GearCity News

A save game corruption issue has forced Release Candidate 2 out a couple of weeks sooner than planned. But that is the purpose of Release Candidates. So we're likely to have 4 RC's now unless more major issues pop up.

If you have a save game that was corrupted in RC1, it should work in RC2.

I also worked on a few other items users reported to me over the last few days. I did not update translations, edits, or the new data that I planned on. I'm saving those for the next update.

-GUI: Show all player vehicles in the magazine class challenge.
-Bugfix: Fixed bug that prevented AI companies from getting factories and branches in some cases, if the player did not start on the old starting years.
-Bugfix: Fixed digit rounding issues with bored, stroke, and research team skill values. Digits should round to 2 decimal places instead of 2 integers.
-Data: Changed some reviews from untranslatable to translateable.
-Bugfix: Fixed error checking issue with AI contract production system that could cause AI not to produce anything if the player has contracts but isn't using the autoproduction system and is using other autosystems.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue that could prevent sqlite from moving some databases (save games) to memory, because the optimize system did not fully complete its run previously. This typically happens when the player exited the game.
-Bugfix: The game will repair any save files corrupted by the above bug when you select a save game from the load list.

It's been a long time since there was an update. And for good reason!

With the game nearing completion, much work went into creating the in-game video tutorials, playtesting, and cleaning up more text files.

With the additional amount of playtesting over the last few months, I am more confident that the game is at the stage where I can release it as a final product.

So we have entered the release candidate phase of development. Or "going Silver," as some call it. This phrase means that the game is "code complete" and nearly ready for release. I won't be touching any part of the program except to fix bugs or gameplay issues. My entire focus now is playtesting and finalizing English edits, documentation, and a map or two.

That's not much different than the state of the game for the last several versions. The big difference with Release Candidates is that it is a candidate for release. Any one of these updates could be the version we use as "Full Release" or "Gold," as some call it.

"Full Release" will mark the end of guaranteed development of the game. The keyword there is "guaranteed." I plan on providing support and bug fixes for the game for the foreseeable future. But with life, one never knows what can happen. Being a good steward of my software, I'll probably Open Source the game if I am no longer able to provide continued support. I also hope to continue feature development for the game well after release in what I call the "Feature Bounty System." Some of you may have already read about that some on our forums when requests pop up. I'll release more details on that after Full Release.

The current plans are to have at least 3 Release Candidates, but it may go higher depending on if any unacceptable bugs appear in the software. Roughly around RC2, I will begin PR efforts and set a release date for the game. In the meantime, I am continuing my third round of English edits, which will extend to news articles this time. I'll be adding more data to the magazine, news, and DYK articles. And of course, more playtesting.


The changelog is too long to attach to the announcement. You can find a copy of it here.

Greetings everyone,

I spent the last several months creating the final video tutorials for the game. I am pleased to announce that all of the main video tutorials for the game are now available for download or streaming.

Here is where you can find them:
Steam Guide Youtube Official Website

You can also find some of the tutorials embedded into the game via the top-right Help menu. The missing ones will come with the next update.

In total, there are 46 videos and 4.65 hours of content. I've tried to break things down so that you can easily find information on specific topics.

I do have plans on creating some additional videos covering smaller items in the game. I also need to cut the videos on specific topics for the user manual. I may also re-dub and subtitle the mod tool videos and possibly create a couple of play through videos. I might do a live play through or two. Perhaps in a Q&A or Interactive Commentary setting, but I'm not too sure about that. I'm not telegenic.

[h3]1.25.0.12 Update[/h3]

Most of the regular followers of the game already know about the video tutorials. So let's move on to what everyone wants to know about, updates.

I've started work on v1.25.0.12, which will also serve as Final Release Candidate 1 (RC1). As of this writing, I've knocked out 30 issues so far. I will continue to do extensive play through testing to find and fix everything I run across. My goal was to have this completed by the end of March. Sadly, with everything going on in the world, I am late as always.

Beyond that, I still have a manual to rewrite. I wrote the last version of the in 2013 for version 1.11. I plan on finalizing the European Map, adding more newspaper clips, magazine reviews, and some more editing. I hope to create the North American map and map tool tutorial videos, but this might come post-release.

After all that, there will be additional RC's as needed, marketing the game, releasing the game, heart attacks, and then the post-release feature bounty system.

Anyway, that's where we are.

Greetings everyone!

It's time for another hotfix, as a possible crash with outsourced component production was reported to me. I also went ahead and fixed several pending issues, and included the latest video tutorial.

On the topic of video tutorials, I am nearly finished, but I have been slowed down recently because of the length of the videos I'm currently working on.

Anyway, enjoy!

-Bugfix: Fixed crash in would map when opening production of a vehicle design that uses outsourced components.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue causing AI companies to own a model name when player outsources a vehicle to them. This bug prevented players from being able to make new generations of these vehicles.
-Gameplay: Adjustments have been made to the component age penalties.
-GUI: GUI load optimizations to the Office Contract window.
-GUI: Horizontal scroll bar returns to the Office Contract Window parts secletion.
-Bugfix: Fixes applied to several achievements that had database counting issues.
-Media: Main Tutorial video added to the game. (Will eventually integrate a link into the in-game tutorials themselves.)

Greetings everyone,

Another hotfix for 1.25.0.11. This one fixes a crash issue with loading .car files on non-standard encoded copies of Windows, primarily Swift-JIS. I also threw in a few bug fixes listed below.

Video tutorials are going well. I am about 60% complete. At this pace, I should finish them by the end of the year, and then I can start working on full release candidates and completing the manual. This hotfix includes all video tutorials to date. You can also find them on our youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1Qy-Pj_RIRvRkajKTI9bsut_ZXJ6eqWn or the tutorial page on our website: www.gearcity.info/tutorials

Hotfix includes:
GUI: Length about text in main menu.
GUI: Fixed city hover popup cutting off text.
Gameplay: Enabling autoproduction now enables auto-hire and auto-wage automatically. This is done to prevent player logic issues that can cause bad gameplay.
GUI: Enabling autoproduction hides auto-hire and auto-wage checkboxes.
Gameplay: Autoproduction will now try to avoid using factories with low morale.
Gameplay: Purchasing a company with low morale will improve those employee's morale somewhat.
Bugfix: Fixed bankruptcy flag not resetting when a player buys a bankrupt company. Situtations where this would be an issue is if the player spun off the company, and then tried to rebuy them.
GUI: Yearly Sales memo now uses base vehicle name rather than the latest vehicle model's name.
GUI: Fixed Mega Menu's Autoproduction vehicle restriction page flippers not hiding when marque restriction is enabled.
Bugfix: fixed missing demands text when Administration union wants more.
Bugfix: Fixed .car file crashes on non-unicode, non-US-compatible encoded Windows.
Bugfix: Fixed .car file loading on non-unicode, non-US-compatible encoded Windows.
Bugfix: Fixed .car file loading on non-unicode OSX.
Bugfix: Fixed component slider save/load system on non-unicode, non-US-compatible encoded Windows.
Media: Added more video tutorials.
Media: Improvements to in-game video tutorial landing page.