City Game Studio News

Hey everyone!

I'm super excited to announce that City Game Studio will be on sale with a 30% discount during the Steam Spring Sale 2025!

It's the perfect time to jump into the adventure of (virtual) video game development. Start in 1976 with a small studio and build your empire all the way to 2000 and beyond!

Here's what awaits you:

• Develop hit games on iconic consoles
  
• Manage multiple studios across the city
  
• Hire (and keep happy) your developers
  
• Create your own game engines and even your own consoles
  
• Spy on your competitors or buy them out directly
  
• All with a new studio director feature that automates repetitive tasks

The big new feature in v1.21 is precisely this studio director! I'll be honest, I was a bit nervous when developing this feature. I thought: "If we automate game creation, there's nothing left to do, people will get bored." Well, it's completely the opposite! The studio director takes care of the repetitive stuff and leaves you with just the fun parts of managing your company.

At this price, it's the ideal time to discover the game and create your video game empire!

[h3]And that's not all![/h3]

v1.22 is coming soon with improved studio management! You'll be able to create studio templates and copy/paste them from one building to another. No more having to redo everything with each new studio!

I wish you a pleasant gaming session!
Xavier aka Binogure

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]

• Rework the studio selection panel:
  • Show dtudio availability
    
  • Replace texts by icons and add tooltips
    
  • Add a filter button to show only available studios
• Rework some icons of the game to look better

Hello everyone!

It's been an incredibly busy week for me! As you know, I'm working on City Game Studio and the next big update, but my other game, which is much smaller than City Game Studio, is in the middle of a Steam festival. And honestly, it's adding a considerable amount of work. The feedback is good, and I'll be able to improve Fortune Avenue thanks to it! If you want to check it out, it's here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2515100/Fortune_Avenue_Demo/?utm_source=CGS-announce

[h2]Weekly Recap[/h2]
I've received feedback about some unlikely situations regarding old games created in City Game Studio. Updating an old game significantly reduces sales. After investigation, I found the source of the problem. When you update a game, it gets "rejuvenated," but the update artificially "ages" the game. I did this to balance the game, since an old game receiving an update won't have as much impact as a newer game receiving the same update. In short, my algorithm didn't account for games that remained on sale after more than 10 updates. So, I revised my approach and made sure that even old games receive a bonus when updated. This little bug was somewhat annoying to investigate, but I think it was worth it.

This week I finally had time to work on tooltips. AT LAST! Now when you start a new game, it won't constantly spam you that the difficulty is too high, but will display a popup that will disappear when you close it. But to avoid "forgetting" that the game is too difficult, it will show a popup that doesn't cover the screen while still being visible.

I've also added a command to cheat by changing your employees' happiness. It's super practical and was really missing when playing in sandbox mode.

I wanted to work on the studio selection screen, but I haven't had time yet. I hope to finish it before the release of v1.22, but I'm not sure.

[h2]What's Next[/h2]
Well, next will be a direct redesign of the studio selection panel. But it's going to be a big piece of work - the more I break it down, the bigger it gets. So I'm looking at things that are a bit "simpler" to do, to give you new content each week. But I think I'll work on the problem of the number of units sold for online games exceeding the number of units sold for consoles. This is due to the display mixing subscriptions and sales. So if a player plays the game for 6 months, it counts as 6 sales instead of just one.

This bug has been around for a very long time, but I haven't fixed it yet because it's rather difficult to correct.

Otherwise, I've seen your feedback from the last post, thanks for that. And since I'm already planning to work on a sequel, know that it's in my specifications for CGS 2 (I haven't set the name of the sequel yet).

Well, if you also have feedback, go ahead and share your opinion in the comments because it will influence the upcoming updates to City Game Studio!

Thank you for reading.

Have a great day,
Xavier aka Binogure

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]Balancing[/h3]

• Publishing updates for old games leads to a decrease in sales (fix).

[h3]Mod maker[/h3]

• Add games to the concurrent games and update the mod-maker

[h3]Cheat code[/h3]

• Add cheatcode to set Staff happiness
  
• Fix an issue with setting staff stats not triggering the cheat detection

[h3]UI[/h3]

• Rework the too hard difficulty popup when creating a new game.
  
• Tooltips from the new game settings won't show more than once if you hide them

Hello everyone!

I'm happy with City Game Studio's progress, and I've especially taken some time to work on the game's interface based on your feedback!

[h3]Weekly Recap[/h3]
In case you missed it, City Game Studio is now part of a Fanatical bundle. This is great news as it allows you to grab a Steam license at a great price. That's for the wallet-friendly news. Now, let me tell you about the latest changes in Steam's unstable branch.

First, I want to talk about the Mandarin translations. Like most of City Game Studio's translations, they're community-driven - meaning they come from you. If you want to know how to help or contribute, you can head directly to this page. It's a platform that both hosts files and manages suggestions, and I use it for both purposes.

Recently, I've received quite a bit of feedback from Chinese players about the quality of Mandarin translations. So, I reviewed the contributions made on the site and also checked out existing mods that improve translations. With a professional review on top of that, I've managed to achieve a much higher quality Mandarin version. I hope this will please the players concerned.

There are other changes too. Some small but significant improvements include optimizing text rendering in the game by 40%. This doesn't mean the game will run 40% faster, but rather that certain texts will use 40% fewer resources to display.

Then I focused on your suggestions. The most common one was about filtering the games list when browsing your catalog, making a remake, or porting a game. So, I listened to you and added two new filters. The first one is about game type - whether it's a remake or another type of game. This is super handy when you're trying to list only the games you've published with a publisher's help.

The second filter is a text field that lets you filter games by name. Super useful. I've also slightly revised the studio list to make them a bit larger and to display inactive studios first in the list.

[h3]What's Next[/h3]
Last week I was supposed to work on tooltips, but I got sidetracked and chose to work on the game interface instead. So, next week I plan to work on the tooltips to make them less intrusive.

And if I have time, I'd like to revamp the studio selection panel. I want to completely rebuild it. It needs to be more ergonomic and modular. Currently, this panel feels a bit out of place with the rest of the game. So if it's not done for v1.22, I'll make it a priority for v1.23, don't worry.

Well, if you also have feedback, go ahead and share your thoughts in the comments because it will influence future updates of City Game Studio!

Thank you for reading.

Have a great day,
Xavier aka Binogure

[h3]What I'm Working On[/h3]
For those who made it this far, I'm excited to share that I'm also working on my next game: Fortune Avenue! It's a party game with online co-op support for up to 4 players. Think of it as a fresh take on Monopoly-style gameplay, but with its own unique twists and features.

You can try it out right now - there's a completely free demo available:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1810050/Fortune_Avenue/