City Game Studio News

Hello all!

After two weeks' absence, it's about time for another article!
Everyone's been really pleased with the EMPOWER UPDATE.
All the feedback has been super positive and it's given me the strength to go even further!

Speaking of going further, over the past few weeks I've been working on v1.20.0, and the game's interface is changing.
What I mean by this is studio, company and convention management.

For example, you can withdraw all employees from a studio with a simple button. This is super handy when you want to move a studio without selling it. Speaking of studios, instead of having to open panels that pause the game, you're going to be able to access your studio's statistics directly from the studio view, so you don't have to pause the game.

Renaming a university meant going to the studios, then selecting the building to rename. Which was a bit confusing. From now on, the training management panel can also be used to rename universities. It's all in one place, which makes life easier. And it's the same for conventions.

This is a major overhaul I'm working on to give you an even better gaming experience.
But this isn't the main feature of the new update.

I have just begun to overhaul the game-over panel. To put it bluntly, when you lose a game, the mortgage panel appears, or the game-over panel directly, with no explanation. It's very brutal and leads to frustration! That's why I'm in the process of adding a step when it comes to spending money, so that a financial advisor can take over and offer you alternatives and advice.

I haven't designated this part yet, so I still have a lot of work to do before I can share it with you!
That's all for this week, see you next week.

In the meantime, take care.
Xavier aka Binogure




Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

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.

[h2]Changelog[/h2]
[h3]UI[/h3]

• Remove the studio management panel
  
• Rework the bottom menu

[h3]QoL[/h3]

• Can withdraw staff from a studio (single button)
  
• Can withdraw staff from the company (single button)
  
• Can rename a convention center from the convention panel
  
• Can rename a university from the training panel
  
• Can edit the company from the financial tab

[h3]Bugfix[/h3]

• Marketing research panel: Icons are poorly rendered

Hello everyone!

THE EMPOWER UPDATE was released a few days ago, and I've already noticed a few bugs in the new version.

In particular, I've reworked the Twitch integration, and getting viewers to name the games works on the first try. I also spent some time adding Twitch integration for naming buildings you build, conventions and DLC.

On top of these changes, I've added a new difficulty that's identical to the hardest one, except that the percentage of gauges is displayed when you create games. You asked for it, so I'm adding it, and I hope you like it!

Last two fixes, the first is a semantic problem. The word "employee" has been replaced by "developer" in the requirements for creating large games. And the second relates to free updates: if the name of the game was too long, then it would nullify the name of the studio.

Well, it's a relief to have been able to fix all these bugs, and I certainly hope it will improve your gaming experience!
Until then, I'll see you for the next devlog.
Take care.
Xavier aka Binogure

[h3]Upcoming game[/h3]
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1810050/Fortune_Avenue/

Hello folks!

It's finally summer, and so is the EMPOWER UPDATE!
Sit back and make yourself comfortable, because there are a lot of changes in this version!

We're starting with the little changes that make you happy. New logos for your companies, designed to make you want to use them. The tooltips have also been redesigned, meaning you can now deactivate the tutorial from a tooltip (I can't believe I didn't do that before).

Here's a little situation. You've been playing for two hours, the game is running smoothly, the last save was just a few minutes ago, and now boom you've created a new game by mistake. You want to go back, but you can't. Instead, you can quit the game by choosing to save or not. Now, it's a simple menu button to quit the game. I really should have thought of that before.

Anyway, let's get down to the nitty-gritty of the update: Twitch integration. After looking at what other management games have done with Twitch integration, I've come to the conclusion that it should be very simple to connect to your Twitch account. So, from the options panel, all you have to do is enter your username, click on a link, and paste the token into the game to connect City Game Studio to your Twitch account. Easy peasy. Your viewers can become your employees. They can become producers, developers, accountants - the choice is theirs. And you're free to hire or fire them. Once you've hired a viewer, he or she can display an emoji on his or her head with a simple command. Once you've hired a viewer, they'll be able to display an emoji on their head with a simple command. Plus, you'll be able to create polls asking your viewers to suggest names for games, studios, companies, buildings, consoles - in fact, just about anything that can be named in City Game Studio. I'm planning to add more features to this Twitch integration, but I'm waiting for your feedback to see what you think.

Steamdeck users have asked me to add an option to make the game's font larger, so it's in the options panel. In terms of interface, there are lots of little changes that make the game nicer. And above all, I have cleaned up the code that manages the interface, making it a little more efficient.

Did I mention the store? Because it's undergone a few changes. You can now furnish your studios as if you had no respect for your employees. Put in as many desks as the studio can fit. Well, your employees aren't going to be happy about this kind of feature, so I've added the ability to cheat by setting employees' happiness levels. Yes, it's cheating, but it's not mandatory and it's up to you to decide whether or not to activate it. Back to the store, I've also redesigned its interface to make it a little more pleasing to the eye. And personally, I find it much prettier.

Among the game's minor changes are the addition of the Ukrainian language, and the ability to press the "Enter" key on the keyboard for the DDoS mini-game. Two new components have been added when you create your console: new hard disks. And you can now erase the technical debt of your game engines, thus cancelling any malus associated with updating them.

For dessert, a few patches ( they're quite numerous.). Income from consoles you create is now calculated correctly. DLCs are now displayed in the financial table. Canceling the release of a console now cancels games that are supposed to be released on that console. Recruits were not being generated correctly, sometimes leading to strange bugs. Duplicating your savegame renames the company. The number of units sold on your consoles was miscalculated. I'll stop here, because there are more than 20 fixes in this update, and if you want to know everything, the best thing to do is start a new game that won't last too long, just say 5 or 6 hours to reach the year 2000!

I'd like to thank more and more of you for following City Game Studio's development, and keep on following the game, because the next update will contain a special treat. That's all I'll tell you!

Until then, take care.
Xavier aka Binogure

P.S:
For those who made it this far, I've started work on my next game, a revisited Monopoly with a voting system, a helicopter, a Wheel of Fortune and lots of other little things.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1810050/Fortune_Avenue/

[h3]Feature[/h3]

• Automatic furnishing to generate denser studios at the expense of happiness
  
• Automatic furnishing can generate studios with many more desks than before. To a point where only desks fit in the studio. To the detriment of happiness, as always.

[h3]Twitch[/h3]

• Connect to a Twitch channel
  
• Disconnect from a Twitch channel
  
• Viewers can type !help in the chatroom to get informations about how to interact with City Game Studio
  
• Viewers can become producer, artist, tester, developper, accountant, marketing manager, networking manager or HR
  
• Viewers can help naming games
  
• Viewers can help naming engines
  
• Viewers can help naming remasters
  
• Viewers can help naming convention centers
  
• Viewers can help naming universities
  
• Viewers can help naming consoles
  
• Viewers can help naming the digital store
  
• Viewers can help naming the company
  
• Viewers can help naming the CEO
  
• Add option to set the polling time (default 60 secs, 10, 15, 30, 60, 120, 300)
  
• Add tooltip to twitch button
  
• You cannot rename a viewer
  
• Viewers can show emoji hover their head (heart or tears)

[h3]Misc[/h3]

• Add 14 new logos for your company
  
• Add borderless window option (only by adding `borderless_window=true` to the `configuration.cfg.local` file)
  
• Add a button to the exit menu to go back to the main menu without saving
  
• Add a button to the exit menu to quit without saving
  
• Game engine: Add a rewrite button to deal with legacy code. So you don't have to create a new engine.
  
• Update the difficulty selection panel regading new difficulty options.
  
• Add cheat code to change employee happiness
  
• Clean-up the generic panel to use less memory/CPU
  
• Bigger item from the store

[h3]UI[/h3]

• Add an option to get larger fonts
  
• Add "Do not show again" from the tooltip
  
• Rework the animated toggle to use custom icons (ON / OFF)

[h3]Custom platforms[/h3]

• Add a new NVMe drive for handheld platforms
  
• Add a new NVMe drive for home platforms

[h3]Mod maker[/h3]

• Add a new parameter for the game engine creation
  
• Mod maker button is greyed out when first opening the mod menu panel

[h3]i18n[/h3]

• Improve CS translations (Thanks to MasterStudioCZ)
  
• Add UK translations (Thanks to TheCyberAngel)

[h3]Optimization[/h3]

• Creating games with a lot of employees, over 1000 makes the game feels laggy

[h3]Minigame[/h3]

• DDos protection: Can press enter or space to simulate a click (first click on the button you want to press)

[h3]Bugfix[/h3]

• When unlocking a game engine feature it always says it's a design feature
  
• Logos on the city might be too big
  
• Logos in the studio can be cut if they are imported
  
• Demolish a building (convention center or university) doesn't reset its land price
  
• Universities and convention centre ain't taken into account to the company value
  
• When gaining/losing fanbases via events (from vanilla or mods), you won't be able to make the game imba anymore.
  
• When renaming a convention, attendance changes
  
• Fix a bug with custom-platforms and genre overview (not impacting the gameplay)
  
• Recruits were not generated correctly
  
• Custom platform: might returns more unit than it sells.
  
• Custom platform: there's a bug in total unit sold
  
• Duplicating a save slot rename your company by adding +1
  
• Twitch viewers ain't sync to their specialties
  
• Animated toggle button: Can make the game unplayable
  
• Financial tab: DLCs tab is blank
  
• Staff: When hiring, firing, unassigning an employee the list is put backward
  
• Game engine: Not getting royalties
  
• Custom console: release date is off by 1 month
  
• Financial panel: when making a mortgage, doesn't show up on the financial panel
  
• Custom platform: Platform profits are mis-computed. If you make 3 consoles making 50 $ each, then you're going to make 50 + (50 + 50) + (50 + 50 + 50)
  
• Studio employee count: Due to the twitch integration. In fact an employee can get assigned to the same desk more than once because you can hire the same employee more than once. To fix it, unassign all your employees, and assign
  
• Canceling a custom platform doesn't cancel the attached games (add migrations)

Hello folks!

It's almost summer and along with it your vacations! Oh yes, I'm not planning a vacation! I've got way too much to do, and I've got to keep up the pace!
Especially as it's City Game Studio's birthday this summer, so we'll have to work hard to come up with another quality update!

Anyway, this week I've been working on a lot of little things, including adding cheat code and redesigning the store to make it more visually appealing.
I've also taken the time to optimize the game's panels, so that they load faster, and I've improved the tooltips to make it easier to understand what's going on!

In short, if you try Steam's unstable branch, you're in for a real change of scene!

I haven't yet had time to rework the game-over. By that I mean the game's behavior. I've read your comments and they're excellent. My favorite remains the release of a game that's almost ready to give the player a chance. Otherwise, I think I'll give you a choice. Let's put it this way:

The company's finances are in dire straits. The bank refuses to lend us money because we're no longer bankable.
Well, I've got several options for you, although I know you're not going to like them:
- A competitor offers you $150,000,000 to buy your console. It stays on the market, but no longer belongs to you.
- Investors are interested in your digital store, and offer to buy it back for $500,000,000, but you will no longer be allowed to operate a dematerialized store.
- Grantendo is very interested in your game engine, and offers you $50,000,000. If you accept, the engine will become private and will no longer belong to you. The games you've published using this engine will remain yours.

So, I think that offering this kind of choice to players will give them a second chance, while making them pay a relatively high price.
If you have any other ideas in this vein, post them in the comments, I'll read you and take the best promises!

In the meantime, take care of yourselves!
Xavier aka Binogure