Alpha 10 is now stable enough for an official release. I might still have some changes that are big enough to warrant an update or two for Alpha 10. I want to cram as many features in as possible before moving on to Alpha 11, since the bulk of features planned for Alpha 11 will render Alpha 10 saves completely incompatible, as usual.
If you are not done with your Alpha 9 save file and want to continue playing Alpha 9, you can switch to the "old" branch by right clicking the game in Steam and going to properties and then betas.
I recommend going through the tutorials, as they have been updated to reflect changes in gameplay and new additions. A lot of strategies and play styles from Alpha 9 will not work in Alpha 10, since hiring and employee skills have been overhauled.
Alpha 10 highlights
- Ability to lease rooms
- Ability to relocate company
- New plot system
- Added map editor, town map, map generation string, rain and thunder
- Multi-floor parking
- Ability to mod room material textures
- Overhauled hiring mechanic and employee skill system
- Overhauled employee satisfaction mechanic and added customizable employee benefits
- Ability to assign multiple roles per employee
- Ability to control subsidiary releases and assign tasks
- 5 new tracks from Sinnott Soundworks
- Added ability to change the price of a product
- Removed scenarios and added ability to take out loans in new game screen
- Overhauled temperature mechanics to instantly reflect changes instead of simulating in realtime
- Software sales are now calculated per OS market, so software released for different OSs are no longer in direct competition
- Plus massive amounts of bug fixes, QOL improvements and optimizations
Finally, I want to stress that Software Inc. is still in alpha, which means major features are still in development, so the gameplay might feel unbalanced at times, which is only exacerbated by the fact that nothing in Software Inc. is scripted. Sometimes the market lines up in a way that makes the game very easy, kind of like how Software Inc. became this (relatively) big success, considering I'm just one person who hasn't released any other games before. I've tried my best to balance the market, but I've also tried to keep it to a minimum, as the effort is basically wasted in the long run.
Changes since last patch
- Rebalanced marketing deal and hosting deal reputation effect and made companies cancel deals with bad player performance
- Made computer-auto-assign more likely to assign employees to computers in rooms that fit their role, if assigned
- IT support would sometimes not unreserve a PC, making it unavailable for use by employees for a random amount of time