid base, opening up for
the future possibility of mods and focusing all our efforts on building a solid ground for the gameplay. We’ve gone from a team of three to six people bringing the number of programmers up to four.
So we haven’t given up, far from it, and we’re not blind to the fact that we have some way to go before we’ve restored your faith in us and in the product itself. We will tell you about, and show you more of PGM2, very soon and hope that you will continue to see its potential the same way we do.
/Dev Team
Patch notes 1.5.6.7
We managed to squeeze in a quick patch before the holidays. Enjoy!
Added:
Time lock on fridge and computer when condition bars are too high or low.
NPCs will now play matches continuously throughout the 24 hours of the day.
You will now spend time while eating.
Time will now pass when you’re on the computer.
A match will now influence the time passed in the room proportionately.
Adjusted:
Values for hygiene, rage, energy and hunger.
Fast and Faster are no longer super speeded. Fastest is 1 sek = 10 min instead of 1 sek = 1 hour.
Fixed:
Removed language selection at the beginning.
Condition bars will no longer disappear when too high or low.
Spelling errors.
Happy holidays!
Firefight DLC available now!
Hi everyone!
The day we’ve all been working hard towards the last few months is finally here, we’re ready to release the new version of PGM as a DLC to the original game, we’re so excited to hear what you all think about this.
Since our last (and failed) launch, we got back to the drawing board and started to work on solving the two biggest issues; match experience and the randomness/lack of progress.
So how do we create a better experience during the matches? In the last version we had made some major graphical improvements comparing to the original PGM, but it felt way too stale. To make it more alive we’ve added AI to the simulation so you can actually see your teammates and opponents run around during the game, trying to complete the objective or eliminate each other. This was, and is, a crucial step in order to elevate PGM into something more realistic and fun to play.
The other fundamental part we had to address was the randomness and lack of progress that plagued the original version of the game, as well as the failed update we released in the fall. There was little you could do to become better and it was just basically playing matches and hoping for the best. We’ve now worked really hard on trying to create an experience and a leveling up system for both you and for the NPCs in the game. When you level up you’ll get more skill points which will reflect your character’s performance during matches and which teams will try to sign you.
Among the other things we’ve added are:
- A clock that shows the real time in game, but you can also choose to speed things up.
- Dynamic league tables/world ranking, which means that NPC-teams will play matches continuously.
- Character creation.
- Better resolution and sound support.
We’d like to thank each and every one of you for 2016 and all the support we’ve continued to get throughout this process from you, our wonderful fans. Please continue to send us any and all feedback you have on the current PGM as well as your suggestions for the future here or to support@501Industries.com.
See you all in 2017!
/Dev team
Link to DLC:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/567740/
Weekly update
Hi everyone!
Just wanted to give you a quick update.
We've now uploaded the DLC, aka Firefight, to Valve for approval so hopefully it won't be long before we can share it with you all. We'll also put up a longer update about where we are and where we're heading at the same time.
Have a great weekend!
/Dev team
New Firefight DLC on the way
Seasonal greetings to you all!
We’re happy to announce that we’re nearing completion of the first part of the rebuild of PGM, the FPS career mode.
We plan on releasing this publicly at the end of next week as a DLC to the old game. Of course this will be free to all of you that’s already bought the game. But, not forever, after a few weeks we will start to charge for this, nothing crazy expensive, but something that will go directly to the continued development of the game. We will of course let you know in plenty of time before we start to charge so you can download free of charge.
The new DLC will as stated focus on FPS career mode. That means:
A new AI-engine and 2D live match simulation
Climb with the team and claim the world championship title in Firefight
Over 30 000 NPC, competing in teams to become the number #1
Hope you’re well. We’re glad to see that so many of you are looking forward to the new version of the game. We are continuously working hard on the rebuild together with our beta testers and we will share it with the community at large as soon as we can, but we need to work out a few more things before that can happen.
We know that many of you wishes to see an update to the FOBA part of the game and don’t worry, it will come! As we’ve rebuilt a huge chunk of the game’s core we’ve simultaneously created a foundation that can be reapplied to the FOBA part of the game with relative ease. Of course some things are still going to have to be built specifically for the FOBA, but there is a plan in place for that and it will not take up as much time as building FPS. And we’ll of course continue to consult with our amazing team of beta testers.
If you want to help us with the development you can send us an email to support@501Industries.com and apply for beta testing or to help out with translating the game. We’re especially looking for more people using Mac and Linux as well as translators for chinese, dutch, norwegian, danish and turkish.
/Dev team
Latest dev news and Momento Temporis in full release!
Hi Guys!
Here’s the latest update on the development.
We’re piecing together the AI simulation for the FPS matches and we mostly have fine tuning left which we have our awesome beta testers to help out with.
We’re working on implementing all kinds of cool stuff in the room such as a shop to do upgrades of gears and furniture.
We’ve also fleshed out the league and tournament systems to be more engaging and fun to play.
We also wanted to let you know that we yesterday launched Momento Temporis: Light from the Deep together with Burning Ice Games, an awesome 2D metroidvania, pixel-art, adventure, platformer. A real challenge to play, and lots of fun. And don’t worry, it’s being developed by the other studio so it doesn’t effect the PGM development. We’re helping out with the publishing parts. But if you want to support us, and the talented dev team behind Momento Temporis, don’t miss out on the release sale happening right now here.
And lastly, we at 501 Industries are trying to form a platform where we can talk about all our games in the same place, please join our Steam group here.
Have a great weekend!
/501 Industries
Development News
Hi Guys,
Firstly, we know there’s been some confusion about Raptor Claw Games announcing their new title Gladiator School. This will not, in any way, take resources from the continued development of Pro Gamer Manager.
We, 501 Industries, took over the development fully earlier this year and will continue to develop the game until it’s become what we all want it to be. So a vote for Gladiator School is in no way a vote against the development of PGM. We encourage you to continue to give Raptor Claw Games all the support you can, as we certainly will. If you have any questions about this, please get in touch with us. The easiest way is to either hit us up on Discord or send an email to support@501Industries.com.
Development news
Some of you may have noticed that we did an update to PGM earlier this week and that there was no news about it. We had to make some backend updates to the build uploaded to Steam, nothing major and nothing that will inflict your experience of the game.
The beta testers are currently helping us fine tune the settings in the AI simulations as well as the settings for the room itself. We’re implementing the league functions for them to test within the next few days and the game is slowly but surely coming along. If you have any ideas for the direction you want the game to take, please get in touch with us in any of the above mentioned ways.
Have a great weekend!
/Dev team
Gladiator School now on Greenlight!
Raptor Claw Games proudly presents a brand new simulation game.
Build and manage a gladiator school, train your gladiators and watch them fight in the arena.
Help Gladiator School get on Steam by voting on Greenlight:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=780059609
Many thanks!
Weekly Update
Hi guys!
We've spent a good part of this week reevaluating and redrawing our road map going forward. It's a process that will take time as we're not a big team, but we are all dedicated to make this game great.
We're in the process of setting up an even closer relationship with our beta testers, as well as increasing their numbers. We're putting out one piece at the time for them to test thuroughly as we keep rebuilding the game.
As soon as we have any more news about the game, you'll be the first to know.
Please join our discord channel: https://discord.gg/gpS27NR or send us an email to support@501Industries.com with any and all feedback or suggestions you might have for what you'd like to see in the game. Everything you guys suggests will be taken into consideration.
