This Grand Life 2 News

In the same way there are tens of thousands of character combinations based on preferences, there are also many possibilities for cities based on government policy and local industry.



[h3]Government Policy[/h3]
Government policies are multipliers that affect things like income tax rates, transit and road funding, education and healthcare subsidies, employee wages, sales/VAT tax and so on.



A city like Singapore might have high transit funding, which can make public transport as fast as car travel. On the other hand, a city like Los Angeles would have lower transit funding and cars would generally be the more attractive option.

Similarly, most European cities would have very low education costs (and slightly higher taxes to compensate) while US cities would have the opposite.



I try to use real world data to set these policies so players can experience the benefits and drawbacks of life in each city, at least within the possibilities of the gameplay mechanics.

[h3]Industry Weightings[/h3]
Some cities are dominated by one or two industries, and this is reflected in industry weightings. For example Bordeaux in France is famous for its wine and so prosperity is heavily impacted by the agriculture industry. On the other hand San Jose in the USA, being at the epicenter of Silicon Valley, would be driven by the technology industry.



Industry weightings matter because the Central Bank sets interest rates to control overall inflation. If one industry dominates, then interest rates will be set to accommodate that industry which can lead to much more volatile economic conditions in other industries.

For example, below is an inflation chart for San Jose. The "Overall Inflation" line moves up and down with the technology line, albeit at a less intense rate.



Below is the less-weighted agriculture sector for comparison. Its growth is affected by the Central Bank Rate, but the Central Bank ignores the agriculture industry when making decisions on interest rates.



In large cities with balanced industries this won't matter as much, but in cities that are very reliant on one or two industries this will have quite an impact.

[h3]Final word[/h3]

Based on government policies and industry weightings, I try to find cities with interesting features to add. Let me know in the comments what cities or types of cities you'd like to see!

By the late game you will also be able to influence government policies and vote to promote or suppress certain industries. It's a moderately sized topic and better left for another time.

With most of the major features fleshed out, the last few weeks have involved lots of testing and balancing. The different gameplay mechanics are really starting to come together. I'd like to tell the story of Paddy and Liv, two randomly generated characters with "normal" personalities from my latest playtest.



Here you can see Paddy's preferences. He loves thinking and likes technology, so decides to get a Computer Science degree. He takes out an education loan.



It's agreed Liv will work fulltime to support them both until Paddy's studies are complete.



Liv loves prestige - the finer things in life. This is actually a major issue, since their household lacks the funds to fulfil her desires. We can either accept that Liv's happiness will suffer in the short term, or spend money on prestigious activities to make her happy. I'm going with the first option.



Sorting and searching through the list of possible jobs, we find the most qualified job for Liv that aligns with her preferences is Automotive Apprentice.



There's not enough fulltime work available so she ends up working 3 casual jobs, including one as a Security Guard.



Fast forward a year, and Liv is not happy at all with having to work so hard. Meanwhile Paddy is having the time of his life at university. In fact, Liv is so upset that she gains the negative status effects wistful, agitated and burnout.



Agitated and burnout are especially bad in her situation. It makes working even more unpleasant, which could lead to a downward spiral in happiness.



The silver lining is her hard work hasn't been for nothing - the household has $7500 saved up.



I've decided Liv will quit her security guard job and start ordering wine. She doesn't even like alcohol, but satisfying her need for prestige is more important right now. Hopefully this stabilises her situation for the next year.

In the meantime, Paddy will study fewer hours and take up a part time job if needed to cover Liv's new lifestyle. It's the least he can do after what she's been through.

This is a continuation of the series on running a business in This Grand Life 2. Previous posts: Part 1 and Part 2

[h3]Awareness[/h3]

Awareness can be built by spending money on advertising, or getting your characters to do certain activities like handing out flyers.



It affects how much foot traffic and how many potential contracts you are offered, which in turn affects how much work is available.



Different types of businesses will have different ways to build awareness. For example, a restaurant can purchase billboard ads whereas a game dev studio would be making cold calls to drum up business.



[h3]Brand Reputation[/h3]

Reputation is something that is earned slowly over time and (usually) cannot be bought. It changes depending on your worker's skills and your ability to complete all jobs every month.



For example, say you run a real estate agency. In this business, the real estate agents and property managers generate the income but they also generate lawyer job hours. You don't need to complete the lawyer job hours to make money and can cut corners by leaving them incomplete.



However, this lack of professionalism will reflect poorly on your business. It will lower your brand reputation for all future business, *unless* it can be offset by having very skilled real estate agents.



The industry inflation system can also play into this decision making. Continuing with the real estate example, imagine a scenario where the property market is booming (real estate agents expensive to hire) and the professional services is busting (lawyers are working for cheap). In this case you might want to hire cheaper unskilled agents, but also hire good lawyers to make sure all job hours are complete and your reputation is maintained.

There are also a few ways to build brand reputation by spending money such as sponsoring a local sporting team, but these aren't available to most businesses.

You can now play a demo of This Grand Life 2! I've also made a new trailer for this grand occasion:

[previewyoutube]https://youtu.be/Sm03PeJ_7UA[/previewyoutube]

The demo is set in the land of TutorialVille, Kentucky USA!



In this fine city you can get a job, rent an apartment, buy stocks and start a lemonade stand business.

There's also a survey link in-game if you want to provide feedback to help improve the game. Thanks!

Last time I talked about the "job hour" being the core of the small business system. Contracts are an extension to this system that can amplify your profits or losses.

Let's look at opening a flower shop as an example. When working a flower shop's regular job hours, the income you generate is largely determined by how the retail industry is doing (since people are more likely to buy flowers while they're out shopping for other things).



A flower shop can also accept a contract to supply corporate offices, where your business agrees to supply a corporation with flower bouquets for a fixed number of months in return for a fixed payout. The payout of these contracts is naturally impacted by how well the professional services industry is doing.​



This agreement is simulated via adding job hours to be completed each month. ​As you work those job hours, they count towards fulfilling your duties of the contract. .



This means if retail is in a downturn but professional services is booming, you can still make ends meet by taking on more corporate contracts and perhaps even closing your shop to regular sales.

For multi-year contracts, you should also look at where inflation is headed before deciding whether to accept the contract. If we consider a worst-case scenario, imagine agricultural inflation is rising so your cost of flowers is rising rapidly.



The retail industry is also booming, so the cost of hiring florist employees is also rising.



The problem is that once you've accepted a contract, your payout remains the same! In this scenario you might end up losing money if the trend of increasing expenses continues and you didn't account for it.

Of course the opposite could happen where your expenses decrease over time but you locked in a contract while the payout was high, in which case you'll be swimming in profits.

This is probably the most complex system so far in This Grand Life 2. There's a few things to think about when trying to eke out a profit from the contracts system and I'll be making tweaks during development to try make it as easy to understand as possible.

As a final note, I've been focused on getting a demo and new trailer ready before the end of the year so look out for that coming soon.