Beta 6 of Above the Fold focuses on quality of life, starting with squashing a several bugs reported by all those amazing people, who took the time to let me know. I apologize for the fact that this release took longer than expected - some of those bugs proved quite tricky to solve, and I also wanted to include some fresh content.
But first, a big change in the importance of politics. The biggest balance adjustment in Beta 6 is that advertisements you display in the paper, now also affect the political lean of each issue. Ad-cards display the political association of the advertiser when you pick them up, and if you have a lot of ads from one side of the political isle, it will slightly tip the appeal of the issue in the same direction.
Personality traits have been part of the game for a while. Each comes with its own bonuses, penalties and associated events in the game, but now your reporters can gain additional traits. Any reporter who has less than 3 personality traits, may gain a new one if they experience a large, sudden shift in happiness (either direction).
There are a few new user experience features in this update as well, small things to improve the game overall, like simplifying a bunch of the text shown on screen for faster reading, new icons to quickly indicate the political lean of a story before you pick it up, and in other icon-related news, the guide at the top of the map now displays a flashing chevron next to any story type that is currently surging in popularity.
We also have 2 new controls! Use the Page Up and Page Down keys to control the music volume, and use the number-keys 1, 2 or 3 to set the scrolling speed of the city map. The current speed is displayed on the right, near the top.
A surprising number of people had requested "better cloud movement", so that was added too. Where the clouds would always continue in the same direction before, they now take map scrolling into account and move in a more natural way. Another player request was the addition of borders when playing in windowed mode, making it easier to move the game around. Done, and again, thank you for these suggestions and requests.
Finally, there are several new in-game events in this update. Two new 5-event storylines, each tying in with a specific upgrade and a themed story, and a few new procedural events that may repeat several times during the game.
List of Changes in Beta 6
- Added: Reporters with less than 3 personality traits, may develop a new trait if gaining or losing 5% happiness all at once
- Added: "The Art Elite", a 5-event storyline that may trigger with an Art-themed issue, after researching "Arts"
- Added: "Silver Mist Massage", a 5-event storyline that may trigger with a Crime-themed issue, after researching "Organized Crime".
- Added: Reporters may compliment you or complain, if you publish a politically biased issue that is either perfectly aligned with or far from their own beliefs, respectively.
- Added: Info cards when mousing over stories now display a left/right arrow if the story has a political bias.
- Added: When you click on an ad, the pop-up now shows the political lean of the advertising business.
- Added: 3 different scrolling speeds on the map. Switch between slow, medium and fast (default) using the keys 1, 2, and 3 while on the map
- Added: Control the music volume using the Page Up and Page Down keys
- Added: Border when playing in windowed mode, so you can move the window around
- Added: Guide on the map now displays a flashing chevron icon over surging story types
- Changed: The political bias of each issue is now influenced of the political appeal of the ads, featured in the issue (eg. lots of conservative ads will bias the issue slightly).
- Changed: Guide-banner on the map now includes faded icons of story types that are still locked
- Changed: Increased reward (points and bonus subs) from publishing a themed issue matching a surging story type.
- Changed: The text on the pop-ups for story assignments and ads, has been simplified
- Changed: Added a bit more space around the headlines on the front page
- Changed: Increased chance that a quitting reporter changes their mind and stays, if happiness is boosted sufficiently
- Changed: The clouds now move with the map, instead of doing their own thing
- Fixed: Crash when game over and tutorials enabled
- Fixed: Crash when a celebrity throws a fit or gets happy as a result of a storyline event
- Fixed: Sometimes a reporter would quit, but a different reporter actually left the newspaper
- Fixed: Advertisers tended to be more conservative than liberal due to bad math.