Showrunner News

[p]Hello, it's been a while! I've found some time to put together an update to Showrunner, adding the morale system into the game, the ability to give staff raises and bonses, plus a few UI and balancing tweaks.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]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 (v0.46). 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![/p][p][/p][h2]Functionality[/h2][p]- Morale system. Various factors affect staff morale both positively and negatively - related to wages, the studio and work. Overall morale for each member of staff affects the quality of their work.[/p][p]- Staff wages can be increased once per year, up to 50%, which will likely increase morale![/p][p]- Staff can be given a bonus once per year, which will provide a big morale boost that decreases over time.[/p][p]- Training available per month is now limited studio-wide rather than per staff member[/p][p]- All staff apart from crew increase fame by 5 - 10% when levelling up[/p][p][/p][h2]UI[/h2][p]- Delay between training UI animations sped up a little[/p][p]- Added left and right selection arrows to the sub-screens within staff details[/p][p]- Added morale numbers to staff list screens, and adjusted icon thesholds[/p][p]- Increased energy icon types to four and matched them to energy threshold numbers[/p][p]- Rounded staff energy on various screens[/p][p][/p][h2]Balancing[/h2][p]- Staff energy loss from working increased about 30% across the board[/p][p]- Doubled the points earned from brainstorming[/p][p]- Training effectiveness increased by 50%[/p][p]- Max number of times training can be done per month is increased more often through studio levelling[/p][p][/p][h2]Bug Fixes[/h2][p]- Fix for name of previous actors not being shown correctly on the mouseover for a character when there have been two previous actors, which may have caused a crash in some circumstances.[/p]

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