Hello everyone!
Has it really been 3 months since the last update?! Man, time flies so fast, and we're already in the Steam Summer Sale!
And here I come with this new version of City Game Studio that completely changes the game's interface. Version 1.23.0 brings a real breath of fresh air to City Game Studio's interface - everything feels so much clearer and cleaner.
Let me tell you all about it!
Mods
This is the big focus of this update. And everything has changed on that front. Loading mods is faster and more stable than before! Well, City Game Studio relies on Steam's API for mod loading, and I'm not planning to change that anytime soon.
Getting into the details, loading a mod is faster, but it will also give you important information. Whether a mod adds content or simply renames game elements, you'll know right away since it'll be written next to the mod. But I've also added a mod analyzer that spots mods that unbalance the game. So 3 seals are visible when you use a mod.
- The blue seal means this mod improves the gaming experience.
- The yellow seal means this mod improves the gaming experience, but at the expense of game balance.
- The red seal indicates that this mod completely unbalances City Game Studio and will harm your gaming experience.
So now you know what's happening when you load a mod.
I've also thought about mod creators. So when you update a mod, or when you create one, the seal is displayed and you know why you have that seal. The game will show you the part of the mod that degrades City Game Studio's balance.
By the way, the interfaces for loading or creating mods have been completely redesigned. And now it's more consistent with the rest of the game and especially more readable.
Staff Management
I've wanted to redo this part of the game for a long time. And now, with v1.23.0 it's done. You can transfer employees from one studio to another with just a few clicks. But the real novelty is being able to select any employee from the staff panel, one or several, across different pages and being able to move them to another studio or even fire them if needed. This comes with useful buttons like selecting all employees who don't have a studio, or selecting all employees or no employees.
That's the first part. I've also reworked human resources. Now, HR can take care of balancing studios. It's a new power they have. I've tested it - the bigger the studio, the more effective it'll be! This feature will be a lifesaver I think. You assign an HR to a studio, you click "Balance studio", and voilà!
All this, not counting an optimization that's really well done. Transferring employees will happen over several cycles, allowing the display thread to render the game properly. I've also redesigned the buttons that let you assign specialists to games and other remakes.
The Interface
And since we're talking about interface, I'm delighted to announce that many things have changed on that front. Game creation, publishing offers, editing offers, game ports, remakes or even Game of the Year - everything has been redesigned. The interface is more colorful, and better organized, I think you're going to love these changes! Even creating a game engine is more pleasant.
And when it comes to consoles and sending devkits, it's night and day. Now with just a few clicks you can send as many devkits to as many competitors as you want. I really took my time to redo all this, I read and reread your feedback to make City Game Studio's interface more intuitive and more pleasant. You'll tell me if I did a good job in the comments or even better, by leaving a review for the game if you haven't already. I read all reviews, positive and negative!
While redesigning the interface, I redesigned the various display panels. Selecting a console is much more pleasant, just like selecting a game engine! I spent many hours drawing all the consoles, and now you see them big right from the game! It adds a nostalgic touch for real!
I've also removed most shaders, replacing them with a lighter trick that renders better. So, for smaller configurations, the game will run a bit faster. And for others, you won't really see the difference.
Oh, a small detail that matters. Game names are now limited to 96 characters, where they were limited to 32 before. And game names are no longer truncated - this long-standing problem has been fixed.
Save Files
And what if we talked about save files. Loading a game, or should I say, listing games takes forever... Well, I've added a save compression system, which means that now listing games will be much faster for new saves. Old ones will be automatically converted when you open them. The game remains backward compatible, don't worry about that.
Also, loading a game worked but not as I wanted. Actually, the game didn't use threads to load a game, and so it slowed down loading quite a bit. So now, thanks to threads, loading a game will be much faster.
Also, sometimes a save would get corrupted. So I've strengthened the algorithm that writes saves so this happens as little as possible.
New Feature
What if I told you this update brings you something completely useless but perfectly essential?! A new panel that summarizes your company has just appeared. On the menu? Your company's creation date, its real value, its score, its logo but also some interesting little numbers.
The number of game engines produced, the number of conventions attended, the number of ports, the number of games published, the number of remakes published... In short, there are all sorts of interesting numbers. And to this are added the games that sold best. These aren't necessarily the best-rated games, but clearly the best-selling games!
And the cherry on top, this panel will also list internal achievements. Like the first game engine, or the first studio or when you reached 1,000 fans. In short, for a small addition I think it's going to make people happy!
Other Changes
With all this comes its share of fixes. First, a crash when using a studio director and you haven't unlocked a new genre yet - this was crashing the game. The problem is fixed.
At the interface level, the publishing panel, on the right, would open unexpectedly under certain conditions - the problem is now resolved. This won't happen anymore.
Some gauges were a bit buggy (offset), or deleting saves could lead to a game crash. Some in-game texts weren't translated and publishing a console very early (the 80s), led to a bug (a silent one at that).
I've also started working on a more open version of City Game Studio. So even the Steam version should become DRM-Free in the future. I think it's important that you can continue playing the game if Steam ever stops working.
I've also taken the time to review Twitch integration, and HTTP request management in general (this is used notably for mods) to resolve a random crash problem (it happened mostly at game launch).
There's still a known bug that I haven't had time to fix yet - it's about competitor appearances. When a competitor appears you can buy them for $0. Don't worry, this bug will be fixed with v1.24 which will be dedicated to competitors.
On the menu for v1.24: redesign of competitor difficulty, they'll be a bit more aggressive, and they'll come saturate the market based on the game's difficulty among other things. And maybe some will come offer game engines at very attractive prices (more attractive than yours to compete with you).
There you have it. I'm super happy with the work I've done during these last three months, and I hope you'll appreciate this new version that comes with its share of improvements!
The next update is scheduled for September 17, 2025. Yes, I'm dropping the date way in advance, because a special event is planned for that date, but I won't tell you more.
I'll let you enjoy this new version,
I'm going back to my computer to work and make City Game Studio better than ever
Take care of yourselves
Xavier aka Binogure