City Game Studio News

Hey everyone!

Thanks for being here in such great numbers, and even more of you each week! I won't hide it from you, I'm swamped with work so let's jump straight into it

[h3]This Week's Recap[/h3]
I've been hard at work, and I've made solid progress. I had time to rebuild the selection and announcement interface for the Game of the Year awards. The old panels were already a few years old and it showed. These new ones fit better with the rest of the game and the information is better presented and organized.

When you select a game to become Game of the Year, its chances of winning the award are clearly displayed in large text on the right. And all the information that influences this score is shown. There's the game's rating, but also its theme and size. So you know that these three parameters influence its chances of winning the trophy.

Since I started looking at the studio director, I noticed an oversight that resulted in a pretty annoying bug. Basically, the studio director never uses the game engine at full capacity. Now in the lower difficulty levels this doesn't cause too much of a problem, but in the other difficulties it results in poor quality games. Good thing I caught it. Honestly it wasn't obvious and I spent several days on it but now it works like a charm!

[h3]What's Next[/h3]
This week I plan to keep working on the Game of the Year awards by redesigning the panel that lists the Game of the Year winners. If you don't know which panel I'm talking about, that's normal, this panel doesn't exist yet. So it'll be brand new and it'll replace the one that lets you create a Game of the Year entry. Everything will be completely redone. I already have the mockups right in front of me, it's going to be gorgeous, I just need to implement it!

I still need to add trophies to place in studios as well as improve studio directors so they can make game ports!

So yeah, I've got several more weeks of work just for that, and I can't wait to deliver this v1.25 which is going to be incredible as always I hope!

Until then, take care of yourselves
Xavier aka Binogure

[p][/p]

[p]Default version of the game, we want to make sure to have a chance to discover bugs and adjust the balancing, to give you the best game experience possible.

Access the Unstable branch on Steam by right clicking City Game Studio in your Steam library, and then select ‘Properties’. In the new window, select ‘Betas’. The Unstable branch should now be available for you to choose from.

Please leave any feedback you may have in the appropriate channel in our Discord, or in the subforum on Steam.

As always, remember to be considerate towards players not partaking in the Unstable, in case they want to avoid spoilers.

Please make sure to make backups of your save files before playing.[/p]

[h2]Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Game of the Year[/h3]

• Reworked the game selection panel
  
• Reworked the award-winning game panel

[h3]Bugfix[/h3]

• Fixed missing translations when unlocking secret achievements
  
• Fixed studio director randomly selecting game features, which led to poor scores and strange behavior

Hey everyone!

It's a real pleasure to catch up with you again this week! I've been writing to you like this every week for quite a few years now, and I think this will keep going for a few more years! Anyway, let me tell you about the progress on City Game Studio 1, v1.25.0, let's dive in!

[h3]This Week's Recap[/h3]
I've overhauled the right-hand menu by adding tooltips where they were needed. When an element is grayed out, a tooltip will now explain why it's grayed out. You can put away your crystal ball, now you'll know what's going on.

I've also added information to the console sales panel. It's always important to know what manufacturing discount you're entitled to when producing your console. Well, there you have it, it's done! There's a nice progress bar now, and I think it looks really good.

I've also revisited the filters to make them more useful. Now when you search for games that are losing you fans, you only get those games, not all your games. By the way, while adding these features, I noticed a little bug that had been lurking around for a few years. Basically, when you filtered games by profit, the filter wasn't applying correctly. Well, it's fixed now and works properly.

Oh, I've added a small note when a game reaches end of life, a little note that explains the conditions for a game to be pulled from the market and confirms that the game has indeed been removed from the market.

[h3]What's Next[/h3]
Next week I'm tackling the big part of v1.25.0. That is, revamping the Game of the Year awards. I want to redesign the panels, the interactions, and I want the game to clearly show you what's happening. I've already started making mock-ups of the upcoming panels, and I'd rather not show anything for now, since everything should be available in just about a week!

As for the physical rewards when you win a Game of the Year award, that'll come the week after. And then we'll see, but I think I'll be working on the studio director again to give them even more power!

But I'll also have quite a few things to do, because it's currently impossible to view the Game of the Year hall of fame by year. I think a menu like that should appear. With a summary along the lines of:
"Lethal Space won Game of the Year in 1994, and the GOTY version was published in 1996, raking in a neat profit of $140 million."

The devil is in the details, and you know how much I love details!
That's all for this week, thank you for your time

Take care of yourselves
Xavier aka Binogure

[p][/p]

[p]Default version of the game, we want to make sure to have a chance to discover bugs and adjust the balancing, to give you the best game experience possible.

Access the Unstable branch on Steam by right clicking City Game Studio in your Steam library, and then select ‘Properties’. In the new window, select ‘Betas’. The Unstable branch should now be available for you to choose from.

Please leave any feedback you may have in the appropriate channel in our Discord, or in the subforum on Steam.

As always, remember to be considerate towards players not partaking in the Unstable, in case they want to avoid spoilers.

Please make sure to make backups of your save files before playing.[/p]

[h2]Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Interface[/h3]

• Reworked filters in the released games panel for better filtering and sorting
  
• Added cost reduction information to custom platforms
  
• Added tooltips to greyed-out options in the right panel

[h3]Misc[/h3]

• When a game is pulled from the market, added clear messaging explaining why it was removed

[h3]Bugfix[/h3]

• Fixed sorting by profit in the released games panel

Hey everyone!

What a week it's been - super busy, but as promised I've already rolled out the next release candidate for v1.25.0. It brings some small but important changes.

[h3]This Week's Recap[/h3]
You love having massive studios packed to the brim with desks! So much so that when you kick off development on a new game, boom - it slows down big time. To tackle this issue I've been working on it and put together a small fix, nothing too fancy, but still. Instead of creating particles for every single employee, when a studio is packed to the brim, roughly half the employees will generate particles. So instead of running at 20 FPS you're looking at closer to 60 FPS. It's not super stable though. The best way to fix this issue is still to set graphics to minimum.

I've also been working on the interface. I promised you this, so I've worked on the published games panel. Not only is it bigger, but I've also removed unnecessary graphics and made the display more compact so you can show multiple games on the same screen. I've still got loads of changes to make, but I know these tiny tweaks are important and already make your life easier.

[h3]What's Coming Up[/h3]
Next week I'm planning to keep working on the right panel. I want to make it sexier. And I'm also going to start working on the game of the year feature. That one I want to make sexier too.

I'm still on the fence about this, but what do you think about earning a piece of furniture - a trophy actually - to place in your studio that won't have any special effect, other than showing you won game of the year? Could be pretty cool, especially since some of you might create a trophy room.

Anyway, thanks for reading.
Have a great weekend!
Xavier aka Binogure