Welp, I spent 20 minutes writing out this dev diary and then Steam ate it when I tried to save and refresh my browser window. So you're getting my rushed second take at this, but. 🎉🎉🎉 Happy 1-year anniversary to Puffin Planes! Big thank you to everyone who has given this game a try and also those who have helped provide incredible feedback on Steam and Discord for how to make the game better. I hope you all have seen your feedback incorporated into the AI update, the Planes update, and then most recently the Settings update.
Speaking of updates, I have something new for you all... (well, except for those of you who are already enrolled in the [preview] branch): I'd like to announce the upcoming Stock Update!
Yes, that's right, you'll be able to buy and sell the stocks of other airlines. This replaces the existing buyout mechanics; to buy out a competitor you'll need to gather at least 51 of their shares. Yes, this is heavily abstracted. Most stocks in real life have more than 100 shares. But I hope it strikes a nice balance between simplicity and immersion.
On your journey to acquiring 51 of their shares you will also be able to do some other actions like steal their plane orders and even their planes! How about that? You might find you don't even want to buy them out. And yes, this does seem like it is setting everything up for a potential subsidiary update...but sorry to say that's probably out of scope for this one. Hoping to have it out by November at the latest.
Something I couldn't resist was adding a big fat button to dump all of your shares to try and trigger a panic sell-off. Your competitors will call it illegal market manipulation, and I'm sure regulators would agree--if there were any.
Got any ideas for this next update? Leave a comment below!