New Trailer, Cleaner Interface, Ancient Bug Slain

A long week has just wrapped up and I've been hard at work on City Game Studio! I've been working on the interface and pushing a few fixes, all of this is on Steam's unstable branch, so if you want to test it, you know what to do!

This Week's Recap

I'm currently working on a new trailer for City Game Studio. Nothing too dramatic, but I felt the old one was a bit cluttered and hard to follow. The new one is aimed at a broader audience discovering the game for the first time. That said, based on your feedback, I'm keeping the old trailer right next to the new one for now, you seem to prefer it by a pretty wide margin.

Now let's talk changes. On the interface side, I reworked the bottom menu. There was a button sitting there that had become completely useless, since machines can no longer break down, there's no need for a repair button anymore. So I took the opportunity to rearrange the buttons based on how often they're actually used. I hope you'll like it. Either way, I think it's cleaner than before.

I also added a button to sort studios from that same bottom menu, giving you even more freedom. And since we're on the topic of freedom, I also added a new wall type for customizing your studios. It's not a huge change, but more customization options are always welcome, right?

On the publishing offers side, I fixed a few things too. Some information wasn't displaying correctly when a game was pulled from the shelves. So I took the opportunity to review and reorganize that whole panel properly, no more display errors. Well, unless I missed one, obviously.

There were also quite a few other fixes, mostly around the annual financial report. But I also dug up a piece of code that I think dates back to 2017, which could cause the game to crash when loading a save. The kind of thing that would immediately put off new players if it happened to them.

Anyway, this release is more about polish than new features, since I've also been reworking the game's trailer. Something I've wanted to do for a long time. Let me know what you think in the comments, you can see both trailers side by side, so feel free to tell me which one you prefer.

What's Coming Next

I know I keep repeating myself here, but I can't help it: I haven't made progress on studio directors. I do need to get them working on game sequels and I will. But I also want to revisit a few interfaces and improve the banker.

On top of that, these latest changes gave me an idea related to the digital store. I think it's going to be the main focus of v1.28, with a partial (maybe complete) redesign to add more constraints to it. Because a well-managed digital store generates a lot of money, I think it needs a dedicated support team to manage it properly. I'll tell you more about that this summer.

That's it from me, this post ran a little longer than usual, but that's because I had a lot to cover.

See you next week, take care of yourselves in the meantime, Xavier aka Binogure