City Game Studio News

Hey everyone!

Thanks for all your suggestions and ideas - they're really solid! I'm keeping them for the next major update and also for the City Game Studio sequel, when they're too big to fit into the original. I'm going to be a bit tied up with personal appointments, which means I won't be able to push out many updates over the next couple of weeks. Don't worry though, this has all been planned for ages - you could say I'm hiring a new developer of sorts since I'm expecting a new baby, and I plan to put them to work as soon as possible, obviously!

[h3]This Week's Recap[/h3]
I've spent quite a bit of time fixing bugs and improving the user experience. What I mean is that the email inbox is more stable and also more intuitive to use. Some of you pointed out that when you delete all emails, the inbox should close as well. You're absolutely right, so that's what I've added! Thanks for the suggestion.

I've also reworked how music plays in the game. From now on, only one track will play at a time. However, there might be moments when there's no music at all. This usually lasts between 5 and 10 seconds, giving your ears a little break.

I've also added a graphics option. It's now possible to go borderless fullscreen and borderless windowed. It's not a huge deal, but many of you asked for it, so there you go!

[h3]What's Next[/h3]
As I mentioned at the start, I'm going to be busy in the coming days and weeks. So I'm taking a little break to manage everything as best I can.

That said, the v1.24.0 update is already packed with numerous changes that transform City Game Studio by adding a whole new level of depth with competitors! Many of you have tested the unstable branch on Steam, and naturally I've had quite a few things to fix and balance. But everything should be good to go now. Especially since this update brings a brand new way to beat the game in CEO mode!

Anyway, I'll keep trying to improve City Game Studio in the coming days, but I won't lie to you - it's going to be tough!

Thanks for reading,
Have an excellent end to your week
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]Bug[/h3]

• 2 musics can play at the same time
  
• When firing/hiring an employee, it doesn't refresh the staff panel correctly

[h3]Notification[/h3]

• When deleting all emails it should close the mailbox
  
• When having an action to do, you can select more than one actions that could lead to a crash
  
• Improve the e-mail user experience

[h3]UI[/h3]

• New option: Fullscreen borderless
  
• New option: Windowed borderless

Hello everyone!

Thank you all for playing City Game Studio in ever-growing numbers! It warms my heart to see all of you out there playing a game I've been working on for years now!

Your feedback is invaluable, and it's thanks to you that City Game Studio is what it is today!

[h3]Weekly Recap[/h3]
I've been busy as a bee, and I mean really busy. But let me start with the most important thing - the competitors. They were still way too overpowered. Actually, just like in real life, when a company started snowballing, its value would grow exponentially. Yeah, I might have pushed that mechanic a bit too far. Don't worry though, I've put a cap on them. This way they can't become as rich as Musk anymore!

Now for the improvements. The studio director has had a few small tweaks. First off, you can now rename games that are currently in development. Which means you can rename the studio directors' games. Now that's pretty neat!

Next, you can tell studio directors to update their games, or all the company's games, or obviously none at all. I find this super handy, and it means you don't have to worry about doing updates anymore, right?

One last thing about studio directors. I had to put in a limitation. You can't hire more than 16 studio directors anymore. The reason is simple - it's to prevent you from getting bored with the game. This limitation is also there to force you to pick good studio directors. The ones who can manage more than 4 different studios. So if I do the math, you'll be able to publish 16 AAA games simultaneously, and if you have the best studio directors, that's 80 studios, which is about 8,000 employees. You can push it up to 16,000 employees by placing furniture correctly, but that's clearly going to make the game sluggish. So I wouldn't recommend it.

Apart from that, I've slightly tweaked the in-game notifications. Actually, the in-game email management panel. There were a few bugs that are now fixed. Not to mention a small instability that could lead to a crash.

[h3]What's Next[/h3]
While working on the interface, I realized something that should have been done ages ago. On the right panel, when a game is published, you see several curves. Including a curve for marketing expenses. This curve is pretty expensive to display. From now on, this curve will only be displayed if there's something to show. Thus saving computation time for other things.

I also spotted a small bug in the competitor value display. So I'll be working on that during the coming week.

Yes, these are just small fixes and minor improvements. The reason is simple - we're getting close to September 17th, and I want this new version to be as stable as possible!

There you have it. I won't say more, but if I'm spending a bit less time on City Game Studio 1, I've got to spend it somewhere else ;-)

Thanks for reading,
Take care and have a great weekend
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]Competitors[/h3]

• Re-balance competitors (too powerful)

[h3]Notification (emails)[/h3]

• Add tooltip to the delete/spam buttons
  
• Improve it's behavior (removing / restoring /spam / uspam an email works)
  
• When clicking on a message on the upper left corner, it now opens the right email

[h3]Studio director[/h3]

• Add the ability to rename games made by studio directors
  
• Limit the number of studio director to hire to 16.
  
• Can update all existings games or only their own games or no update at all.

[h3]Staff[/h3]

• Fix the recruit panel (when recruiting / firing employees)

[h3]Platforms[/h3]

• Add end of life for the Grantendo Swap (circa 2028)

Hello everyone!

Another week has just wrapped up. Already. I've read your feedback regarding the price increase. I'd been mulling it over for years, and you helped me take the plunge. Thank you. For the past few days now, the game has been priced at €19.90 instead of the previous €15.90. That's a 25% increase from the original price that dated back to 2019, during City Game Studio's early access launch!

I have to admit that with this new price, I'm putting a bit more pressure on myself to make sure you're even more satisfied, so I've been reading your feedback—as usual, really—and I've pivoted from what I was supposed to be doing... always the same story.

[h3]This Week's Recap[/h3]
Competitors were making way too much money—this has been fixed in the latest patch, but some saves were broken because of it. I've made a correction to help those who have overpowered competitors get them back in line. This will also prevent any competitor from becoming too powerful.

I've also added a migration for all old save files to let you see the revenue generated by your game engines. A dedicated page in the financial dashboard has been created for them—this was something you asked for, and now it's done.

Another important addition was a filter for published games on the right side, so you can show only the games you've made or only the games the studio director has made. I think this new filter will make you happy.

But I've also optimized the game just a tiny bit. When you have many games in development, City Game Studio can end up slowing down. So I've worked on that—let me know how it goes, because I think it should run much better now.

[h3]What's Next[/h3]
I know I was supposed to work on Game of the Year features. And I think I will, but maybe not for the September update. I'm thinking of completely rethinking City Game Studio's award system to create something more complex and deep that should work better for everyone.

I'm not sure yet what that will look like, but I'm already working on it. I think Game of the Year should have its own dedicated page, so I'm still figuring out how to integrate it into the menus. I'd love for you to be able to view past Games of the Year, and maybe add awards for games with perfect graphics that managed to push a console beyond expectations. These are the reasons I'm postponing the Game of the Year update to include it in something bigger.

Beyond that, I still need to work on studio directors so you can rename the games they produce, or ask them to only do updates. Once these two features are ready, I think v1.24 will be complete, and I'll just need to add even more stuff to it—as usual.

I'm also preparing for City Game Studio 2, which will include everything from City Game Studio 1 while adding some nice little extras. But I'm not there yet. I've got one game to finish and another to release first!

Thank you for reading, have an excellent weekend
Take care of yourselves
Xavier aka Binogure