City Game Studio News

Hello everyone!

I'm happy to be back with you, as every week, for this devlog.

I must admit that this week has been more about intense reflection than anything else. I've been racking my brain trying to figure out how to properly integrate the studio director.

For example, how is the studio director supposed to choose a game's price? Because it depends on the game's size. So if the studio director makes a AAA-sized game, the price will need to be adjusted. Therefore, I had to think about these different cases. For the specific case of pricing, you'll be able to slide the price between "gaining more fans" or "generating more revenue." This way, the studio director will optimize the price according to your directives.

What about specialists?
Again, I had to make some challenging choices. Do we assign a specialist to a studio director, or do we let the studio director pick from available specialists? I preferred the second option. For example, when you want to make a AAA game, the studio director will take the first available producer, and if this producer has a specialty and you've set everything to automatic, then the studio director will choose the game genre that best matches the producer.

The idea is to make your life easier. But the choices offered must also make sense. So, for now, the studio director panel only displays game creation options. But it will need to display other information such as the revenue generated and what they've earned. A rating will be assigned to the studio director that will allow you to judge their skills. This rating will be based on previous games they've directed. You should therefore be able to consult the list of games they've directed.

In short, the studio director will take longer than expected to be fully functional, but I don't want to rush the feature and deliver something that only half works.

You'll need to be patient, I'm doing my best!
I received other interesting feedback about studio furnishing. Your ideas are good and will likely be added for v1.22.0, an update dedicated to studio furnishing!

Many of you use mods. Some mods improve City Game Studio's lifespan, but sometimes at the cost of poor balance. Also, to make your life easier, I thought about working on an algorithm that will automatically analyze mods and warn you if a mod impacts game balance. Well, that's a big piece, so I think I'll keep it for v1.23.0, but I think it will help everyone better understand the impacts of mods.
That's all for this week.

Thanks for reading
Take care
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]Studio director[/h3]

• First design of the panel to manage the studio director

[h3]Platforms[/h3]

• Set the Gamestation 4 to end in 2025

[h3]Bugfix[/h3]

• Fix rendering issue when assigning a studio director to a desk
  
• Cannot assign a studio director from the assign button
  
• When porting a remake to the digital store, it does not appear in the top selling games

Hello everyone!

This week has been much calmer than the last two, and I'm delighted about that. Even though I love seeing hundreds of players on City Game Studio, it still puts pressure on me. So having about thirty simultaneous players suits me better. Anyway, we're not here to talk about what I like, but rather about City Game Studio and its progress!

[h3]The Studio Director[/h3]
Last week, I told you that I had started implementing this feature even though I was still lacking ideas for bonuses for this type of character. And you suggested some interesting ideas. Thanks to you, I've opted for a "malus" instead. Let me explain: a studio director brings a lot to your company because they allow you to automate the game creation process. This is great for your company, but it takes away a bit of the charm from the beginning of the game when you're creating all your games yourself. So, instead of a bonus, there will be a malus. Basically, the studio director will take a share of the profits from the games they create. This can range from 5% to over 50%. So you need to pay close attention to these statistics, or you risk jeopardizing your company's financial stability.

Last week, I tackled recruitment and displaying studio directors' information, and starting next week, I'll be working on managing game creation by studio directors. In short, I'm going to create the interface with all the options, which will require quite a bit of work, especially since I think it will need to display a lot of data. All of this still needs to be defined, and if you have any ideas or interface sketches, don't hesitate to share them in the comments. I always read and consider your ideas!

[h3]Other Improvements[/h3]
There have been quite a few problems with the game's interface. As a result, I've revised how the game handles large fonts to make it look better, and the result is pretty good so far. When you have many consoles, sending devkits could cause some display issues, and that's been resolved too. There are many other small fixes present in the unstable branch on Steam, including one that improves performance when you upgrade your studios' computers.

Well, that's all for this week. I'm thrilled with how the studio director feature is shaping up; the next update promises to take City Game Studio to the next level!

Take care of yourselves.
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]Studio director[/h3]

• Can hire a studio director
  
• Can assign a studio director to a desk
  
• Can poach a studio director
  
• Can check the employee data from the studio itself

[h3]UI[/h3]

• Add a "Cancel" button to the logo editor
  
• Add shortcut to the game sales panel (min / max)
  
• Add shortcut to the custom platform sales panel (min / max)

[h3]Custom Platform[/h3]

• When making a sale, display the suggested retail price instead of the making costs

[h3]Optimization[/h3]

• Upgrading computer for a very large company takes at most 2 seconds (had to write garbage code to optimize that...)

[h3]Bugfix[/h3]

• Console devkit panel needs a scroll container
  
• Large font: Improve the game rendering, so every buttons fit in the screen
  
• In dev items: "9999.99K $" replaced with "-", meaning not yet initialized

Hello everyone!

It’s with great pleasure that I meet you once again, as I do every week, to talk about the upcoming major update for City Game Studio! But first, let’s take a quick look back at last week.

[h3]Promo Recap[/h3]
I promised you a surprise, and I hope you enjoyed the 50% discount! And because good things come in pairs, I also slipped in some additional content with version 1.20.0. Honestly, the update was very well received. Of course, there were a few hiccups, which led to some important fixes, making the game even more stable!

Thanks to the Steam Daily Deal, we had over 600 players simultaneously enjoying City Game Studio. That’s an incredible number I never thought we’d reach, and probably never will again! I want to thank you all for your support and for being part of this—it was an amazing moment for me!

[h3]Next Update[/h3]
Now, let’s talk about version 1.21. This update will introduce a bit of automation to City Game Studio. A new character will be added—the Studio Director. Their role will be to automate game creation. By assigning studios and specialists to them, they’ll be able to create games, and even handle updates.


However, keep in mind that Studio Directors won’t be perfect. They’ll try to make the best games possible, but they certainly won’t be as good as you! Studio Directors will be able to manage between 1 and 6 studios, allowing them to produce AAA games if they have access to producers.

When a Studio Director creates a game, you’ll still have the option to step in and cancel it, though they won’t be too happy about it.

I’m still thinking about what other bonuses Studio Directors might bring. To give you an idea, producers boost developers’ productivity, and accountants reduce taxes. But I haven’t quite decided what the Studio Directors’ bonus should be. So, if you have any ideas or suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments—I’ll be reading as always.

I do have one idea for a bonus, but I’m not entirely sold on it. The Director’s bonus could be their ability to manage specialists. Some directors might only handle one specialist, while others could manage up to 10, allowing them to oversee several producers, marketing managers, or accountants.

That’s all for this week.
I’ll see you again next week as usual.
Thanks for reading, and take care!
Xavier aka Binogure