GDM Update 7 "Feature Rich"

Important Note to play this current version you will need to delete all current files and download the new gdm_v7.7z file extract then run gdm.exe.  Due to massive changes I would highly recommend you create a new save but this should run with older versions save files but results may be wild and unexpected.  A new save would be best.

Balance

Huge shout out and thank you to @gaminginformed for there deep play through, and I mean like 18 years deep.  There generated data really shed some light on some issues with my scaling sales by years, as well as adding fan sales his games were out of control.  I never intended you to make more than the size of a 32 bit integer (approx 2.1 billion) in one games sales.

So I have completely rewritten the sales algorithm.  It is still making use of years to fluctuate sales to simulate the growth of gaming as there is a larger pool of potential buyers each year.  However these affects are now soft caped based on game size.  Your fan sales also have soft caps placed on them as well.

The new algorithm will have small games of decent quality bringing in anywhere from 100-500k pending year / quality and medium games bringing in from 500k - 2mil.  These numbers should align more with my vision for the growth of your company, as well as encourage you to move onto Large games and then AAA.

I have thoroughly play tested and beat the current content with the new balance but of course I am open to feedback let me know if you find it to hard or to easy or have I hit that Goldy lox zone perhaps :)

Char Creation

I have added some more detail to the char creation.  You can now set your date of birth as well as your Country that your studio is created in.  I went all in on the Countries, there is about 0 chance your country is not in the list.  I also learned during this that there is a country named "Holy See" and it has a population of 800 people.  Will any of them play GDM?  Probably not but if they do they are covered.

Opening Tut Screen

I have added a short text splash as you enter the game explaining the core concept of the game taking place in an alternate reality.  I felt some people weren't reading that from the itch page and then being like huh RPG fantasy isn't a good combo wtf?  Some results can be wonky but its an alternate reality, this game isn't a test of your game knowledge at its core its a logic puzzle and you need to collect the data you need then make good choices to do well etc..  

I will eventually be adding an opening cut scene that covers these ideas as well as a full on tutorial but not until a alter date.  It's my hope this text splash will at least help people get there heads into the right space to do well in game.

Company Names

I decided to just go ahead and make company names the company name 1 and company name 2 were dragging on me.  I was hoping to maybe have community vote for company names but I don't have that kind of player base yet maybe at a later date if people fall in love with my game we can look at naming the companies and other things in game based on player votes / feedback.  For now I have generated names for the 15 companies using a name generator I found online for game studios.

Rand Game Names

I have added the ability to click random name when making games for people who don't like project 1 project 2 etc but also don't want to come up with there own names.  If you leave the space blank it will use project + current game number being developed but if you click rand name a name will be chosen for you.  Of course you can still manually enter your names as you see fit.

The system I setup is pretty simple but has 20-30k variations..  I am using a list of determiners + random adjectives + word specific to chosen genre.

This has had some wacky as hell results and some decent results.  It's still very Work in progress but it does make names atm just some of them seem like broken English or dumb as hell but that is kinda part of the fun.  Let me know what you think.

Room Upgrades

I have added 3 room upgrades for the second office.  These have some nice affects and aren't to overly priced as I want you to purchase them before you move to office 3 but at the same time they aren't mandatory maybe saving for a quicker office 3 will be better?  Who knows..

Current upgrades are as follows:

Install efficient heating / cooling -  This cuts 10k per month off your bill and costs 120k so basically 1 year of rent pays this back and everything beyond is total gains.

Motivational posters - When you add the motivation posters for 25k these give a 2 % increase to your focus which is your chance to create bubbles during work stages / training / researching etc  

High speed internet - This upgrade which I believe I set at 50k will give you a speed increase on all your workers training / research time similar to upgrading hardware but its office wide not just for each individual worker.

Award Shows

I have added annual award shows to the game.  I am currently  offering 3 prize categories.  

1 - for worst game  
2 - studio of the year  
3 - best game of the year

The Ai companies make 15 games a year and there scores range from 6 - 9.9  so if you make a sub 6 you can expect to have released the worst game that year which will result in a 25% fan loss.  I set them to cap at 9.9 so that if you produce a 10 it will be game of the year, however this is a mighty task.  Its using RnG though so its possible to have game of the year with a 9 etc.  Getting game of the year will yield you 10% total fans gained.  Studio of the year has to do with valuation of current year vs previous.  A studio with enough growth can be the top studio but its likely the big AAA companies will hold this title until you are a AAA company yourself.

Contract Rework

I have changed up some of the procedural generation of contracts.  I am also basing contract requirement size based on the number of staff you have working for you.  Some contract will be easy some near impossible but with the use of the Rush skill all contracts are within reach, you just need to build to optimize these form of work if that's the route you wish to take.

Final Note

This update marks a large milestone for Game Dev Masters development.  This will be the final feature addition update you will see for a while.  I have added all the aspects I wanted to get in before I begin the journey of adding the next office / going up to 6 workers / creating large games.  Large games are going to add more complexity to your development making them require more effort and player choice but ultimately making you significantly more money pushing your company forward.  This next update will take some time to complete I will be pushing on going dev logs of sorts but I can not venture an ETA for this update currently until I start getting deep into the work.  It will def take some time to complete but I hope it goes well.

I would like to take a second to thank everyone who has been supporting me with there feedback / kind words and anyone who has even tried my game to any extent.  Thank you so much.  There is still a long road ahead but I truly hope you will stick around to see the journey end.

I will be adding a steam page for wishlist's soon as well.  I am far from ready for EA release on steam but I know some people don't enjoy beta's or games in dev but would like to just support with a wish list or just see the final release, and I want to get that option available soon.