Rec Center Tycoon News

Today has been very interesting for me. I learned a few major things that will help immensely with recreating & fixing crash logs I receive.

Fair warning; this might get long & pretty technical!

I spent about 10 hours straight today working out a way to fix this "crash to desktop" error with no error log.

This was tricky because 90% of players were completely unaffected by it, but for the 10% it did affect, the game was basically unplayable. There was no error log & I had nothing to go by because it didn't happen on my PC. With help from a user, I figured out it was related to invalid accessing of grids.
Learning that helped, but not too much because the game uses dozens of grids that are accessed every second.

After about 4 more hours of a painstaking process of elimination I figured out the main cause of this crash was something very simple:

When a member or premium member use a piece of equipment, they gain a bonus to their mood if they are in a member exclusive area. If they aren't in a member area, it reports back that they are in zone number -1, which is a problem because the zone list ranges from 0-12.

When small things like this happen, most PCs ignore the issue and the game continues as normal. But for some, it instantly crashes the game.

This isn't exclusive to this grid bug however.

I've noticed that some users can play for 8 hours straight and never experience a crash, while others get unique crashes every half an hour.

I believe this issue is related to which Windows Redistributables the user has.
You can learn about what these are here.

Certain programming functions require certain redistributables to work correctly.

I've been unable to recreate most of the bug reports I receive because I have all the necessary Redistributables.

Lucky for me, Steam has functions built in to choose which of these are necessary to run the game. So I've ticked a few common ones that should fix many issues people are having!

Steam should automatically install these for the user.

Hopefully now the game will feel much more stable for many users!

Hey everyone!

It's been a little over 10 hours since Early-Access went live & I've probably had more bug reports today than in the last month of beta testing which is great because I've fixed a number of potential crashes that have been reported to me.

The first few days of an EA release are always a bit rough in regards to bugs.
Right now the plan going forward will be hopefully a new bug-fix patch every day or two.

So for at least the first few weeks there likely won't be any major or exciting new features being added because getting the game in a stable & bug-free state is absolutely critical.

Thank you to everyone who has submitted bug reports, suggestions or given feedback

Hey everyone!

It's update time & I've got some good news!

I've chosen September 6th as the Early Access release date! So a roughly 3 weeks from now.
I've settled on $12USD as the price however the first week will include a 20% discount.

Which means for the first week the price will be $9.60usd. After that first week the discount will end & the price will rise back up to $12.

I've also uploaded a new trailer which you can check out here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0xssg1r5Pw

So what's been going on in the 6 weeks since the last update?

Mostly I've just been fixing bugs & taking in feedback from the small selection of beta testers.

However there have been a couple major changes.
First, I've overhauled the tech tree which you may have seen briefly in the new trailer, or check out this screenshot here:



Another fairly major addition is that at any time in-game now, you can press M on your keyboard to take control of your manager.
Using the WASD keys you can move your manager around & manually complete a variety of tasks such as repairing equipment, watering plants, emptying bins, restocking vending machines etc..
This aspect of the game is entirely optional and up to the player and you can eventually research the ability to have your manager automatically complete these tasks.

Other than that, it's just been bug fixing & balance tuning.

Thanks to all the people following along with development, especially those who have been waiting over 2 years. :)

Also big thanks to my beta testers for all the bugs found so far!

Lastly, don't forget to add to wishlist if you haven't already to you get an email notification on release.

Hey everyone!

I think another update is just about overdue.

Since last update I've mostly just been testing over & over. Doing things like leaving the game running for a few hours, coming back to see if any NPCs manage to get themselves stuck etc.. also trying to break the game in any way that I can.
In addition to a massive amount of playtesting & debugging, I've added a few new pieces of gym equipment, a few new objects, redrawn a bunch of sprites (since I'm starting to get a little better at that).

Also a bit of work on a new trailer.


Anyway, I've got a bit of good news!
It's time for another small beta test (hopefully the last one). I have a small handful of 5 or so beta keys to give out to anyone interested in doing some playtesting.
I need people willing to report bugs, submit screenshots of any bugs/issues & provide general feedback. Preferably people experienced with other business management/tycoon games.

So if you're interested in this, please comment below with your PC specs & the version of Windows you're using.
Also I'd love at least one tester with a 4k monitor.

I'll check back a little later & choose a few people mostly based on getting a good diversity of PC specs, if selected, I'll dm you a beta key & add you to friends.

A note to previous beta testers:
All earlier beta testers will still have access to this test, however due to major technical overhauls your old save files won't work.

Edit:
I'm going to leave this post up as I plan to keep this beta going until release and slowly invite a couple more players every now & then as necessary.
So if you don't get an invite right away, don't worry too much. :)

Edit 2:
Thanks for your posts everyone, I have enough beta testers to choose from.
See you all at launch! :D

Hey everyone! It's been longer than it should have been but I've finally got another update to share & this is a big one!
So lets get right into it :D



- Calendar
Managing events is now greatly simplified with an in-game calendar listing upcoming events like parties & classes. Check the attached screenshot at the bottom to get an idea of how this looks.


I mentioned in the January update that I've added a random events system to occasionally throw the player a curve-ball & shake things up a bit.
I've added a few more potential random events:

- Power Outages
Not a major problem if it happens but it can disrupt some things and keep you on your toes.

- Drug dealers
Wouldn't it be awful if your wholesome, family friendly Rec Center had a problem with illegal performance enhancing drugs?!
Should a customer report this to you, it's up to you to play detective to find & ban the dealer before it hurts your reputation & leads to bad reviews.

Now, for the final major feature I'm implementing before release:

- Instructors & Fitness Classes

Since the last update I've been very hard at work on the final major feature
I plan to introduce before Early-Access release.

This is a feature I've been planning for at least 2 years now but didn't really have the framework
in place to implement it well but through my various code rewrites, I finally
came up with a good method to add this.

How it works:

So, in addition to hiring traditional worker employees, you can now hire instructors to teach fitness classes.
You can hire up to 6 instructors at once but be warned, if you hire an instructor & don't give them any work for a while, they might just up and quit their job.
Instructors aren't paid an hourly wage like a normal employee but are paid a flat fee per class based on a few things like their reputation, skills, the type of class etc..

Once you hire an instructor and have built a classroom with all the necessary equipment, you can then open the calendar & select a date to host your class.

From there, you choose things like which type of class you want your instructor to teach.
There will be 4 classes to choose from at launch, the 4 types are:
- Aerobics
- Yoga
- Boxing
- Swimming

You can also choose the length of the class, the room it takes place in & how much it will cost per customer.

Once the class is hosted and is listed as an upcoming event on the calendar, it's up to your customers to decide if they want to sign up for it.
Various factors go into whether or not customers will sign up for the class. Some of these include the price, the length, the reputation & attributes of your instructor.
If nobody likes your instructor & you charge too much, very few will sign up for the class & it won't be profitable.

Classes take time for customers to sign up, so it's important to host your classes well in advance to give time for them to fill up.

Much like with normal employees, instructors will get better at their jobs over time & gain reputation making signups more common.




- Over the next month or two I'll be overhauling the steam page, adding new screenshots & updating the description.
Also I'll soon be beginning work on a new updated trailer since the current one is horribly out of date.

- Yet more bug fixing.
There's a million variables to look out for with this type of game, for example:
- What happens if you block an entrance to a class just before it starts
- What happens if you start bulldozing a pool while customers are swimming in it
- What if there's a blackout while a customer is on a treadmill
- What happens if a customer needs to pee and you sell the last toilet before they reach it
these examples basically go on forever..
Many of these "what if's" result in crashes, so basically I need to test, test & test some more in thinking up ways to break the game & fix it before players encounter the bugs.
For this, I'll have another small closed beta period but the details of this will come soon.


I've been internally looking at a couple of potential release dates which I can't really share more about just yet but they're not far off.
Since basically all of my programming time now will be spent not on adding new features, but instead on bug fixing, polishing & optimising the game it should not be too much longer. (I know I've said that before but for real this time!)

It's been 2 years & 1 month since I put up this store page & I've been working harder in these last few months than ever before, probably averaging about 10 hours per day 7 days a week to get this game ready for release.
So if you've been here since then, thank you for sticking around so long.

Here's a new screenshot showing the in-game calendar with some upcoming classes & events: