Its been about 6 months since I started development on Beta 1, so it seems the latter part of my initial guestimate of development taking 3-9 months was correct. At this point all planned and unplanned mechanical parts are in place, greased up and interlocked, now the whole thing just needs a lick of paint, i.e., bug fixing, some balancing, localization support, and content, like how is a joystick made? What does a DLC contain? And what should a review say for a product designed by a visionary lead designer? " Lead designer?" I hear you mutter.

Lead designers

So, this was the feature I teased in the last progress update as a "maybe if I have time", and I decided that I did have enough time. Each project (Not including add-ons, contracts, and deals) will now require a lead designer, who is in charge of deciding how a product should work and feel. Lead designers will have 3 stats which determine how well their ideas turn out for a project:

• Their creativity, which is innate and is revealed as they expand their portfolio.
• Their inspiration, which drains during a project and replenishes during downtime.
• Their skills. Every time you release a product, the lead designer(s) will gain experience with the software (or hardware) type in question.

Lead designers will require extra resources in terms of salaries and custom demands, each presenting unique gameplay challenges.
How do you find great lead designers? You might be lucky and find some out-of-work lead designers, or you can poach them from your competitors, but by far the least expensive option is hiring young designers and hoping to find a prodigy.

Multiple founders

You'll now be able to start your company as a joint venture. You can start with up to 4 founders, and each founder gets an equal share of the company (excluding the main founder, i.e., yourself), which you cannot absorb until some years have passed. Note that dividend rates have been heavily raised in Beta 1, so extra founders do not come cheap.

Building system upgrades

When using the rectangle room tool to split a room, I made some big assumptions on how those splits would look, making its use very limited. I have now made the rectangle room tool split algorithm way more generalized to handle virtually all split tasks and some merge tasks. I then combined the rectangle room tool with the merging tool to create the wall dragging tool.
This generalized room split algorithm also made it possible to "stamp" single room clones into existing rooms, like copying an entire toilet and pasting it inside a room without first having to carve out space for it.

The rest

The verdict on save compatibility is still out. It's currently working, but Alpha 11 games won't play very well in Beta 1. I'm reading through all your feedback and bug reports, and I've gotten a ton of important fixes in so far. Keep 'em coming, but also note that there's a good chance stuff has been fixed already. A snippet of changes since the last progress update:

• Fire fighters will now move out to help save your headquarters from going up in flames
• Difficulty values are now displayed in the new game screen
• I made it a lot easier to pick colors for your founders' clothes and stuff
• The follower number when marketing is no longer hard capped
• The manufacturing graph is now zoomable
• You can now disable distribution deals on a per company basis
• Some employee moods now decay while they are at home
• Bunch of main loop optimizations, should improve performance of the office simulation

My self-imposed deadline dictated that I release Beta 1 before the start of April, and I'm fairly confident I can make it before then, but I was also confident this update wouldn't take more than 6 months So, let's just agree to say, "Beta 1. Probably sometime before April". Thank you for your patience. Can't wait to see what you think!

[ 2022-01-12 20:18:19 CET ] [ Original post ]