Hi everyone, big set of release notes below (one new feature added and a string of more minor polish and an imporant hotfix for a bug introduced last week with the new navigation menu).
Thanks for playing everyone :)
Fixed an bug where loading a save could show “Something went wrong” (React error #185) instead of opening the game.This could happen after recent navigation update, especially if you had customised your tab layout. The UI could get stuck in a loop when restoring your sidebar on Continue.If you hit this, update to this new version and try loading again. Sorry for the trouble, and thanks to everyone who reported it.
Fragrance House is a full luxury parfumerie passion project. You unlock it as a mogul, found your own maison, compose scents blind in the atelier, run production, sell into cities worldwide, fight 18 rival houses, and grow through R&D, finance, and extra sales channels. It lives under Empire → Ventures → Fragrance House in the sidebar.
This is just V1 of Fragrance house, more to come in future updates!
Path: Sidebar → Empire workspace → Mogul Profile (under Command) → scroll to Passion Projects → Fragrance House
Costs $8M company cash (tier 1, Luxury maison)
Needs Mogul rank
Ongoing run cost: starts at $12k/week
Once bought, the Fragrance House tab appears under Empire → Ventures
You can also jump there from Mogul Profile cards after purchase (Open Fragrance House).
Path: Fragrance House tab → Found maison (or Mogul Profile card if you bought but have not founded yet)The founding wizard lets you set:
Maison name, monogram, slogan
HQ country (France, UK, USA, Italy, Japan, Germany, UAE) with proper country names and flags via the country picker
HQ city/market within that country
Logo shape, glyph, and colour palette with live preview
Cost: $8M personal cash
You start with: $3.5M maison cash, reputation 32, and 18 rival maisons seeded into the world.Short on personal cash? The wizard shows a Top up personal cash panel inline. You can also use:Path: Founder Phone dock (bottom of screen) → Bank app
or
Path: Mogul Profile → withdraw/transfer panels
Once founded, open Fragrance House and use the tab bar:
Tab
What you do here
Overview
Weekly KPIs, P&L, profit chart, active events, hostile takeover offers
Maison
Brand identity, positioning sliders, facility status
Atelier
Compose fragrances, manage line-up, reveal and launch
Production
Pricing, batching, queue, recurring production, facility upgrades
Markets
World map, enter cities, market intel, performance tables
Marketing
Regional brand strength, campaign wizard
R&D
Research bottles, accords, and production perks
Finance
Runway, cost breakdown, SKU margins, raw material index
Channels
Clearance, DTC web store, retail partnerships
Rivals
Global prestige leaderboard + rival war room
History
Filterable timeline of everything that happened
Header shows your logo, maison cash, reputation, and market count each week.
Path: Fragrance House → AtelierThis is the creative core. No more raw slider mixing.
New fragrance opens the compose wizard:
Audience (women / men / unisex)
Accord lab: pick 2 to 4 accords from 24 ingredients (bergamot, oud, iris, vetiver, etc.). Locked accords need R&D first.
Concentration (eau de parfum / parfum / extrait)
Packaging (bottle art, box, label colours)
Commit to send the formula to the perfumer
The perfumer blends blind. You do not see the final scent profile until reveal.
In the line-up panel:
Reveal opens the reveal modal (flavour summary, identity tags, projected critic score, bottle preview)
Launch pushes the SKU live (max 6 fragrances in the line-up)
R&D unlocks more accords and bottle shapes over time.
Path: Fragrance House → ProductionEach SKU card shows:
Unit cost with week-on-week COGS change (spikes flagged in amber)
Recommended retail and live margin
Retail price slider in real dollars (not a mystery “price index” anymore), with elasticity hints
Suggested price nudge when raw material costs spike
Batch presets, Fill week, Smart batch, manual unit input
Queue production and a visible production queue
Auto-produce toggle for recurring weekly runs
Delist SKU for fading or low-margin products
Facility upgrades (no longer instant):Path: Production → Upgrade facility (modal)
Tier
Name
Capacity
Upgrade cost
Build time
1
Atelier
800 units/wk
Starting tier
—
2
Contract Fill
2,400 units/wk
$2.5M
6 weeks
3
Owned Plant
8,000 units/wk
$9M
10 weeks
Build progress also shows on Maison tab while upgrading.
Path: Fragrance House → Markets
Interactive world map with heat modes: Sales or Demand. Click a pin to enter a new city.
Enter market wizard picks distribution mode:
Department store (broad reach)
Duty free (travel hubs)
Maison boutique (prestige, higher cost, up to 12 boutiques total)
Best performers and Needs attention cards (stockouts, slowing trends)
Region rollup by country
Full market presence table: mode, strength, units/wk, projected demand, trend arrow, revenue
Market intelligence panel:
Filter: Prospects / Researched / All
$20k market research for demand fit scores
$40k for a 4-week pop-up test counter
Shows demand band (Low / Medium / High), profile fit %, audience fit %
Cities pull from the global city catalog plus gym market overlap, so there is a large pool of real-world style destinations.
Path: Fragrance House → Marketing → Launch campaignThree campaign types:
Brand awareness (regional maison lift)
Launch push (tied to a specific SKU)
Seasonal push (bonus when season aligns)
See Regional brand strength bars per region, active campaigns with ROI-style cards, and weekly spend totals.Behind the scenes, influencer gifts and word-of-mouth boosts feed into demand (sim layer, not a separate UI tab yet).
Path: Fragrance House → R&DThree research tracks:
Flacon design (unlock bottle shapes beyond the starter classic column)
Scent accords (unlock rare ingredients like oud, ambergris, tobacco)
Production (COGS reduction, +10% capacity, raw material hedge)
You run one active project at a time with cost, duration, progress bar, and a detail modal explaining what you unlock. Starter kit: bergamot, cedar, rose absolute + classic column bottle.
Path: Fragrance House → Finance
Maison cash, weekly revenue/profit, gross margin, runway (weeks of cash at current burn)
Cost breakdown bars (production, carrying, marketing, facility, distribution, web hosting, clearance disposal)
Profit history chart
SKU margin table (revenue, COGS, margin % per fragrance)
Regional revenue top 8
Raw material market with category movers (citrus oils, florals, woods, etc.) and margin pressure warnings
Overview tab also surfaces the blended raw materials index on the KPI grid.
Path: Fragrance House → ChannelsThree sub-sections:
Clearance
Manual outlet dumps or auto-clearance rule (min stock, fading weeks, recovery %)
DTC Web Store
Launch for $180k, tiered upgrades, weekly hosting, toggle SKUs on/off
Retail Partners
8 fictional partner chains (Luxe Counter Co., Travel Essentials Group, Metro Beauty Collective, etc.) with slot fees, demand multipliers, and fit hints
Path: Fragrance House → Rivals
Global prestige · Top 5 leaderboard at the top (your rank shown even if you are outside top 5)
18 competing maisons with archetypes (heritage, niche, masstige, oriental, celebrity), procedural logos, strength, market count, latest launch
Click a rival for a profile modal: CEO, founding story, signature scents, aggression stat
Rival sim stuff that can hit you:
Price wars on your shelves
Hostile acquisition offers for your boutiques (fight for $150k or accept cash on Overview)
Award season events
Path: Fragrance House → HistoryFilter chips: All, Founded, Launches, Production, Markets, Marketing, Rivals, EventsEverything logs to a week-stamped timeline.
Path: Fragrance House → Maison
Large logo hero with HQ flag and city
Reputation meter
Brand positioning sliders: Niche ↔ Mass, Classic ↔ Bold, Accessible ↔ Prestige
Facility tier, capacity, weekly overhead, pending upgrade timer
Path: Sidebar → Empire → CEOs → assign/configure Fragrance House sector CEOWhen a CEO is running the sector hands-on, Fragrance House shows a hands-off notice at the top (they handle launches and markets). You can still open the screen to watch, but direct control is limited per empire CEO rules.Fragrance House also appears on the business portfolio / empire command surfaces with markets and SKU KPIs.
If you play politics, maison visibility (reputation, home-country market strength, word of mouth) feeds into the political electorate luxury resonance bridge. Strong luxury presence in your home country can nudge cohort approval over time.
For example, if you arrange a meeting with a character, offer them a perfume!
Eight fragrance achievements to hunt:
Achievement
Goal
Maison founded
Found your house
First pour
Launch your first SKU
Ten counters
Sell in 10 markets
Critics' choice
Win award season
Boutique row
Operate 5 boutiques
Season hit
Season-aligned launch with critic score 75+
Shelf war survivor
Survive a rival price war
Haute reputation
Reach 80+ maison reputation
Watch Active events on Overview for things like ingredient shortage, counterfeit scandal, award season, allergen recall, collaboration offers, luxury downturn, travel boom, and markdown pressure.
Item
Value
Passion unlock
$8M company cash, Mogul rank, $12k/wk
Founding
$8M personal → $3.5M maison cash
Max fragrances
6
Max boutiques
12
Rivals
18
Accords
24 (3 starter, rest via R&D)
Facility cap (max)
8,000 units/week
You can open a read-only popup for any console straight from the global tech view.How to get there
Open Industry & World in the sidebar (the World screen).
Switch to the Tech tab.
Click either:
A card under Top platforms now, or
A console chip on the Tech timeline (green = launched, orange = upcoming).
What the popup shows
Console image, name, and maker
Status (Active, Retired, Your console, or Coming [year] for unreleased hardware)
Lifetime installed (total units out in the world, all time)
Active share (this week) (share of current weekly sales)
Lifetime share (share of all hardware ever sold, for context)
MSRP by region
Lifetime sales by region (NA, EU, Asia) with visual bars
Hardware specs, 52-week install trend, top games where they exist
Already on the market: use Open in Hardware at the bottom to jump to the full record.Upcoming on the timeline: specs and launch year only, no sales yet.Close: Close, click outside, or Escape.Engine chips on the timeline are not clickable.
World → Tech → Top platforms now used to rank by total install base ever, so ancient machines could stay #1 forever even in 2009.It now ranks by what is actually selling this week in the current generation:
Each card shows sold/wk and active share %
Old era consoles drop off the list
Empty state if nothing in the current gen sold this week
Share across World popups and Hardware records now uses active weekly sales among current-gen platforms, not lifetime install base.You will see both:
Active share (wk) — this week's slice of the market
Lifetime share — old cumulative share for context
Lifetime installed — total units sold all time
Your legacy console can still show a huge lifetime number, but it will not look like it owns 95% of the market in 2009 unless it is genuinely outselling everything right now.Where to check: World → Tech (click a console) or Hardware → pick a console.
Player consoles are not force-retired. Demand is what changed:
Older eras sell much less as the industry moves on
After ~12 years, player consoles only move token weekly volume
Very old NPC consoles effectively stop selling
New launches from the same maker hurt older boxes from that maker
To retire when ready: Hardware → your console → retire on the record page.
Contract manufacturing without factories capped at 2,500 units/week (was effectively unlimited)
Region sales repaired on load when they were far below install base, so bars and numbers match better on long saves
Clickable platform cards and timeline chips
Top platforms now cards are proper buttons with hover/focus feedback (lift + accent border).
Tech timeline console chips work the same (green = launched, orange = upcoming). Engine chips stay non-clickable.
Path: Industry & World → World → Tech
New console detail popup
Wide panel in the same style as country profiles, not a raw jump to Hardware.
Hero: console art, maker logo, name, status badges on a gradient header.
Stat strip: five labeled boxes (lifetime installed, active share, lifetime share, revenue, launch).
MSRP: region price pills.
Regional sales: meter bars (same style as other World briefings).
Specs block, 52-week install chart, ranked top games list.
Footer: Close + Open in Hardware.
Close via X, backdrop click, or Escape.
Hardware record labels aligned
Active share (wk), Lifetime share, Lifetime installed, Lifetime sales by region so wording matches the popup.
Top platforms section refresh
Renamed from "Top platforms by install base" to Top platforms now.
Cards show sold/wk + active share % badges instead of one lifetime number.
Proper empty state when nothing current-gen sold this week.
What you want
Where to go
Who is winning this week (console wise)
World → Tech → Top platforms now
Inspect a console from World
World → Tech → click card or timeline chip
Production, pricing, retire
Popup → Open in Hardware, or Hardware
Weekly vs lifetime share
Console popup or Hardware record
Upcoming launches
World → Tech → Tech timeline