We're back with our first patch after release! A little more content to come over the next few months, but for now we're addressing some issues all our new players have raised and tweaking the balancing a little for better pacing. Also welcome to all our new players! It's so strange to think it's actually out after all this time... The launch week was fairly successful with a little under 7000 copies sold, at least by modern indie standards. But not quite enough to fund another full game so we may turn to kickstarter or something for the next one again, we're not sure yet... But yeah, still gotta have day jobs to keep things going! Oh yeah did I mention we've all kept full time jobs at the same time as working on this? Ah, the life of an indie dev. We did try to make a big splash, but unfortunately not a single press outlet of the hundreds we contacted have reviewed the launch copy of the game yet, so we don't even have a metacritic score right now. Which is sad, but meh, it happens and that's just how things are these days. A big thanks to all the streamers who showcased the game though to make up for that! I'm gonna write a postmortem essay sometime soon with details of the whole journey since the release of PONCHO, something to bring closure to it all I guess. But we've still got other languages, controller support and other things on the way as well, so stay tuned! I'm also hard at work trying to fix all the remaining niggling issues you've reported, as well as writing some new events and things to flesh out some characters a little more; post release. Because I can. We get our launch day pay in several weeks and we'll be writing out checks as soon as we know the full numbers! Based on our current estimates, the first pay to charity will probably be 10,000. Our total profits aren't actually that much yet, we were hoping for a bigger launch, but we like nice round numbers. Still, it's really cool we're able to do this, thanks to all your support. It means a lot and it's good to know we can make a difference beyond a statement. When it comes to the postmortem, we'll talk in more detail with exact sales numbers and total profits with deeper transparency once we have all the data ready and a little distance from the release date. Beyond that, we have new games on the horizon... it's not like being low on funds ever stopped us before and I don't think I can ever really stop anyway. We've got a few ideas we want to work on, nothing to reveal yet, but it'll be something a bit... happier. Or it'll involve the Illuminati, not sure yet. Anyway, once again, onto the patch notes! ^-^

Balancing

Smoker's stressed malady doesn't affect happiness quite as much Slightly increased price of juice Slightly increased price of Hot chocolate Decreased Mobile phone item price Increased Pillow price Increased chance of happiness loss when studying multiple times in one day if you don't study well (actually more of a bug fix on this one) Reduced police vision slightly Slightly reduced chances of bad events in the park Study/work perks come in a bit slower Increased crime perk progress gained from breaking into parked cars Slightly increased base job success chances, and very very slightly improved chances for each application you've made for the same job

Bug Fixes & Improvements

Fixed not being able to move after visiting park sometimes Fixed juice not working as a flask item Fixed freezing warning showing in the first minute of the day, when you weren't freezing yet Fixed a couple of day labour bugs Made it more obvious which characters are unlocked Fixed a crash that could occur when giving other homeless money under certain conditions Fixed certain study bonuses from certain perks not applying 100% of the time Fixed a bug that could cause your job to change on reload Fixed some issues with certain items in the pocket menu Fixed hoarder bonus not displaying in recycling depot (bonus still worked before) Fixed not being able to enter buildings sometimes Fixed pills and vitamins not preventing illness from certain addiction maladies

[ 2020-05-12 23:34:07 CET ] [ Original post ]