Current Progress
The biggest news is that the public beta is now available on Steam. These weekly updates will make much more sense, you can check what was added \ fixed and see if you want to check on the progress by playing the game instead of looking at screenshots \ text. If you want to help shaping the future of the game, please, consider trying out the demo: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2920840/Shareholders/
Beware: the experience at the moment is super flaky \ unpolished.
Added since last weekly update:
- Save game: Very simple and crude system, but it looks like it works
- Character Customization: You can now select your name at the start of the game. Hope this would add some immersion.
- Reworking the company management UI
- Trading and production orders are be separated
- In production tab you can add \ remove \ edit orders 1 by 1, but you can also use a special card with + \ - buttons to quickly increase order parameters without having to make 5+ clicks.
What's next
Addressing feedback
- Commodities selection in the "Commodities" screen should persist when switching between screens.
- Allow bigger time periods of data in the Consumer screen
- Pressing "Back" button on your mouse should not screw up the game
- Explain more visually current surplus \ deficit in the production tab.
- Look into creating first production building be more intuitive
- Hopefully there will be more feedbacks to fix
Labor Market Fluctuation
- Hiring workers should result in the increase of the expected salaries as there are less of the workers
- Firing workers should result in the decrease of the expected salaries as there are more of the workers
- When firing workers they should be entitled to N weeks of severance pay. N is determined by the goverment.
- NPC Rebalance: Currently, npc companies are not well balanced. I rarely see economy being able to fully fulfill consumer demands without intervention. On top of that labor market fluctuation will make it so that different companies will have different COGS(Cost of Goods and Services) meaning that the prices will start to differ company by company. So I think that this is the right time to get really deep into rebalancing NPCs so that their logic will be sufficient for the next few updates.
QoL \ Stability
- Ability to rename the company
- Ability to close the company
- Handle bankruptcy better