Showrunner News

Hey Showrunner players! Wanted to give you an update on development for Showrunner in 2025. Development is continuing but this year updates will be slower/smaller than they were previously.

The game has done okay so far in Early Access, a big thank you to everyone who has bought a copy so far. Unfortunately it hasn't sold enough copies to be self-sustaining as a full time project at the moment. As a result of this I've taken on work as a writer on another project. For the rest of the year I'll be primarily working on writing, with development on Showrunner taking place when there is additional time.

I want to reassure everyone who wants to see the game succeed that I am absolutely going to continue working on the game this year and beyond, it won't leave Early Access until I feel it is genuinely solid and deserving of a 1.0 release. I believe that the game still has a good way to go to deliver on its potential and I intend to get it there. My previous game, This Merchant Life, was in Early Access for two years and received further updates for around a year after release. Showrunner will definitely be in Early Access beyond two years, it will continue to be worked on and updated but those updates will be coming less often for a while.

I'd initially hoped that I'd be able to find more time for work on Showrunner while working on another project, but up to now that's proven difficult and I wanted to let everyone know why things are slower rather than have false claims going around that the project has been abandoned. That is not the case and will not be the case.

Thank you again to everyone who has bought the game so far, everyone who has left a positive review and all the people who have provided bug reports and given lots of helpful feedback, ideas and enthusiasm!

This update adds one of the most requested feature to the game, the ability to fire actors to either remove the character from a show or to recast them!


Please note that due to structural changes required in the backend, saves from older builds won't be compatible with this new version. If you want to play with older saves, you'll need to opt in to the beta branch "beta - old builds" which gives you continued access to the previous build (v0.45). Right click Showrunner in Steam, then properties, then betas, then select beta - old builds from the drop down. Set this drop down to None if you want to go to the latest version!

[h2]Functionality[/h2]

- Contract Management Screen appears after a show has been signed for a new season, before production begins. It allows you to manage the contracts of all the main and support actors in your show. You can renew an actor for another season, although their wage demands are likely to have increased in line with their fame! You can fire an actor, which removes the character from the show, be warned that this will reduce Show Interest and fans, especially if the character was very popular. If you wish, you can recast the role with a new actor, although this will reduce character popularity!

[h2]Content[/h2]

- Added 8 new staff animations. Did a pass on all staff animations, removing lots of idle or poorly fitting ones and adding more variety. Many staff workslots now have two or three animations that are randomly chosen between when a member of staff is assigned to that workslot. Fixed a few depth issues (staff behind furniture when they should be infront or vice versa).

[h2]Balancing[/h2]

- Doubled cost of training, slightly increased staff energy costs, doubled training stats benefit
- Increased Studio XP awarded from completing episodes significantly (doubled at standard difficulty)
- Character XP requirements to level up characters reduced a fair amount (around 40% less total to reach level 20)
- Staff energy drops more slowly when working and recovers more slowly when idle or resting

[h2]UI[/h2]

- If a character has unspent affinity points, Character Details screen will now default to show the affinity panel for that character

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

- Temporary fix for game crash that can occur when casting a character and the face item is more than the max array size for male characters. Underlying issue still needs to be sorted, which includes the 5th character created duplicating the outfit of the 4th character.

A fairly small update that adds difficulty selection options when creating new games (casual, standard and challenge difficulties) and three new show themes - crime, super hero and post apocalyptic!

This build shouldn't cause crashes if used with saves from versions 0.44 or 0.4401, but the new show themes won't work correctly without starting a new game in this version or later (world screen will show no other shows of these types, popularity and competition will be set to 0).



[h2]Functionality[/h2]

- Added a difficulty select option when starting a new game - casual, standard or challenge. Difficulty settings affect starting resources, platform contract fees and requirements, resources and XP earned per episode
- Difficulty 0 counts as 2 (Standard) so 0.44 saves will still work in 0.45

[h2]Content[/h2]

- Made three new show themes available - Crime, Super Hero and Post Apocalyptic. Each theme has its own set, with theme-specific show title generation and character name generation.

[h2]Balancing[/h2]

- [Standard difficulty] Platform contract lengths made a little longer.
- [Standard difficulty] Interest requirement for highest ambition platforms reduced by 10.



[h2]UI[/h2]

- Added a STATS view to the character list screen, which shows affinity scores and trait icons
- Adjusted the platform expectation stars on the platforms screen so that high expectation (high interest requirements) is depicted as more stars, not less!
- Added STATUS to character list screen
- Added TYPE to episode list screen
- Added a RECEPTION view to the episode list screen, showing review scores, show interest and viewer counts
- Hooked up the capacity element on the rooms sidebar so it correctly shows max room capacity and current number of staff in the room
- Game now starts paused during initial studio and show setup process
- Added an UNASSIGN button to the lead dressing room sidebar screen

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

- Fixed a bug where the show contract bonus payment per interest gained wasn't being correctly added to the total paid to the studio when an episode is completed.
- Added saving of contract offer details to fix issues if the player saved the game after creating a new show but before accepting a contract for it.

- Fix for player's show not correctly being placed on the theme rankings
- Fix for show theme and theme ranking being incorrectly displayed on the show overview screen
- Fixed issues with interest text alignment on HUD and on show overview screen

This update is all about making the world of Showrunner feel more alive, with scores of other shows to compete against and shifts to the popularity of themes over time! The makeup of your audience is now more complex, split into three groups - mainstream viewers, theme aficianados and hardcore fans.

There are also a bunch of UI adjustments and quality of life improvements, with the finance screen now fully functional and listing out monthly costs, a list of studio upgrades achieved and screens to provide overviews on your show and the platforms you can work with.

Please note that due to structural changes required in the backend, saves from older builds won't be compatible with this new version. If you want to play with older saves, you'll need to opt in to the beta branch "beta - old builds" which gives you continued access to the previous build (v0.43). Right click Showrunner in Steam, then properties, then betas, then select beta - old builds from the drop down. Set this drop down to None if you want to go to the latest version!

[h2]Functionality[/h2]



- Added Windowed Fullscreen option.
- Show name generation vastly expanded, now reflects show theme, with many more variations. This is used to generate other shows in the world and also offer much more varied and relevant show names when the player randomly generates a name for their new show.
- Total show viewership is no longer calculated as a single figure, instead it is the combined total of three different types of viewer: mainstream viewers, theme afficionados and die hard fans of the show. Mainstream viewers are attracted to the show as before; a combination of show interest and average review score. A proportion of theme afficionados will watch your show based on how highly ranked it is within shows of that theme. Finally, a very high proportion of a show's die hard fans will watch every episode, but to gain them you'll need to convert mainstream and theme viewers into fans - a proportion of these viewers will become fans based on the average reviews of each episode.
- Each room in your studio now has a monthly maintenance cost attached. This increases as rooms are levelled up. The total HQ maintenance cost for all constructed rooms is automatically deducted from your finances at the end of each month.

[h2]Balancing[/h2]

- Starting Script Points down to 200.

[h2]UI[/h2]



- Added a WORLD option to the main HUD options. Contains three new sub-screens: TRENDS, which shows the current popularity and competition for all available show themes as well as recent changes in these; PLATFORMS, which shows various stats about each of the platforms in the world that can sign contracts for the studio's shows; TOP SHOWS, which gives a list of the top 10 - 20 (number of shows depends on theme competition) shows in each available theme, sorted by show interest and updating after each new set of episodes. The top show lists will also change dynamically betweeen seasons, with some shows ending and new shows beginning, while the total number of shows for a theme will alter depending on new theme competition scores each season.
- Added an UNLOCKS sub-screen to the STUDIO section, listing all the studio unlocks across all previous studio levels. FINANCES screen moved from being a main HUD option to a sub-screen within the studio screen. CONTRACT moved from being a sub-screen within the SHOW section to the STUDIO section.
- Added an OVERVIEW sub-screen to the SHOW section, which also becomes the new default screen for that section. This shows overall details on the player's current show; show genre and stat importance for that genre, show theme and current show ranking within that theme as well as theme popularity and competition, show interest score, fan total, number of seasons and episodes. Player can also edit the show title here.
- Updates to the SHOW RECEPTION screen, with some adjustments to the layout showing the breakdown of viewer types and details on which bonus contract objectives were met or not for this episode.
- Made the logic of sub-screen buttons and selection more consistent across each screen section.
- Adjusted the format the time and date are displayed on the ingame calendar UI element and on the load and save screens to make them clearer and more consistent.
- UI flow changes to prevent player starting to a new writing, filming or editing project while an existing one is currently complete. This is to avoid issues where players could complete episodes out of order (e.g. write two episodes in a row, then start filming the second episode before the first) which could cause various issues and may have been related to some crashes.
- Finances screen functionality fully implemented (year and month views). Monthly costs sub-screen added which lists out staff wages per job type and total, HQ maintenance per room and total.
- Added glow to main HUD buttons to indicate which main screen is currently active.



[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

- Fixed issues with the show interest change based on review scores and made it much more sensible in the backend.
- Hopeful fix for a long running crash related to contract bonus objectives that would occur when the game went to the episode reception screen (unable to add undefined to a string in oRatings step event) - readjusted calculations here to make the code more robust.
- Show platform will now correctly persist across multiple seasons if the show is extended beyond one season.