Showrunner News

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.

Showrunner is part of the Steam Deckbuilders Fest event! It'll be 35% off for the duration of the event, which runs until the 1st of April, so now is a great time to get it!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2058200/Showrunner/

This build adds the full staff chemistry system to the game!

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 (v0.42). 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]Staff Chemistry[/h2]

Chemistry represents staff getting on and working well together, and that mutual understanding increasing over time. Each member of your studio has a chemistry score with every other person they work with closely.

When staff work together on a stage of production they gain chemistry. The amount of chemistry gained will vary somewhat each time, but the primary factor in how much it increases are the personality types of each person. Staff with personality types with a strong affinity will increase their chemistry together much faster than otherwise, while those with a poor affinity will increase much more slowly. Chemistry increases are also affected to a lesser extent by the chemistry stat of the room(s) that staff work and rest in, by their morale and by certain staff perks.

Positive chemistry with other staff can have some general benefits for morale, but the main advantage is the critical success chance that comes from the team chemistry grade. When a team is set up for a production task such as writing or filming, the chemistry score all selected staff have with each other is averaged, producing a team chemistry grade which is displayed as staff are added to/removed from the team. This team chemistry grade will define the critical success chance for that stage of production. Whenever a critical success is achieved, the points generated are tripled!

[h2]UI[/h2]

- Auto menu pause option removed from options. The menu pause functionality has been reworked so that it should be more intuitive and better to use than either of the previously selectable options. Opening up a main menu page automatically pauses the game (preventing new stages in production from bringing up menus while you're on an existing screen) but you can unpause the game manually while you have a main menu page up. Closing/leaving a main menu screen will set the game speed back to what it was before the page appeared.
- Added option to turn screen scrolling with the mouse off.
- Character popularity animation skip timer reduced from 60 to 20.
- Card research audio changed, variants added.

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

- Removed 3 items (chairs) from the Green Room calculations as these are not currently in the game or interactable/upgradable and were throwing the room stat calculations off a little.

[h2]Backend[/h2]

Made adjustments to scripts that may help alleviate some of the more difficult to understand crashes.

This update adds an editing system which allows you to select an editing focus to apply a percentage increase to one or two episode stats at the start of the editing phase, in exchange for a percentage reduction in one or two other stats. This system is a useful way to steer the episode stat scores towards favouring particularly important stats for the genre of your show (e.g. drama for drama show, plot for a procedural), which is a key factor in the review scores that episodes receive.

There are 24 editing focuses, you start with 8 available and unlock an additional 8 when levelling the Editing Suite room to both levels 2 and 3.

[h2]Bug Fixes
[/h2]

- Crashes caused by having script points going beyond 60 should no longer occur.
- Character relationships reciprocated correctly, including in shows after the first one your studio makes. Previously defaulted to the first character from the first show.
- Brainstorming button will now only appear on the Writer's Room sidebar as intended.
- Some instances of production phases not ending shouldn't occur anymore (percentage complete had gone slightly above 100 and this previously caused issues).

A hotfix to try to sort out a couple of crashes.

- Code to catch instances where staff stats are over 1000 when working on tasks, to avoid crashes - they perform as if stats are at the highest level. Also added clamping to staff stats after training, working in much the same way as after staff levelling, which should help prevent stats going over 1000.

- Changed how players can access the Character Look screen, pressing the LOOK button will now close the character sidebar. Previously changing the character selected in the sidebar while adjusting the look of the character on the Character Look screen could cause a crash related to face items. Players will now be able to scroll through characters on the Character Look screen however, bringing the way this all functions in line with the Character Details screen. A few other code tweaks which may also catch issues that were leading to the face item crash on the Character Look screen.