Glitches, Balancing, XP and Quality of Life

Welcome Studio Managers!

Let's dive into this update! We have some glitch fixes, some balancing, some new XP options, and some quality-of-life changes.

Level 1 Tutorial Adjustments

Did some minor changes to the Level 1 Mom Tutorial.

• Added Alerts/Employee Sickness to the tutorial. This helps motivate why you're learning how to earn XP for upgrades…to prevent sickness like this!

• Added a few more "Finger of Mom" pointing for a few items for clarity.

• Ambient noise now pauses when Mom pauses the during the Tutorial.

• When you begin level 2, Mom still pays for that first Friday - but now Text Message Alert pops up from Mom, reminding you that she is not paying for next week. She tells you to look at the Budget Board so you can be ready for what you will owe the following Payday. (This also removes the "sickness" Hint that would previously pop up with your first sickness.)

Awards Show Tutorial / Awards Minigames Updates

Awards Tutorial When it's time to nominate a film and then go to your first Awards show, Mom shows up to guide you again like the intro tutorial.

Well - sort of. She sends you text messages this time like the level 2 Payday text message above. She's too busy to show up for this, especially since she expects you to lose your first Ceremony.

• Once again, this eliminates about 5-6 Hint Pop-Ups in favor of a more "Story-driven" version of the explanation and creates a less intrusive experience.

• Additionally, since Mom is texting throughout the Ceremony, she is able to send even more information than the Hint which only appears at the beginning of each screen once. This helps clear things up more.

"For Your Pontification" Update

• Writer Production Upgrades can now improve your chances of matching with the judges in this minigame.

• Lowered and rebalanced Bonus Points if you get multiple matches in one pull.

• Reduced number of Coins to 3 (level 7), 4 (level 8), 6 (level 9), 8 (level 10)

"Hot-Seat Interview" Update

• When the Question timer gets below 10 seconds, the timer turns red, and when it gets below 5 seconds, it begins beeping.

• SFX were added to the minigame.

Awards Ceremony Update

• Balanced Points the Opponents have to match new XP upgrades and Minigame changes

• Changed some wording for Clarity

• Game Pauses after the Award Show, and you must manually resume it. Players were wanting a moment to gather their thoughts in the Show Room before plowing through the rest of the week.

• Added Sound FX throughout Ceremony

Production Employee XP Upgrades

Currently at Level 5, you are prompted to upgrade your Production Employees using XP to complete Corporate Training. Now at Levels 7 and 9 (coming soon), you get additional, non-mandatory upgrades that will help you earn more Awards Points, have better Odds at Awards Show minigames, or give you more Royalties!

• At levels 7 & 9 (coming soon), click on the Production Employee's desk, then click the "Training" Tab, just like when you do "Corporate Training" at level 5.

• Writer / Editor Upgrades will help your chances at getting points in the Awards Show minigames

• Animator Upgrade will boost your Royalties

• Artist, Composer, Storyboard Artist, & Voice Director Upgrades will boost your base Awards Points, as well as the points for their specific Sub-Award category.

• Quality Control Upgrade will boost your base Awards Points.

To-Do List Adjustments

• Minor To-Do List balancing with Rotted Potatoes Scores (Levels 4 - 6) and Fan Conventions (Level 8)

• Numbers now count down on the list. For instance, if you need to hire 10 Animators, as you hire each one, the number will drop "10", "9", "8", etc.

• Items have been reorganized on the To-Do list for legibility

Risky Business

• Risky Business is now reactive to your Corruption Level - the more Corrupt you are, the more likely you are to get the good perks instead of the bad ones!!

• Your first Risky Business always would give a Perk, now it specifically gives an Employee Speed Boost the first time you pull it - which is best, especially if you pull it during the Tutorial.

• Minor audio adjustments

Random Changes

• XP Clipboard now has an active 4th Perk - faster Media Cooldowns. It speeds up the cooldown by 25% each click (max 75% faster)

• If you click on Corporate Alerts, it now opens the proper Employee's door, just like it brings up the Employee File of the Production Employees.

• If you hover of the Happiness or Inventory of a Corporate Employee, it highlights their nameplate, similar to how the nametag appears on the Production Desks

• Increased the amount of Weekly Fan Rating you get from TV Seasons

• Reduced how frequently you get boycotted at level 6 if you have a low Fan Rating.

Bug and glitches

• Fixed an "Extra Credit" problem where submitting a training movie caused a problem when trying to receive XP or Money rewards after level 4.

• Fixed a glitch where you would hear the Ambient sound of working, even if you had 0 Employees if you had skipped the Tutorial and pressed Play prior to hiring your first Employee

• Fixed a glitch where you would still hear Ambient sounds while Employees were out Napping.

• Fixed some minor layering/clicking issues with the Alerts

• Fixed an issue where the "spending money" icon wasn't dying, so over long gameplays, it would start to lag

• Fixed a glitch where you could click the Coffee "Quick Brew" when you're in the Barista Room

• Fixed a glitch where if you were nominated for an Award while in your Office, the game would freeze.

• Fixed a glitch where if you selected Romance as your second Genre (TV Seasons or Award-Eligible Films), it usually wouldn't count toward the Steam Achievement

• Fixed a glitch that could make Fan Rating not save properly

• Fixed a minor glitch where the Fan Matching game was being seen as a Fan Demand in certain areas.

• Autosave (used for Bankruptcy rollbacks or game crashes) won't active on the Tutorial now - you shouldn't go back to the tutorial, you're in the real world now!