I’ve had some very busy days since the release of Beta 16. Not only has the Summer Sale attracted a lot of new users, but I have also spent a lot of hours fixing bugs in Beta 16. A total of six hotfixes have been shipped pushing the latest version to “Beta 16.6”.
Here’s a list of all the bugs that were fixed:
🔵 Hide stock options while merging is active.
🔵 Disable “move workstation” button while office building is not selected.
🔵 Fixed various typos/localization issues.
🔵 Fixed bug causing owned stocks percentage to not show 0–1% ownership.
🔵 French version: fixed unavailable framework buttons.
🔵 German version: fixed typo in product merge text.
🔵 Fixed bug allowing players to place hosting equipment in their office.
🔵 Removed incorrect hosting building expenses from product hosting tab.
🔵 Reduced “new product requirements” to be 15 completed milestones instead of a complete buyout.
🔵 Returned missing office items (walls, glass door, etc.)
🔵 Fixed bug causing rack devices to be lost when buying without any space available.
🔵 Updated “Upgrade Employee Level” feature to add one new demand per upgrade.
🔵 Fixed bug causing product stats to show broken graphs if game was paused.
🔵 Fixed bug causing “New Tier” dialog to show on every load.
🔵 Fixed bug where the running cost of air conditioners was not included.
🔵 Fixed bug crashing the game after upgrading specific employees.
🔵 Fixed bug allowing players to create a new product too soon.
🔵 Added “Yesterday” product traffic graph for other languages than English.
🔵 Fixed wrong max. buy amount for buying stocks.
🔵 Disabled “upgrade workstation” button when not in office building.
🔵 Fixed wrong translations in PT-BR version.
🔵 Show error when player is trying to merge two products of different types.
🔵 Buffed email marketing campaign.
🔵 Fixed bug causing wrong ESC behavior after moving an item between floors.
🔵 Changed “office/hosting building quick switcher” to a single toggle button
🔵 Fixed bug causing competitors to stay in “Merge in progress” state.
🔵 Fixed bug happening when merging multiple competitors into same product.
🔵 Increased basement hosting building cost from 10k to 20k to avoid new players renting the wrong building.
🔵 Disabled ESC key when time machine is running.
🔵 Changed milestone behavior to only allow unlocking of the next milestone “in line”.
🔵 Fixed issue where hosting allocation was 0% for first product.
🔵 Introduced new one-button building switcher.
🔵 Hide employee level upgrade tip when max. level reached.
The road to full release
With Beta 16 safely shipped, I’m now starting to really work towards the final version of Startup Company. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but it’s now much clearer to me what needs to be done.
To share my vision with you, I’ve created this roadmap showing you the future of SC. It will probably change a lot and nothing should be considered as “official”, but for the first time you can now see where I’m headed.
Feature suggestions overflow
Firstly, I would like to thank all of you who send me suggestions and ideas for the game. I really appreciate it and use your suggestions a lot when designing the game.
I’m currently receiving between 10 and 15 suggestions per day. That’s at least 300 per month! I used to respond to all of your suggestions, but recently I have decided to prioritize developing the game. I still read everything. I hope you understand. :-)
Do you have suggestions or ideas for the game?
Check out our Conflux board.
Thanks for reading and see you next week!
Best,
Jonas
Beta 16 Released!
Hi everyone,
Beta 16 is now available! Restart Steam to get it right away!
74 days. That’s the number of days since the last major update. I’m very proud of this release. Not only is it the biggest update yet, it’s also very special to me because Startup Company is now starting to become the game I always envisioned it to be.
As with any big update, it is guaranteed that there will still be a ton of bugs, we just haven’t found them yet. If you come across any, please let me know in the Bugs forum (https://steamcommunity.com/app/606800/discussions/1/). I’m going to release hotfixes daily until everything is stable.
Hosting Buildings
Beta 16 is introducing a complete rewrite of the hosting functionality. The first step was adding new buildings dedicated to hosting. There are now three brand new buildings available.
Virtual Servers will continue to be part of the game, but a maximum CU cap will be implemented to force players into building their own hosting facilities.
Racks and Servers
In these hosting buildings, you will only be able to place hosting related equipment such as server racks. By clicking on server racks, you will be able to easily configure each rack and design for maximum performance.
City Map
With the introduction of hosting buildings, it was clear that the game needed a better and more immersive way of showing buildings. This will be done with the brand new City Map.
New investor milestones
Beta 15 introduced the new investor milestones which were mainly focused on the early game. Beta 16 adds a bunch of new milestones that get you around both the new hosting center and the new acquisition/buyout feature.
Investment Offers
You will now receive offers from other investors as your product grows. While the investors will own a share of your product, they will also instantly transfer you a ton of cash. This cash can be used to acquire competitors!
Acquire competitors
Once you own 100% of a company through buying all of its stock, you’ll now be able to merge the competitor product into your own product, in the process acquiring the competitor’s users. A merger takes seven days to complete. You’ll have to prepare your own product for new potential users and server demands before starting the merger.
New competitor logos
A new logo pack has also been added to Beta 16. The game now features 100 unique company logos.
So there you have it. I really hope you enjoy this update!
Lastly, I would like to say thank you to everyone who continues to support my development of Startup Company. I really appreciate all of your comments and kind words. They keep me going at full speed, even when haters go nuts in the review section! <3
All the best,
Jonas
Hotfixes
Beta 16.1: Hide stock options while merging is active.
Disable "move workstation" button while office building is not selected.
Fixed various typos/localizations issues.
Beta 16.2: Fixed bug causing owned stocks percentage to not show 0-1% ownership.
French version: Fixed unavailable framework buttons
German version: Fixed typo in product merge text
Fixed bug allowing players to place hosting equipment in their office.
Removed incorrect hosting building expenses from product hosting tab.
Beta 16.3: Reduced "new product requirements" to be 15 completed milestones instead of complete buyout.
Returned missing office items (walls, glass door etc.)
Fixed bug causing rack devices to be lost when buying without any space available.
Updated "Upgrade Employee Level" feature to add 1 new demand per upgrade.
Fixed bug causing product stats to show broken graphs if game was paused.
Fixed bug causing "New Tier" dialog to show on every load.
Beta 16.4: Fixed bug where airconditioners' running cost wasn't included
Fixed bug crashing the game after upgrading specific employees.
Beta 16.5: Fixed bug allowing players to create a new product too soon
Added "Yesterday" product traffic graph for other languages than English
Fixed wrong max buy amount for buying stocks
Disabled "upgrade workstation" button when not in office building
Fixed wrong translations in PT-BR version.
Show error when player is trying to merge two products of different types.
Buffed email marketing campaign.
Fixed bug causing wrong ESC behavior after moving an item between floors.
Beta 16.6: Changed "office/hosting building quick switcher" to a single toggle button
Fixed bug causing competitors to stay in "Merge in progress" state.
Fixed bug happening when merging multiple competitors into same product.
Increased basement hosting building cost from 10k to 20k to avoid new players renting the wrong building.
Disable ESC key when time machine is running.
Changed milestone behavior to only allow unlocking of the next milestone "in line".
Fixed issue where hosting allocation was 0% for first product.
Introduced new one-button building switcher
Hide employee upgrade level upgrade tip when max level reached.
Beta 16.7: Added additional file checker to detect missing savegame file while playing.
Beta 16.8: Fixing bug causing "duplicate rack" feature to fail if not enough cash after SHIFT-clicking.
Devlog #20
Hi everyone,
Wow, what an exciting week this has been. The whole Discord server has been busy testing Beta 16 and fixing the last few remaining bugs. There have been a lot, but hopefully we have fixed most of them by now.
Translations for Beta 16 have also been progressing nicely. Last night we completed the last language, which means Beta 16 will instantly be available in all supported languages.
The devlog gives a sneak peek into what has been developed on the game over the past week. It is not a new release and is not available yet. New features are always released as official Beta releases.
Another hosting building
Test players quickly discovered that the medium hosting building wasn’t large enough for their needs. To counter this, I’m introducing the Large Hosting Center. With an initial temperature of 10 degrees and a grid size of 30x30, it is the biggest and most expensive building ever in Startup Company.
Investment Offers
You will now receive offers from other investors as your product grows. While the investors will own a share of your product, they will also instantly transfer you a ton of cash. This cash can be used to acquire competitors!
Acquire competitors
Once you own 100% of a company through buying all of its stock, you’ll now be able to merge the competitor product into your own product, in the process acquiring the competitor’s users. A merger takes seven days to complete. You’ll have to prepare your own product for new potential users and server demands before starting the merger.
New competitor logos
A new logo pack has been loaded into the game. The game now features 100 unique company logos.
Beta 16 official release date
As promised last week, here is the official release date for Beta 16:
Monday, June 25 at 13:00 CEST
Do you have suggestions or ideas for the game?
Check out our Conflux board.
That’s all for now. I will be back on Monday with the official release note for Beta 16 :-)
Thanks for reading!
Best,
Jonas
Devlog #19
Hi everyone,
The devlog gives a sneak peek into what has been developed on the game over the past week. It is not a new release and is not available yet. New features are always released as official Beta releases.
New investor milestones
Beta 15 introduced the new investor milestones which were mainly focused on the early game. Beta 16 adds a bunch of new milestones that get you around both the new hosting center but also the new acquisition/buyout feature.
Hosting Building #2
I received a preview of the upcoming second hosting building just in time for this week’s devlog. The new building comes with a substantial reduction in “initial room temperature”. This allows you to have more servers running with less active cooling.
‘Research All’ button
Wow, we really needed this feature, didn’t we? You can now research all unlocked components/modules with one click. Available for all production employee types.
Auto Start Time Machine
Another convenient feature that a lot of you have requested will be introduced in Beta 16. It will now be possible to automatically start the time machine when the workday is over.
Beta 16 release and next devlog
The next devlog will be out June 22. It will reveal the release date for Beta 16 and a couple of additional features to be introduced.
Do you have suggestions or ideas for the game?
Check out our Conflux board.
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading.
All the best,
Jonas
Devlog #18
Hi everyone,
Finally, back at work after a quick 1-week vacation.
I’ve been working on balancing and bugfixing the new hosting functionality and I plan to start playtesting Beta 16 next week.
The devlog gives a sneak peek into what has been developed on the game over the past week. It is not a new release and is not available yet. New features are always released as official Beta releases.
Air Conditioners
When building your new hosting center, you will quickly start to struggle with room temperature. Even if you add a bunch of rack coolers, your servers will still emit heat into the room.
To counter this, you can opt to install air conditioners. While they use up a ton of power, they dramatically reduce the room temperature.
City map v1
The new city map is coming together nicely. It will give you a quick overview of all available buildings, both offices and hosting facilities.
In the bottom left corner, you’ll notice a new quick switcher that allows you to switch between your office and hosting building with a single click.
Rack Overlays
I’ve added an overlay to all racks to make it easier to identify and locate overheated or empty racks. The overlay shows the rack’s name (which can be defined by you), status (green = all OK, yellow = reduced performance, red = overhead protection) and the number of used “units” inside the rack.
Do you have suggestions or ideas for the game?
Check out our Conflux board.
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading.
All the best,
Jonas
Devlog #17
Hi everyone,
Huge progress on the new hosting features this week!
The devlog gives a sneak peek into what has been developed on the game over the past week. It is not a new release and is not available yet. New features are always released as official Beta releases.
Racks
As mentioned last week, the new hosting facilities allow you to place racks. Once a rack has been placed, you can install equipment such as servers, coolers, etc. All equipment can be rearranged using drag and drop.
Throughput, overclocking and temperatures
There are now 3 types of servers: web servers, database servers and cache servers. Each instance of a server produces a specific throughput. You’ll have to balance these server times to get the most out of your hosting facility. You can now see real-time stats above the bottom menu:
The new hosting facilities can work side by side with existing virtual servers:
Beta 15 changes
* Show error message when “Disk System” crashes.
* Fixed bug causing game to fail when reaching last investor milestone.
* Fixed incorrect order of competitors.
Do you have suggestions or ideas for the game?
Check out our Conflux board.
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading.
Next devlog: June 1.
All the best,
Jonas
Devlog #16
Hi everyone,
A ton of work has been put into Beta 16 this week. I’ve also been working on rectifying a problem causing the first savegame to be lost for a small portion of first-time players.
The devlog gives a sneak peek into what has been developed on the game over the past week. It is not a new release and is not available yet. New features are always released as official Beta releases.
Hosting Buildings
Beta 16 is introducing a complete rewrite of the hosting functionality. The first step is adding new buildings dedicated to hosting. The first hosting building to be introduced will be the cheapest option and it will be located in a basement close to the small office.
In these new locations, you will only be able to place hosting related equipment such as server racks. By clicking on server racks, you will be able to easily configure each rack and design for maximum performance. I’ll describe and show screenshots of the “rack configurator” in next week’s devlog.
Virtual Servers will continue to be part of the game, but a maximum CU cap will be implemented to force players into building their own hosting facilities.
City Map
With the introduction of hosting buildings, it was clear that the game needed a better and more immersive way of showing buildings. This will be done with the brand new City Map. I don’t have any screenshots available yet, but I hope to be able to show it in a couple of weeks.
Beta 15 changes
🔵 Automatically disable and hide “Big UI” functionality if screen height is below 1440.
🔵 If saving to disk fails, the game will now throw an error and stop the game, forcing the player to restart the game. Errors will also be shown to the player for further research.
🔵 Fixed bug causing the game to allow upgrading efficiency to reach 105% when the maximum is 104%.
🔵 Added “Big UI” support to new “upgrade feature” dialog.
🔵 Fixed bug causing deleted savegames to reappear.
🔵 Fixed bug causing “load game” dialog to crash if two new savegames are created in the same session.
Do you have suggestions or ideas for the game?
Check out our Conflux board.
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading.
All the best,
Jonas
Devlog #15
Hi everyone,
What an insane week this has been. 14,207 unique players have played a total of 29,678 games since Beta 15’s release last Thursday. Safe to say I didn't expect such high numbers one year ago :-)
As with all sales, Steam review score is being hammered right now. Went from 76% to 67%. No big deal, we tried this before.
This week I have obviously been bug hunting. There have been a couple of UI problems as well as regular bugs. Beta 15.1 was published yesterday, which removed some of the bugs, but I expect to spend at least one more week fixing bugs.
The devlog gives a sneak peek into what has been developed on the game over the past week. It is not a new release and is not available yet. New features are always released as official Beta releases.
Improved upgrade feature dialog
By popular demand, the upgrade feature dialog has been greatly improved, and now shows more details about each level. A multiplier has also been added for level upgrades, allowing you to upgrade multiple levels with one click.
Beta 15 minor changes
🔵 Fixed bug causing exception when trying to switch floor before the game was fully loaded.
🔵 Fixed bug causing newly purchased marketing campaign to be instantly canceled.
🔵 Changed Lead Developer behavior to allow them to select a module even if the requirements are not yet met (“missing requirements” label shown instead).
🔵 Fixed bug causing “required modules of modules ” to duplicate if the task was canceled.
🔵 Rebalanced product type income, making social media less lucrative.
🔵 Redesigned feature upgrade view.
🔵 Added confirm button for deleting features.
🔵 Fixed bug making it impossible to buy NetFix stocks.
🔵 Fixed bug causing achievements not to be unlocked on Steam.
🔵 Fixed bug where a milestone payout wouldn’t show correctly in the transaction log.
🔵 Fixed bug making it impossible to click the “Move workstation” button if the correct floor wasn’t selected.
🔵 Reduced investor buyout price.
🔵 Increased milestone payouts to allow going through game without completing contracts.
🔵 Temporary disabled investor's daily cut.
🔵 Fixed bug causing marketing campaigns to always start at $100.
What’s coming in Beta 16
With Beta 15 successfully released, it’s time to get started on the next one. While Beta 15 focused on improving the early stage of the game, Beta 16 will focus on improving late-game performance.
Firstly, I want to reduce clicks and implement more automation. My first objective is to rewrite the marketing functionality and allow for more complicated setups with much more control.
Secondly, I’m looking into adding more goals and objectives, especially when it comes to competitors and stocks. I’ve received more than 500 unique suggestions from you guys, which I’m now working my way through. I hope to introduce something specific in the next week.
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading.
All the best,
Jonas
UPDATE: Devlog #16 is postponed till next week (May 4).
Beta 15 Released!
I’m delighted to finally announce that Beta 15 is now available on Steam!
With this release, I’ve been focusing on adding more personality and a stronger startup-feel to the game. I am confident that new players will find the game much more appealing and user-friendly.
To all existing players: your savegames are compatible with Beta 15, but please note that the new investor feature is only available on new products. Due to the new interface, feature instances have also been revised so only your activated instances will be included in Beta 15.
If you don’t like the changes in Beta 15, you can now switch back to Beta 14 using Steam’s “Betas” feature. The different versions now use separate savegames.
Feelings & Emotions
In short, the update adds personality, demands and feelings to all of your employees. This week I have been working on emotions. Employees will now express feelings through speech and thoughts.
New “Demands” System
Work Environment Rating (or WER) has confused players for a long time. Beta 15 will include neither WER nor the “office bonus”, but instead introduce employee demands. A demand can be specific furniture, benefits, a desk type or short work days. For each demand you fulfill, the employee will receive a speed bonus and will also stay happy for a longer period of time. Employees can generate new demands over time.
Investors
Beta 15 will feature investors for the first time. When starting a new game or creating your first product, you’ll be asked to select between an investor or bootstrapping. Bootstrapping means taking care of funding yourself. New players should choose an investor. Investors take a cut in revenue but provide both money and advice (tutorial mode). Beta 15 currently only offers one investor, but more will be added later.
Venture Capital and Milestones
The product dialog will contain a new tab called Venture Capital, which replaces the existing “Goals” feature. In this tab, you’ll be able to buyout your investor and see a list of all milestones.
Milestones are how the investors set their expectations for you. Once you reach a milestone, a fixed dollar amount will be paid out.
The dialog also allows you to buy out your investor, meaning you will receive 100% of revenue from then on.
Simplified Infrastructure Tab
A lot of players have been struggling to understand the Infrastructure tab. To make it easier to understand, the tab has been renamed “Features”. The name change is accompanied by some neat updates:
To improve instances (now features), you simply have to click “Upgrade” by hovering over the feature (you no longer need to go to the Lead Dev to improve features).
Screenshots have been added to visualize the feature.
The old “Quality” term has been changed to “Level”.
Features can now be upgraded while in use.
Frameworks now have a limited number of “feature slots”, starting with three features for the Basic Framework.
Other Beta 15 changes
🔵 Discord’s Rich Presence functionality is now supported.
🔵 Fixed recruitment bug causing fewer candidates to be put forward if fast-forwarding or using time-machine.
🔵 Deleted entered email from options.json after subscribing to the newsletter.
🔵 Improved “Big UI”/4K support for the product tabs.
🔵 Fixed bug causing an error to happen when firing employees.
🔵 Allow mods/workshop items to be installed even if Steam Cloud Sync is disabled.
🔵 Buffed rate of losing users when potential users are lower than registered users.
🔵 Adjusted required tiers for unlocking employees to fit new investor feature.
🔵 Reduced server requirements and increased prices for Virtual Clusters.
🔵 Increased income per user for all product types.
🔵 Fixed bug causing changes to mods to be reset when reloading the game.
🔵 Force player to create a product when starting a new game.
🔵 Disabled Angular debug info for performance gains.
🔵 Fixed issue causing an error when switching to the menu while employee dialog is open.
🔵 Fixed issue causing contracts requiring modules to be too cheap.
🔵 Fixed issue causing the fast forward function to skip every third in-game minute.
🔵 Changed click behavior to react to button down instead of button up.
🔵 Added keyboard shortcut CTRL+1-5 to quickly switch between floors.
🔵 Added number formatting to product graphs.
🔵 Increased marketing effect.
🔵 Nerfed organic growth.
🔵 Updated product stats page to show “new visitors” instead of “origin”.
I hope you enjoy it!
So, there you have it. Beta 15 in all its glory! I really hope you like all the changes. I’m now going to take a few days off before getting started on Beta 16, which will introduce at least two big new features! More information coming in future devlogs.
Thanks for reading!
All the best,
Jonas
Devlog #14
Hi everyone,
Great week. I have been doing a lot of playtesting on Beta 15 and am confident everything will be ready for the April 12 release date. :-)
The devlog gives a sneak peek into what has been developed on the game over the past week. It is not a new release and is not available yet. New features are always released as official Beta releases.
New demands
A lot of new demands have been added to the game. As I want users to experience them in-game, I will not go and spoil it by revealing them all here. However, I have provided a taster of one of the new demands in the screenshot above. Here, Mildred Burns is evidently not happy about Scott Curry’s work effort!
Switching from Steam Cloud API to Steam Auto-Cloud
A number of new players have experienced that their first savegame never gets saved, resulting in a loss of progress. After days of debugging, I’ve never been able to reproduce the issue.
However, I believe it’s related to Cloud sync/conflicts. Beta 15 is now using Steam’s Auto-Cloud feature, which I hope will solve the problem. :-)
Discord’s Rich Presence
Startup Company now supports Discord’s Rich Presence functionality. The current in-game day and tier will automatically be shown. The feature can be disabled in your Discord settings.
Other Beta 15 changes
🔵 Fixed recruitment bug causing fewer candidates to be put forward if fast-forwarding or using time-machine.
🔵 Deleted entered email from options.json after subscribing to the newsletter.
🔵 Improved “Big UI”/4K support for the product tabs.
🔵 Fixed bug causing an error to happen when firing employees.
🔵 Allow mods/workshop items to be installed even if Steam Cloud Sync is disabled.
🔵 Buffed rate of losing users when potential users are lower than registered users.
🔵 Rebalanced Adjusted required tiers when for unlocking employees to fit new investor feature.
🔵 Reduced server requirements and increased prices for Virtual Clusters.
🔵 Increased income per user for all product types.
🔵 Fixed bug causing changes to mods to be reset when reloading the game.
🔵 Force player to create a product when starting a new game.
🔵 Disabled Angular debug info for performance gains.
I’m really looking forward to next week’s release. Fingers crossed you’ll like it! :-)
