DDS2 Devlog: Let’s start from the beginning!
Another Monday is upon us, Dealers! We know, we don’t like Mondays either but we hope this tidbit of info will make your day better *wink wink*
Without further ado, here’s Rafal:
From the start with DDS2 we wanted to up the game with the progression and evolution of the gameplay loop. We also wanted to show how Eddie and his friends rose to the ranks of cartel bosses and introduce a larger, more diverse world with the potential of expanding the operation to a large-scale cartel business. With that in mind, we also needed to make improvements that would allow the player (or players) to manage that.
The amount of territory and clients available on Isla Sombra can (and will be) overwhelming to handle on your own, especially alone, but also with friends. The game gives you a lot of flexibility in terms of scale, the number of sold and produced drugs and the size of your territory but there is still a lot to handle, especially if you want to experience and explore the game to the limits. So – when you start getting overwhelmed by the number of orders and tasks to handle – that's when the cartel employees come in.
You obtain many NPC employees as you progress through the game. There are various ways of finding new ones, including making quests, gaining new contacts, negotiating with your business partners and even simply asking around or checking notice boards around the map for people looking for work (not necessarily legal). As you progress you also unlock the ability to put your employees to new types of tasks. Workers cost you money but do many things for you and let you handle the constantly growing operation much more easily and focus on being the boss you've always wanted to be.
So what does it mean for your game? Well, when you hire dealers they are gonna take over the “customer support” in a particular territory. You get them the goods, and they will sell it themselves. After they take their share of the money, the rest is yours for the taking.
There is also another type of worker – distributor. Distributors also take part in the sales but their job is to supply the dealers with products and collect the cash the dealers earn from their sales. Here your task is to make sure distributors have enough goods and, obviously, collect all the earnings from them.
So, we have the dealers who take care of the clients and we have the distributors who supply the dealers. But who is gonna supply the distributors? The answer is lab technicians. That is, sure, you can do all the production work yourself, no problem. But if you hire technicians for your established labs, they’re gonna let you make twice as many goods on your equipment and the production is gonna be much quicker.
Basically, the bigger the territory you wanna handle, and the more types of drugs you want to sell, the more employees you will need in your operation. As Rafal said, it’s gonna be impossible for you to handle everything alone, even if you bring two more friends into your game. More drugs mean more clients!
And here lies the major difference between DDS and DDS2 – in DDS you were a street-level dealer focused on maintaining relationships with your clients. In DDS2, you will start as one and evolve into a proper businessperson concerned with handling employees, planning out the operations and maintaining good standing with whole towns and territories.
But perhaps the most obvious change between the DDS games is in the visuals. So, for a nice closure, let’s compare a couple of situations from both games.
DDS1 vs. DDS2: Sunset
DDS1 vs. DDS2: NPC
DDS1 vs. DDS2: Street ambience
Are you excited to experience the changes yourself?
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1708850/Drug_Dealer_Simulator_2/
Without further ado, here’s Rafal:
From the start with DDS2 we wanted to up the game with the progression and evolution of the gameplay loop. We also wanted to show how Eddie and his friends rose to the ranks of cartel bosses and introduce a larger, more diverse world with the potential of expanding the operation to a large-scale cartel business. With that in mind, we also needed to make improvements that would allow the player (or players) to manage that.
The amount of territory and clients available on Isla Sombra can (and will be) overwhelming to handle on your own, especially alone, but also with friends. The game gives you a lot of flexibility in terms of scale, the number of sold and produced drugs and the size of your territory but there is still a lot to handle, especially if you want to experience and explore the game to the limits. So – when you start getting overwhelmed by the number of orders and tasks to handle – that's when the cartel employees come in.
You obtain many NPC employees as you progress through the game. There are various ways of finding new ones, including making quests, gaining new contacts, negotiating with your business partners and even simply asking around or checking notice boards around the map for people looking for work (not necessarily legal). As you progress you also unlock the ability to put your employees to new types of tasks. Workers cost you money but do many things for you and let you handle the constantly growing operation much more easily and focus on being the boss you've always wanted to be.
So what does it mean for your game? Well, when you hire dealers they are gonna take over the “customer support” in a particular territory. You get them the goods, and they will sell it themselves. After they take their share of the money, the rest is yours for the taking.
There is also another type of worker – distributor. Distributors also take part in the sales but their job is to supply the dealers with products and collect the cash the dealers earn from their sales. Here your task is to make sure distributors have enough goods and, obviously, collect all the earnings from them.
So, we have the dealers who take care of the clients and we have the distributors who supply the dealers. But who is gonna supply the distributors? The answer is lab technicians. That is, sure, you can do all the production work yourself, no problem. But if you hire technicians for your established labs, they’re gonna let you make twice as many goods on your equipment and the production is gonna be much quicker.
Basically, the bigger the territory you wanna handle, and the more types of drugs you want to sell, the more employees you will need in your operation. As Rafal said, it’s gonna be impossible for you to handle everything alone, even if you bring two more friends into your game. More drugs mean more clients!
And here lies the major difference between DDS and DDS2 – in DDS you were a street-level dealer focused on maintaining relationships with your clients. In DDS2, you will start as one and evolve into a proper businessperson concerned with handling employees, planning out the operations and maintaining good standing with whole towns and territories.
But perhaps the most obvious change between the DDS games is in the visuals. So, for a nice closure, let’s compare a couple of situations from both games.
DDS1 vs. DDS2: Sunset
DDS1 vs. DDS2: NPC
DDS1 vs. DDS2: Street ambience
Are you excited to experience the changes yourself?
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1708850/Drug_Dealer_Simulator_2/
