Alpha 2.5 - Relationships Part 2: Family And Children
Alpha 2.53 has been released, just in time for Valentine's Day (almost). I started talking about the dating portion of the game in the last update. After some tweaking over the past week, here is how the family portion works.
https://youtu.be/pvwvOKCFL9w
Family
You can start a family even if you're not married by activating the 'Yahoo' action with someone. All you need is a high enough relation.
Every time you Yahoo, your fun increases and there is a chance of a baby appearing. Once a Yahoo is successful, a new Family section will appear on the Social window.
Your newborn child's relation with you is an overall measure of how well they are doing. If you don't play with them or can't afford their expenses, they will suffer. If they suffer too much, Child Services will take them away and you will be very sad. On the other hand, if you have high relations with your child on their birthday, you will get a happiness boost from seeing them grow up well.
Speaking of which, if you relationship with your spouse (husband/wife) falls low enough, you will get a few warnings. If you ignore the warning signs, you will be divorced. Divorce has severe consequences, just like in real life. I won't spoil the surprise and let you discover it for yourself.
As your children grow older, they will become more expensive to raise. As you become wealthier, the cost will also increase. This is to simulate things like sending them to private school, polo lessons and whatever else rich children do (I have no idea).
When they finally reach 16 years old, you can kick them out of the house. At this point, the game calculates how many good and bad birthdays your child experienced. If they had a few good birthdays, you will get a permanent boost to happiness. This can be very useful in generating a steady trickle of lifetime happiness, especially if you manage to raise multiple children well. On the other hand, too many bad birthdays for your child and you get a permanent happiness decrease.
If your child has experienced too many bad birthdays by the time they reach 16, all is not lost. You can keep them at home to try offset the negative impact by giving them some good birthdays before they leave. However, note that the cost to raise them will continue to increase the longer they stay at home.
Modding Changes
There are also some changes that allow multiple overlapping mods at same time. The old system should still work so your current mods won't break, but creators will have to update their mods to take advantage of the new system.
Changelog Alpha 2.50 - 2.53
Alpha 2.5 - Relationships Part 1: Dating And Marriage
The Steam test server has been updated to Alpha 2.5 with the new relationships and family feature. If all goes well, it will be released to everyone next week. This will likely be the final major feature before Release in a few months.
There is a new subscription in the game, Relationship Roundup which gives relationship and family advice. It works similar to the Lively Livin' and Businezz Biweekly subscriptions.
https://youtu.be/NpwYPn3pWhE
Seeking A Date
Relationships start by firstly finding a date. You can do this from the new 'Social' button on the profile window next to the existing 'Business' button.
Just like freelance businesses and the stock market, relationships are completely optional. You can ignore that whole part of the game by never turning it on.
Once you have activated dating, new actions will start appearing at random locations every week. These actions will be things like 'Ask For Number' that help you get a date. Being rejected for a date decreases your fun, so try not to get rejected too many times in one week.
Dating A Date
When you have successfully met someone, there are a few things you can do to increase your relationship like going on a date, calling or gifting a collectible.
The higher your existing relationship with the person, the harder it is to increase it even more. If you can get your relationship high enough, the option to propose and marry that person will become available.
Of course being a finance simulator, the engagement ring and wedding will cost money.
In general, the cost of everything to do with relationships increases as you become wealthier. If you are poor, your partner will be more willing to accept an onion ring instead of a gold ring. On the other hand if you are very wealthy, your partner will expect a very expensive wedding. This is unlike most other mechanics in This Grand Life, where things get much easier the richer you become.
There is more to talk about regarding the family portion of the game, which I will talk about next time.
Alpha 2.44 and City Poll
Some minor optimizations in this update. Also, to get an idea of what kind of city players want next I've created a poll. You can vote at the link below:
Work continues on this feature. I have the first two stages (Seek and Date) prototyped and working.
For the dating portion, each week you can select to "date" them which opens up a separate window with date details like location, time taken, cost and relationship effect. These parameters vary randomly each week, and some dates are better than others. You can choose to accept the date or wait until next week to see if you can get better date parameters. If you accept, the date will be automatically processed to minimize micromanagement.
Also you will be able to gift collectibles or spend time calling to raise the relationship, but not as frequently as dating.
Alpha 2.43 Minor Update
Not much to report this week, still working away on the relationships feature. Here's a work-in-progress for the date window, where you'll be doing things to make your partner happy:
And a summary of updates this week from Alpha 2.41 - 2.43:
Alpha 2.4 – Workshop Support and more Advanced City Options
Steam Workshop
Hooray! It's arrived. Steam Workshop support is now available for This Grand Life, which means modders can create their own Cities, Career paths, Education courses, Collectibles and so on. If you want to subscribe/play a mod, it will need to be done from the Steam interface. If you want to upload a mod, you can do it from the new in-game workshop button.
Throughout development I've tried to keep moddability in mind, so there really are a lot of things that can be changed. Think a degree takes too long? Or maybe the Janitor earns too much? You can modify those values. Using education as an example, you can create a map trait that changes study speeds and then add it to the map to change all education speeds. Or you can overwrite the data for one degree only and leave everything else the same.
Some players have been asking to be a criminal. It seems to be a popular thing for some reason. I don't think it fits in the base game, so I've added a Professional Thief freelance business to the Workshop. It's a good mod example that uses the business, education and possession systems. Killing two birds with one stone, as they say.
When you add a mod, the products it adds will even appear in the in-game Infonet as if they were part of the game. Players can easily find information about where the modded items are sold, where courses are located, etc.
You can even use event triggers to create your own scenarios, similar to the tutorials and Sue Doku scenario.
I still haven't moved all the translatable text to data files, so there is still quite a lot of hard-coded English. I am gradually progressing towards this goal.
More Advanced City Options
There are also two new advanced city options in this update, Infrastructure Funding and Worker Organisation. Changing Infrastructure Funding will modify the tax rate and travel times to simulate how well the roads and public transport are maintained. Changing Worker Organisation affects overall wages and job competition. Be careful with this one, moving it to the extremes could make it impossible to afford rent or impossible to find any job openings.
What's Next?
As I was planning out the relationships and family part of the game, I came to realise it can't be done as a small feature. There are too many interconnected parts. So I'm going to be making relationships a major feature, similar to the freelance business and stock market mechanics. This means it will take a few more months instead of the usual couple of weeks to implement. Hopefully there will be plenty of mods to entertain you in the meantime!
Alpha 2.4 Changelog
Workshop support is coming next week!
Small update this week, also wanted to let everyone know that Steam Workshop support is coming next week to This Grand Life!!
I've uploaded a guide on how to create the city map images to the Guides section, so anyone (with enough perseverance) can create their own home town. There's also a new workshop subforum if anyone has any questions about modding the game, or wants to request a guide on certain things.
=Alpha 2.32=
- Fixed blank freelance job hanging around after selling business
- Add achievement stats button to lose game window
- Tweaked business sell price calculation
- Fixed missing Dividends Earned endgame label
Alpha 2.3 - Amsterdam and Advanced City Options
This update adds Amsterdam as a playable map and advanced city options to make each playthrough even more unique. Also a reminder that the game's price will be increasing next week and the demo has been updated to the latest version.
https://youtu.be/-7FGlSbnRY8
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Let's start with Amsterdam, a city famous for its coffee and canals! This map has three traits - Bicycle Paths, Coffee Shops and Relaxed. Its focus is on lots of fun but limited time.
Bicycle Paths make the new Motored Bicycle transport option 100% more effective. The Motored Bicycle is stealable unlike the Scooter and Car, so you have to consider that before purchasing one.
Coffee Shops adds the Consume Coffee action to certain eating establishments, which provides a large amount of fun for a relatively low cost.
The Relaxed map trait means you lose 10 hours each week from everyone taking longer to do things. It's quite a big hit, which is designed to encourage the player to seek out time-efficient actions like Consume Coffee to recover needs faster.
The Canal is Amsterdam's unique location and contains the Canal Cruise as another source of large amounts of fun. Here you can buy a Large Vase to start collecting Tulips. Considering the first ever economic bubble started in the Netherlands over Tulips, I thought this was a fitting collectible to add to the game.
Advanced City Options
Advanced city options are an addition I'm excited about. Once you think you've mastered the game, it's time to dive into these settings to create a very different playthrough. They are meant for advanced players only, since they can severely unbalance your life if you're not careful.
The simplest option is the currency setting, which is more of a cosmetic change to go with the new Amsterdam map. The other options make the game significantly easier or harder, depending on the life goals you have chosen.
You can set the Central Bank to be very incompetent or very vigilant. Above you can see the difference between the two extremes. In the top image with the incompetent Central Bank, the economy went from 15% to -5% inflation over a few years, which is absolutely insane. Remember your rent, wages, real estate, share portfolio etc are affected by this as well. The bottom image shows a much more competent Central Bank, and the economy is more stable (although not completely controllable).
You can also lower or raise your overall income tax rate by adjusting funding levels for different services. For example, setting the Police Service to be completely defunded will save you some taxes over your lifetime. However, this means criminals operate with impunity and your house has a 50% chance to be robbed pretty much all the time. They will even steal your casual clothes.
The Education and Healthcare funding levels can be similarly adjusted. The scales work exponentially, so the further you go from the default values in either direction the more extreme the experience. Defund everything and your taxes will be much lower, but be prepared to be constantly robbed while paying your massive education loan and avoiding getting sick at all costs. Overfund everything and your taxes will be much higher, can you afford rent from your remaining paycheck while studying your inexpensive degree?
Combined with the existing traits system, there are many possibilities for different playthroughs.
What's Next?
There are more advanced city options I want to add for an even crazier life. I'll also be experimenting with advanced character options. The work to move all translatable text into data files continues as well.
Alpha 2.3 Changelog
Test branch updated
The test_public branch has been updated to Alpha 2.3. It contains Amsterdam as a new playable city and advanced city options. If no problems are reported in a few days, I will release the update to everyone else.
Price Increase Announcement and Alpha 2.21 Minor Update
Just as inflation relentlessly drives the prices of products higher in This Grand Life, the game is getting a real-life price increase shortly after the end of the Steam Winter Sale.
If you haven't bought the game and it seems interesting to you, get in now before the price goes up in early January. If you have bought the game, of course you won't have to pay extra and thanks for your support so far :)
Also a minor update has been released with the following changes:
=Alpha 2.21=
- Reduced number of popups further
- Added popup suppression option to expiry windows
- Added popup suppression to End Of Week
- Expanded save list to multiple columns
- Added more logging to game start
- Added times evicted to statistics
- Upgraded some internal stuff
- Removed redundant font caching
Alpha 2.2 - Statistics, Achievements and Expensive Items
https://youtu.be/yc5zbu6S7WE
In this update I'll talk about end-game statistics, achievements, some new expensive items and other miscellaneous changes. The process of adding Steam achievements had the unexpected issue of not being able to test them unless they were officially published to the Steam page. As a result I've had to focus on releasing the achievements this time, and Amsterdam has been pushed back to the next update.
End-game Statistics and Steam Achievements
When you win or lose a game, you will be able to see some statistics about your current play-through like amount of taxes owed, time worked, collections completed, etc. There are a variety of statistics that can be displayed here, and they will only appear once you've triggered whatever is being counted at least once.
Steam achievements are something that Steam keeps telling me to implement, and so here they are. They aren't overly difficult to complete, and I think the average player who enjoys the game should be able to get most of them without feeling like they are "achievement grinding" too much. Achievements also help me as the developer see what percentage of players are using the stock market, playing with real estate, or even completing the tutorial!
Expensive Items
There are a few additional high-end items to purchase at the Shopping Mall and Appliance Store. Don't buy them if you live in cheaper housing though, as they are very expensive and it would be traumatic if stolen. The TreadRunner Max increases your health at a greater rate, while the Gigantic Television lets you Watch Huge TV at home.
There's also a Mineral Detector, which adds the Search For Treasure action at the Park and Exchange. It lets you earn money while increasing Fun. Not exactly realistic, but I thought it was a cool demonstration of the possibilities of the game's mechanics for what modders could eventually do.
Miscellaneous Changes
There are some other bits and pieces like an updated Payables/Receivables window, ability to rename employees and another mortgage exploit fix. The death spiral has also been updated to give some hints on how to bring happiness up and avoid unhappiness. It should help remind players how this mechanic works in case they haven't played in a while.
