Rock God Tycoon
Duke of Defense Is Now Available!
You may have noticed that I went silent for a while... I spent about a year working on a new game that I feel is my greatest work and one that I am actually very proud of. I poured my soul into this game and really wanted to create a passion fueled experience.
The soundtrack is HUGE, there is a LOT of content, and of course a healthy dose of my silly Seabass humor. It would mean a lot to me if you could share with me how you feel about this new direction I've taken.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/882210/Duke_of_Defense/
The Dev Journey (50% off for Summer sale!)
Tycoon games have always been held to a pretty high standard in regards to balance and pacing. The truth to it is that no game will be perfect for everyone and Rock God Tycoon is no exception. We've read reviews praising the game for being the very best tycoon game they've ever played! But we have also read reviews stating that this is the absolute worst game they've ever played. Neither side is wrong, they just enjoy different games.
With that out of the way... We are proud of how far this game has come and now we will go on a short journey following the development of Rock God Tycoon.
Was it a coincidence?
Many years ago Panos (the artist) and I met through a website called IndieDB in its job section. He had made a post requesting to team up with a programmer to create some musical tycoon game. I had never wanted to work with anyone but for some reason this seemed like a good opportunity to give it a shot. We got together in a Skype call and before we knew it we had worked the entire day on our prototype "Metalhead Tycoon". I still have the original executable and let me tell you it was a horrible game.
We then posted the game on Steam greenlight where it sat for quite a while with little to no votes or recognition and reasonably so. I went on to create another game after splitting up with Panos.
Another stroke of luck
The game I had been working on had been approved on Greenlight and coincidentally so had Metalhead Tycoon. Panos rebranded the game at some point as "Rock God Tycoon" with all new artwork. He and I talked for the first time in a LONG time where he told me that he wanted to recreate what we had started a year prior. Again without a real reason I said, "Sure!"
Days later we were both working on Rock God Tycoon! During this time I was working 40 hour weeks at a retail job and was still developing my other game (which was early access at the time) while Panos was still going to college full-time. It was only by sheer luck that we managed to get the game all the way to early access 1.5 years later.
Shocking responses
Panos and I are usually pretty cynical people and so we expected the game to flop once we entered Early Access. We were absolutely blown away when the game sold well enough for us to pay bills and all the meanwhile we were maintaining 95%+ in Steam reviews. Never before did we feel so motivated to work on this game. There were regular posts with pages of feedback and suggestions, and just so much positive/encouraging energy all around.
I don't think either of us had been that happy with ourselves before.
Fast forward
The game went into full release in February of 2017 and we again were surprised by how many people had been waiting on the game to leave Early Access. It was shortly after that time that Panos was getting a job in another country and I had to move forward with a new project. Many people felt we had abandoned the game so we came back and did a massive overhaul.
We implemented an expanded tension system that took away a lot of the normal "busk 24/7" grind that people had told us was ruining the experience. It took about a week if I recall and when we pushed it out we got mixed results. It seemed that nobody was bothered or impressed so we just left it at that. The core of the game isn't going to change with tweaks and new features.
Where we are now
Panos is working for a game company in Germany now doing what he loves and paying bills like an adult. I'm working on my 4th game whilst finishing putting my previous title onto consoles. Both of us are proud of how far we've come and with the overall experience of Rock God Tycoon (from a developer's point of view). We started with nothing, no help, and no recognition. We had to claw our way here and every inch of it was gruesome but worth it.
So why did you write all this?
There is the occasional review/comment that Rock God Tycoon is dead. Saying a game is dead puts out a very negative idea that a game is completely broken and abandoned. This is obviously not the case and we wanted to clear the air. No we are no longer working on Rock God Tycoon (actively) and we have both since moved on to new projects/jobs. We have to make bills, grow as people, and progress in our careers.
To say this game is dead is to say that we didn't put 1.5 years (and additionally updates/patches for 5 months, not mentioning minor fixes even recently) and that just sucks to hear. Especially from users with 40+ hours put into the game.
I hope this post was an interesting read!
Seabass's Twitter (programmer)
Panos's Twitter (artist)
Keep rockin' on! :RockSign:
Small fix for missing backgrounds!
Missing backgrounds
We've made a small change that hopefully will resolve the issue where the apartment backgrounds won't load correctly. This won't resolve the issue with intel integrated graphics as that is out of our control.
Seabass's Twitter (programmer)
Panos's Twitter (artist)
Keep rockin' on! :RockSign:
50% OFF Winter Sale!!!
Seabass's Twitter (programmer)
Panos's Twitter (artist)
Keep rockin' on! :RockSign:
Update 1.2.2.0, Engine update!
Changelog 1.2.2.0
- Updated to the latest Game Maker runtime and engine
- Texture page max size changed from 8192x8192 to 4096x4096
- Compressed texture pages to save space for installation
Seabass's Twitter (programmer)
Panos's Twitter (artist)
Keep rockin' on! :RockSign:
40% discount for the whole week!
If you want to get your monies worth now would be the time to grab yourself a copy.
Also here's a shout out to "The Hen House" for their hilarious playthrough of Rock God Tycoon!
YouTube Video
Seabass's Twitter (programmer)
Panos's Twitter (artist)
Keep rockin' on! :RockSign:
Update 1.2.1.0, Unlocked character customization!
You requested it so we delivered it
Character customizations are now unlocked for both bandmates and players. This means you can change your drummers hairstyle or beard. No limitations besides the exception of gender and skin tone.
New shirts
Panos got around to creating some cool new shirts. Take a peep!
These definitely are more unique than the other shirts currently available ingame so you should consider trying them out.
More polish
It appears we overlooked some minor details in character customization such as the scrollbar not checking for the mouse properly and some buttons not being shown as disabled. Fear not as all is well now.
Changelog 1.2.1.0
- Characters (both player and bandmates) can be fully edited now with the exceptions
of gender and skin tone - Added five new shirts
- Improved mouse checking for scrollbars in character customization
- Beard/Beard color buttons are now be visually disabled for female characters
Seabass's Twitter (programmer)
Panos's Twitter (artist)
Keep rockin' on! :RockSign:
Update 1.2.0.8, a much needed update!
Improving basd on your feedback
After a much needed break from development we're coming back to improve the quality of life for RGT. In the coming days Panos plans to bring in some more customization options for characters!
Time freeze bug
We've heard a lot of people bring up the time freezing bug and yet a ton of players were able to play upwards of 50 hours without any issues. Since it didn't seem urgent it got pushed off for a while but we're finally attempting to resolve it. I've made some changes to the code surrounding record deals and booked events that should hopefully prevent anymore time freezes from occuring. As always your feedback is crucial so if you still get the bug please exit the game and email me a copy of your save file so that I may further diagnose the issue.
Windowed mode is back
After a number of complaints we switched the game to borderless windowed instead of normal windowed but it turns out the majority actually prefers windowed mode as that allows the window to be resized freely. So we've returned to that.
Attempting to increase compatibility
This part is a bit technical but we've reduced texture page sizes in hopes of making the game more functional for less capable video cards. Not sure if this will actually solve the problems we've heard from the community but we are hopeful.
Changelog 1.2.0.8
- Reduced standard texture page size from 8192x8192 to 4096x4096
- Switched the game back to Windowed mode
- Fixed a possible time stop bug with album finalization
- Fixed a possible time stop bug with booked events such as gigs and video clips
- Drug Dealer image is properly removed from memory when the popup menu is closed
- Minor optimizations to script referencing throughout the game
Seabass's Twitter (programmer)
Panos's Twitter (artist)
Keep rockin' on! :RockSign:
Update 1.2.0.7 Song Creation, Copy/Pasting!
Your requests have been heard
The past few months have been fantastic and we really appreciate all the support, feedback, and kindness we've seen from the community. One major request we've heard has been the need for copy/pasting in the song editor. It was not originally implemented due to the complexity of it.
As a way of giving back we've spent the time and implemented copy/pasting! We are also discussing adding more content to the game so you can expect that at some point.
Thanks to everyone who purchased Rock God Tycoon during this weekly sale!
You guys rock! We would love to be able to pursue game development full-time so seeing all of you awesome people join in and support the game really means a lot to us.
Changelog 1.2.0.7
- General improvements
- Implemented copy/pasting in the song editor
Live Development Roadmap
Seabass Twitter (programmer)
Panos's Twitter (artist)
Keep rockin' on! :RockSign:
Hotfix for 1.2.0.6
Yearly awards should add to the billboard stats properly now.
*Edit*
Our DRM was acting up due to my own stupidity. This has been hotfixed.
Live Development Roadmap
Seabass Twitter (programmer)
Panos's Twitter (artist)
Keep rockin' on! :RockSign: