City Game Studio News

Hello everyone!

I hope you're all doing well. Over here, I'm feeling pretty under the weather, but that hasn't stopped me from being productive!
This week, I fixed a few bugs—nothing major, but they were definitely affecting the gameplay experience.

The first issue was with studio furniture. All furniture was showing a 110% happiness boost, which was, of course, just a visual bug. I've already fixed it in the unstable branch on Steam. The second bug was related to conventions, which weren't refreshing properly and kept showing only one small stand.

That covers the bug fixes, but I've also added a few new features! I’ve updated the main game interface, and now you’ll find submenus within the main menu. For instance, the button to create games now opens a submenu displaying all actions available in the game creation panel. This means you can go directly to the game port panel from the pop-up. I tested it out—it's a bit unfamiliar at first, but it works well, and you get used to it quickly!

Thanks to this new panel, I was also able to remove a button from the bottom menu, making navigation in City Game Studio even smoother.

And now, I have a surprise for you! Version 1.20.0 will be live on September 25, 2024!
As with every update, there will be a discount. And this time, it’s the biggest one yet—50% off!

So if you’re still on the fence, hang tight and get your wallets ready for September 25, 2024!

On my end, I’ll keep testing the game to fix as many bugs as possible.
Catch you next week! In the meantime, 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]Bugfix[/h3]

• Items informations are not updated correctly on the shop menu
  
• Attended conventions aren't well initialized

[h3]UI[/h3]

• Rework the bottom menu so when you click on any button it opens a popup menu that helps you find your stuff
  
• Remove the "Build a studio button" and merge it with the "Buy a studio"

Hello everyone!

Well, it’s been a crazy busy week. I’m currently preparing the marketing side of v1.20, and it’s taking quite a bit of my time—time that I’m not spending on actual game development. But, we’re getting closer to the update release, so most of my time is now dedicated to testing and reviewing bug reports.

And you’ve found a lot of different bugs for me, though they all seem to stem from the same issue. When I introduced pagination for published games, I also introduced a bunch of bugs that prevented updates from being published or even sales from being organized. Fortunately, those bugs are now fixed, and I also took the opportunity to address a small but very visual bug—those bouncing dice that just fly off the screen.

Another fun addition is a new competitor: "Running with a Fork" has been added to the game. The logo is a bit more polished compared to other competitors, but it’s a little nod to the studio behind the excellent Postal 2! I should warn you though, Postal 2 is a great game, but a little violent and quite over the top.

In the last devlog, I mentioned City Game Studio 2, and I have to admit that now that I’ve talked about it, I’m really eager to start working on it. But before that, there are a couple of things I still need to wrap up in City Game Studio 1.

This week, I’ll be focusing on adding sub-menus when you click on the buttons at the bottom of the screen. So, instead of opening big pop-ups that take time to load when you’re searching for something, you’ll get a smaller menu offering different tabs via icons. It doesn’t sound like much, but trust me, it should make your life easier.

To close this devlog, I want to give you a peek at the next big update—v1.21.0. I want to make things easier by introducing a new employee role: the Studio Director. This person will have a unique role, automating certain tasks. The Studio Director will need to be assigned to a studio, and only that director can manage the studio. When you release a game, you can instruct the director to automatically put the game out as soon as possible, so you won’t have to worry about it. The idea isn’t mine, once again, it came from you, and it’s a brilliant suggestion that should be coming with v1.21.0.

Thanks for reading! I’ll see you next week for the final devlog of v1.20.0.

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]Bugfix[/h3]

• Fix bug with the new release panel
  
• Fix the bouncing button (the dice that bounce when you click on it)

[h3]Competitor[/h3]

• Add "Running With a Fork" company

Hello folks!

As always, welcome to my weekly devlog here on Steam!
Every devlog I share with you the progress of the project, but this time I'm going one step further.

Moving on to the banker, from now on a new banker appears from the 90s onwards. Although she's a banker, I wanted to add a little more diversity to the City Game Studio characters. However, it's only a visual difference, since the offers you receive remain the same. Just like the change in the look of the magazines that rate your games, this change underlines the progression over time.

Another thing I've reworked is the part about buying out competitors. As the dialog box was a bit dull, I added your logos to brighten things up. I also changed the number of fans you get when you buy a competitor. Previously, the number of fans depended solely on the difficulty of the game, with a bit of randomness.
I've changed all that to a new calculation that's no longer random. Instead, your company's rating serves as a ratio of the number of fans you're going to collect. This number is now included when you buy out a competitor. I guess it's time to close this part of the game and move on to the next part.

So, as I said at the very beginning of this devlog, I'm also going to tell you what's going to happen to City Game Studio.
First of all, I plan to continue developing City Game Studio, i.e. adding competitors, events, fixing bugs and reviewing certain aspects of the game.
However, I feel that the game is now in a state that I really like and it has become; the game I had in mind when I started working on it in 2016! For this reason, City Game Studio won't be seeing any major new additions. I'm going to add new consoles, new conferences, new events, but I'm not going to completely overhaul game creation, for example. Doing so would significantly change the spirit of the game.

Yet I do want to change it and have a completely different approach, something much more modular that would give you more freedom, and above all make the game experience much more smooth. These new ideas are the ones you regularly suggest to me, but also the ones that come up when I'm working on City Game Studio. They're all excellent ideas, and deserve to be part of a video game company management game. Actually, I'm not talking about City Game Studio, but rather the sequel, which could be called City Game Studio 2! I'm not developing the sequel yet, but I'm preparing it. In other words, I'm just starting to write a document that will take up the whole game. I'm not about to show you anything, I'm still working on City Game Studio, and there's a huge milestone coming up in the next few weeks!

Later in September 2024, the game will be promoted by Steam, with a huge discount, the biggest yet.
I have high expectations for this event. If you want, you can also help out by sharing your feedback about the game on Steam. Whether it's positive or not, I know that your opinion counts and that other gamers, and I myself, will read it carefully. Recently, Steam has revised its algorithm for highlighting reviews, and the most relevant reviews will have a greater impact on game visibility.

That's it for me.
Thanks for reading!
Take care!
Xavier aka Binogure