Hi everyone,
Welcome to the first issue of the devlog.
What is this update about?
People have been repeatedly requesting more information, more updates and more builds. I've been thinking and this is my solution.
Shipping new builds (updates to the game) is very time consuming. I have to test them on all platforms and make sure everything works. Even if I just add a single piece of furniture, I can't just gamble and hope for the best. Everything has to be tested.
It is because of this I've decided not to change my release strategy. I will continue working towards big updates, bringing you one big update at a time, instead of wasting time releasing the same content in multiple smaller updates.
However, what I am changing is how often you will hear from me from here on out. Starting today, come Friday, I will release a devlog, showing you exactly what I've achieved in the past week.
Progress overview
Since my last update an enormous amount of changes have been made to the game.
Layering issues and isodom.js
We've finally managed to fix every single layering bug! This is huge, because this bug has been present for more than 2 years. Furthermore, we've also decided to open source the engine behind Startup Company. We call it isodom.js and you can find it here: https://github.com/hovgaardgames/isodom.js
I would like to thank DonnySim for all his hard work on isodom. Much appreciated!
New furniture
We've managed to put together a couple pieces of new furniture:
Improved marketing
You can now customize marketing campaigns by defining a budget and timespan; and text ads no longer demand components. Effectively, this allows you to market your products from the moment you begin the game.
Level based feature instances
Feature instances now have a level which will be upgraded as you improve them.
Server crashes!
Servers are now capable of crashing, which will force you to implement new ones. This will put a constant demand on your DevOps, making the role much more important throughout the game.
Directly upgrade desks
Desks can now directly be upgraded from the employee dialog as opposed to the old mechanism in which you would have to remove an employee manually prior to upgrading.
Real-time dashboards
As announced in the previous Startup Company Steam announcement we have been working on real time dashboards. This feature is now fully functional! All the data shown is 100% generated in real time so you will see your server-load and the number of online users constantly changing!
Frameworks improved
Come this update, frameworks will really start making a difference. You'll be paying for both users and upfront licenses. Frameworks will improve the efficiency of your features.
Performance optimizations
I discovered there were some huge issues with how the game engine handles calculations. With the upcoming update the game will be approximately 40% less demanding.
These are just the most exciting updates. I will provide a full changelog when Beta 13 is officially released (within the next 2 weeks).
That's all for now. Thanks for reading. I'll be back next Friday :-)
All the best,
Jonas