Dev Blog: Bots, Difficulty & Longer Games

[p]All aboard! This is the last blog before the next update![/p][p]The crew is busy at work getting everything shipshape for the next update which will be dropping later this week. Clear your schedules! Here are a few tuning features you can expect to be able to fiddle with in the patch![/p][h2]Longer Games[/h2][p][/p][p]We know some of you have been (quite audibly) wishing for the option to play longer games. While marathon mode is still a whole marathon away, you will now have the option to create 40 and 50 round games. We expect these will mostly be played by people enjoying the single player experience, but to those of you that have been looking forward to 6-player 50 round games, we'll see you in 2027.[/p][p]Keep in mind that the 40 and 50 round games are not going to be balanced at all to begin with, as we are still tuning things for the standard 20 and 30 round games.[/p][h2]Bot Difficulty Settings[/h2][p]Our bots have gone through quite a ride. Starting off at a paint-eating intelligence that offended even our newest players, they rapidly developed into supercomputers programmed for one purpose only: walking life. This wasn't especially welcoming for new players as they usually got absolutely trounced by the AI.[/p][p]We have now implemented three different bot difficulties for you to choose from, depending on how big of a challenge you're looking for. Keep in mind that bots in online are still not here, but we are working hard to get them into the game in a future update![/p][h2]Game Difficulty[/h2][h2][/h2][p]Finally, we have also heard complaints from players that either find our game too easy after a couple of playthroughs and others that find it too hard, especially for newer players. To tackle this, we have added three difficulty settings for the games themselves: party mode, normal, and difficult.[/p][p]These difficulties will hit game systems such as salary, rent, stress, and attribute bonuses/loss. Expect the overall experience to be more chill or more gruelling, depending on your preference. Speaking of rent, there will be consequences more grave than having your furniture pawned, but we'll leave you to discover those yourselves when the update goes live![/p][p]Bon voyage![/p][p][/p]