User Interface Design Improvements, Casino Demand Info, and Critical Fixes
Hello everyone! Thanks for giving us your valuable feedback, we have a pretty substantial update for you all today!
New Logo!
We decided to go for a simpler logo design with a new red tone!
User Interface Design
Lower HUD
We're proud to present a number of user interface clean-up improvements, with additional changes to make the colors more appealing and modern looking as well.
We have reworked the overall layout of the HUD to make the buttons and text stand out more. This takes more advantage of the horizontal space available, and should make certain icons, buttons, and error notifications easier to see.
NEW VERSION:
OLD VERSION:
Management Window
This also comes with some tweaks to the "white space" of the management window, which adds more space and makes certain buttons bigger and easier to find.
Reporting Data
Finance Window
The finance window now compares the current selected day to the previous day, making it much easier to see trends!
Guest and Gambling Statistics
"Average need level", from the guest need screen, has been renamed to "average satisfaction" for clarity. In other words, it is now obvious that a high value is a good thing, not a bad thing.
Some of the formatting for the headings and statistics have been cleaned up.
Demographic Demand Bars
The arrows for the demands have been replaced with bars. These now show the demands of each demographic relative to the other, and they update throughout the day.
For example, a casino that attracts 100 gamblers and 20 executives at night will show 100% gambling and 20% executives (the demographic with the most is always the highest value). Then, during the day when only 10 gamblers are attracted and 200 executives want to do business then the bars will show 5% gamblers and 100% executives.
BONUS: Clicking on the demand bars now takes you directly to the demographics & marketing window for quick access to all of the details!
Community Translations
Lastly, we updated all submitted community translations.
The fixes!
Instant Research Is Finally Instant!
An important change to make research less confusing to players: if you have instant research enabled, then all research is automatically completed at the start. You no longer have to manually trigger each one for free.
Measuring Tool
The measuring text when using the construction tool no longer hides behind objects, and this works for all languages!
Stuck Guests and Slowdown
We've fixed the strange behaviour caused by guests not being able to find their way out of the casino. Sometimes this caused them to get stuck, and for other times they got lost or went down strange paths.
This could even cause slowdown depending on how frequently the game was reporting errors.
Thieves Not Getting Caught
Similar to the above issue, criminals will now correctly find their way to the exit and this allows guards to plan their attack. Without this info, guards were getting confused about what to do (and causing slowdown errors too!)
Changelog July 7th 2022
We have updated to the latest community translations! Thankyou to everyone who submitted new text!
We also removed some unneeded assets and we're experimenting with a new way of loading the level to make it load faster! Please let us know if you have any problems with your casinos.
Finally, we reduced the number of calls to the functional-checking code that should result in less bottlenecks for background tasks.
Our New Game! Escape: The Endless Dogwatch
An Adventure Like No Other
This autumn we'll be releasing a new point and click adventure game set on a creepy ship.
January, 1928. The SS Carolina is lost deep in the ocean. There's a deadly chill outside. The captain is hiding something from you. By night 2 you're attacked and the crew is missing! It's a nightmare!
You play as 2nd Officer Walton. Explore the ship, use items, find the crew, and try to survive! You must get back to land and not let the ship sink.
Feel free to speculate in the forums what you would like or expect to see in the game, and if you have any interest in testing in the near future.
Please also give us feedback on our screenshots and trailer!
Finally, add this game to your wishlist for future updates!
Changelog April 12th 2022
Another quick update!
Fix construction text hiding behind walls and objects. Also updated community translations again.
Lock the Cursor! & Community Translations
A small update to allow locking the cursor to the screen. Also includes new community translations.
February 22nd 2022 Hotfix
Just a little update today! Thanks for those who submitted bug reports!
Hotfix for security sometimes not carrying out tasks.
Localization Hotfix 11th February 2022
Hey everyone!
We have a small update to fix a number of localization issues and to add newly added translations from the community! Thanks to everyone who contributed, and thanks to those who tested this version on edge!
January 20th 2022 Bug Fixes
UI
Cleaned up the main menu screen.
No longer select random map in new profile screen.
Update community translations.
Bugs
Fix no revenue coming in from computer rooms.
Industrial park, main square, and rocky street have proper maximum gambling stats.
Fix an issue where table games are always "waiting for players" even though they are there.
Fix theatre sitting positions for guests.
Add error check if truck delivery time is below zero and has been for a little while. The cause of this issue is pending further investigation.
Fix error caused when loading the gambling report screen when you haven't built any slot machines.
Gambling Data Improvements Update - December 12th 2021
As we teased in our last update, tonight's patch contains the new Gambling Report - an extensive report sheet found under Attractions which aggregates some existing data & also includes new data that is now tracked for all your slot machines and table games. We hope this new data will help everyone get slot machines on track to make the most profit!
Additionally, this patch contains fixes for the 'gambling confidence' ranges for low denomination slot machines & table games, and general adjustments for all gambling related objects for better overall balance. After these changes the result will be similar to how it was before the last patch, but agents will generally begin with a higher initial confidence rating. This allows new players at your casino to play more games, including most $1 slot machines.
Overall, these most recent changes (including the prior update) should make life MUCH easier in terms of making money with slot machines, and provide you the tools you need to understand how your casino floor is making money via the new reporting screen.
Be sure to let us know how you like the new Gambling Report -- on the Steam Forums or our Discord Server! :)
As always, thanks to everyone helping out on the edge branch to test these patches -- it's what allows us to rapidly iterate & deliver -- thank you!
Slot Machine Odds Fix - November 30th 2021
Thank you to those of you who have been reporting bugs and helping us track down issues - and allowing us to continue improving SimCasino! Based on community reports were able to track down an issue with the math behind slot game odds, specifically with how often gamblers can win the Jackpot.
Tonight's Patch - Slot Machine Odds Fix Tonight’s patch fixes the problem so that slot machines, especially lower-denomination slot machine configurations, are able to be profitable -- and function as they were intended to & as you'd expect them to.
We've also tweaked the 'gambler confidence' system a bit: $1 slots will now generally be played by most all casino patrons, allowing for a wider range of patrons to potentially play your slot games. The default settings for slot machines have also been adjusted (increased) in alignment with these changes & the fix above. The overall result is that default slots (i.e. upon placing a slot machine without changing any of the settings) will now be profitable & have positive expected value / ROI, which is what we intended & as you'd generally expect.
Existing saves with 'default' slot machine settings will also be updated automatically -- this will happen once, as soon as you load your save in the latest version, and from there you'll be able to alter settings (i.e. back to the 'old defaults') as desired.
Upcoming: More Gaming Data / Insights We've realized that there's a sorely missing element of "insight" / data / reporting for gaming machines & table games, and the fact that the above issues made it to release really underscored the need to make improvements here. We're currently working on an update that will include additional 'gaming-related' data & reporting, so you will able to better follow, visualize and understand your casino floor. You'll be able to quantify what machines are getting played, how much money is being gambled ('total handle' in industry jargon), and really understand how profitable any given space is on your casino floor, and then be able to use that information to tweak your setup for maximum value & ROI.
As always, thank you for your dedication and help in identifying & fixing issues -- and even just for chatting with us & supporting us in general - we appreciate it very much!
