This Grand Life 2 News

Children attend school with the goal of obtaining a high school diploma by the time they near adulthood. Not everyone has the same experience though, and a child's personal success will be impacted by their preferences.



In the early years, they are subjected to a lot of authority and tend to do school activities that require creativity. Children who enjoy these things will be able to spend more time at school without negative consequences.



In the final years, the preferences for schooling are completely flipped. Now thinking and technology are important and a child that hates both of these is going to have a bad time.



Whether your child loves or hates school isn't set in stone at birth. When they reach their teenage years, the mood swings begin.



During adolescence, on every birthday a random preference can change. A child might start out liking something but hate it when they reach adulthood. You can choose to prevent these changes by spending health and happiness points, or let them run their course and accept the person that comes out the other end.

This Grand Life 2 will have a modding system that allows for a variety in gameplay for players, including some built-in mods that I'll talk about today.

[h3]Starting loans[/h3]

Some players might want to only play the trading/investing/business game and not worry about the day-to-day finances of being alive. To accommodate this, you can activate a mod where your parents give you a small loan of $1 million USD with a generously low interest rate.



Alternatively, those looking for more of a challenge can enable a loan from the mafia instead. This comes with an extortionate interest rate but allows you to attempt business activities or stock trading from the beginning, as long as you can keep up with the repayments!



[h3]City mods[/h3]
The new modding system is also used to alter cities based on their local/cultural differences. Some of this is cosmetic, for example in Osaka, Japan the Eat Plain Bread activity would be replaced by Eat Plain Rice.



City-specific mods can be enabled in places they don't belong. For example if you enabled the Canada mod, your fast food options might be slightly different.



This can have gameplay impacts as well. The VAT tax in a Swedish city (or one with the Swedish-specific country mod enabled) would be higher than in a German city, so all your shopping would be more expensive.



[h3]Child Workers[/h3]
This is another gameplay-altering mod where the working age is lowered to 5 years old. It means your children can become income-generators once they reach schooling age. As a consequence, the wages of all workers are also reduced, especially for less skilled jobs.

You can even hire some of these young'uns for your own business!



I've been adding these built-in mods whenever I think of something that sounds interesting (or a little unhinged) so players should have some different setups/scenarios to play out when the game is released.

Exciting news, the game will officially launch into Early Access on 20th June, 2024, marking a significant milestone in its development journey. It will also be participating in the upcoming Next Fest this June, offering players a sneak peek into what's to come.

I've dedicated efforts to integrate Mod support, a highly requested feature from TGL1. The Early Access release will not only feature built-in mods but also support for Steam workshop mods, barring any unforeseen circumstances.

Next on the list is a bit of a game changer. You'll have the ability to quickly toggle auto mode on or off for individual characters, giving the flexibility to manually control certain characters while allowing others to autonomously execute actions based on their settings. It's a perfect blend of real-time and turn-based gameplay styles, offering the best of both worlds!



Finally, I've been tackling issues such as prolonged save times during extended gameplay sessions. While there aren't any interesting screenshots to showcase these improvements, rest assured that work is still progressing. Stay tuned for further updates.

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.