[h3]Hey everyone![/h3]
It's
finally time for the next major update!
This one is by FAR the biggest patch the game has ever had. It has changes & improvements for basically every part of the game. There's essentially
nothing that hasn't been reworked or expanded upon in one way or another.
In addition to all the the
changes to things, there's a new type of class, new manager abilities, heaps of employee & trainer additions, a review system overhaul, a bunch of new clothing options, new achievements, new stats & so on..
I certainly can't cover all the changes here (I'll leave that to the patch notes below), so I want to briefly talk about a few important changes:
Firstly, probably the most common request I've had basically since release is for proper UI scaling, so people with large or small screens won't have an interface that becomes all blurry or distorted.
Since I originally designed it for 1080p screens in a very fixed & 'unchanging' way this wasn't going to be a quick fix.
However the good news is that after rebuilding almost the entire user interface, I can say that UI scaling has now been added! So 4k monitor users won't have to deal with a large, blurry zoomed-in interface anymore.
Essentially all game windows, tooltips, select boxes etc. have had changes in some way or another.
So a lot of things will look & feel quite different.
Another common request I've had is for more details about how various things work, like what certain stats do & general 'inner workings' of game mechanics & systems.
So along with the GUI overhaul, I've created a new tooltip system and added hundreds of new little mouse-over tooltips to explain how stuff works.
Here's an example from the new recruitment tab:
One last thing I want to briefly mention is the new HARDCORE challenge mode.
This is a fun little optional addition for anyone wanting an extra challenge to spice things up.
Of the 5 new achievements added this update, 2 are are awarded through this mode.
Here's a quick look at the modifiers this optional challenge adds:
If either of those 2 conditions are failed during a HARDCORE playthrough (dropping below $0 or the death of a customer), your Rec Center becomes permanently locked to 0x speed, pausing your save forever. This forces the player to carefully plan & strategize not only their finances, but their building layout too.
At the risk of having this post be too long, I'll get straight to the patch notes:
[h2]Major Update 0.7.0 patch notes:[/h2]
[h3]General[/h3]
- A new HARDCORE challenge mode has been added which restricts some features, increases difficulty & automatically ends your save game if certain conditions are not met
- For the achievement hunters out there: Each Steam achievement earned now gives your manager 1 additional stat to allocate, this is a global effect that persists through all saves
- To complement this, 5 new challenging Steam achievements have been added
- Employee recruitment has been completely overhauled:
- Resumes now show an applicants work history & hobbies, which directly affect their job skills
- Rather than just selecting an employee to hire, salaries are negotiated upon
- Potential employees can challenge salary offers & even withdraw their job applications
- A new 'Salary Manager' tab has been added to the Staff menu, this tab allows for complete customization of employee wages:
- In addition to setting your own wages, an employees 'preferred' wage is displayed, as well as the generic standard wage for their job role
- Preferred wages are influenced by many things like: The employees own self worth, how long they have been working for you, their traits & age
- Fitness Instructors (formerly Class Trainers) have had many changes:
- Fitness Instructors now have their own preferences & preferred classes to teach, they may perform better when teaching their favorite classes, as opposed to whatever is assigned to them
- They, along with their class customers may now arrive to class up to an hour early to prepare. This greatly increases the time they actually spend IN the class (especially for the shorter 2 hour classes)
- Fitness Instructors set their own teaching rates depending on their skills, preferences & traits
- A new type of class: 'Track' has been added, which is accessible after building a Running Track
- Running Tracks can now be upgraded to have built-in stadium lighting
- ALL reviews are now saved rather than the last 20, adding an 'All Time' review score in addition to 'Recent Reviews'
- The review score is now based on all reviews from the last 5 days, rather than the last 20 received
- The construction planner has been reworked for greater usability, stability & future expandability
- Lifeguard AI has been rewritten from scratch
- The queueing system for the reception & café has been completely rebuilt
- The manager is now able to manually cook food for the café or buffet table
- Unbuilt equipment & objects can now be selected, cancelled or duplicated
[h3]User Interface & Quality Of Life[/h3]
- GUI scaling has been added! Those who play with resolutions other than 1080p can now tick an option to keep the UI size consistent regardless of the resolution.
Since the game was specifically designed around 1080p screens, essentially the entire UI has been heavily modified & every part of the UI has been changed in some manner.
- Many game windows have been completely rebuilt from scratch such as the staff/trainer recruitment windows & the review tab
- A number of new game windows can now be moved & dragged around the screen, for example the planner box & zone selection box
- All NPC hitboxes have been enlarged making them easier to click
- Selecting a computer now displays additional useful information about its games & software
- The customer select box has been improved & shows more information
- Many game windows now have a significantly smaller impact on performance
- Mouse-over tooltips have been completely redesigned. Additionally, a huge amount of new tooltips have been added to help explain game mechanics, like what various NPC stats do
- A 'Menu' button has been added to top GUI bar for mouse users to access the menu
- Most game windows now contain 'close' buttons in their top right corner
- All object/npc selection boxes have been improved & use improved graphics
- The 'Load Game' menu has been improved, giving more info. Also saves are now now sorted by most recent instead of alphabetically
- Holding TAB now prioritizes selecting objects over NPCs
[h3]Balance Changes[/h3]
- Nurses now gain 'Compassion' with each patient they tend to
- The speed that nurses gain 'Cleanliness' has been greatly reduced
- Slowed the rate that employees gain their 'Cooking' skill by 15%
- During hot weather customers will now not only want to swim more, they'll also want to stay in the pool for longer
- Customers will now leave fewer reviews, especially in late-game
- The review score is now based on all reviews from the last 5 days rather than the last 20 reviews
- Solar panels now reduce all electricity costs by 50% (formerly 80%)
- Each point in 'Charisma' now reduces wages by 0.3% (formerly 0.5%)
- Plants now decay faster in hot weather
- Fitness Instructors now gain 'Reputation' at a 50% reduced rate
- Customer 'crowd check' radius has been reduced by 20%, reducing how much they complain about crowds
- Employee Traits:
- 'Athletic' now increases fitness gains by 50% (formerly 100%)
- 'Intelligent' increases all skill gains by 25% (formerly 50%)
- 'Unintelligent' reduces all skill gains by 25% (formerly 30%)
[h3]Graphics & Visual[/h3]
- Many new clothing options have been added for NPCs & your manager
- The lighting engine has been heavily reworked to have significantly less impact on performance
- Ambient Occlusion has been improved & is now drawn under all objects
- The 'Shadow Blur' effect has been reworked & now looks much better
- A water ripple effect is now displayed over all swimming pools
- A small water splash effect now occurs when NPCs enter pools, they can also be seen briefly dripping water after leaving a pool
- Many game-world objects like doors & equipment have had their sprites improved
- A few new clothing/dress options have been added for customers & party guests
- A pixel scaling algorithm has been applied to many NPC portraits
- The game logo has been redesigned
[h3]Misc Improvements & Bug Fixes[/h3]
- Cloud Saving has been fixed
- Performance has been improved significantly in many areas of the game
- Greatly improved saving time
- Dramatically improved stutter when placing/editing zones
- Resumes no longer randomize after saving then loading the game
- Fixed certain objects & equipment not correctly changing customer stats after use
- Manual Cloth Bandage use is now correctly locked behind Standard First Aid, rather than Basic First Aid
- Fixed crash related to new employee pathing changes
- Rec Center names can no longer contain special characters like \ / |
- ? < > as they can corrupt saves
- Fixed issue causing some objects to change skin when relocating them
- Fixed crash caused by cooks sometimes having no idea what to do
- Fixed bug allowing party events to partially overlap with other events
- Fixed issue with pool & wall lights sometimes changing direction on their own
- Fixed various bugs with the planner
- More fixes & improvements to AI pathing code
- Countless small UI visual fixes
- Additional minor bug fixes & improvements
[h2]Final note & future plans:[/h2]
So I didn't plan for this update to take
sooo long to come out.
A few additions which I had initially planned to be small, became much larger (entire UI being rebuilt, trainer recruitment update becoming new stats, a class & an AI rewrite etc.)
I plan to spend the coming weeks releasing quick, daily/weekly patches to fix all the new bugs that I'm sure will appear with a major update like this.
But as for future additions?
I think the next thing on the chopping block is the calendar system. I've mapped out plans for a better calendar that supports events & classes running simultaneously, not being limited to 4 days at a time & setting up repeating classes that don't need to manually be added every few days.
I have plans for the 'Swimming II' research tech too which adds some features typically seen in aquatic centers (diving boards for example!).
There's also the 'Personal Trainer' system I've been working on...
