Info
With the launch of this patch, we have also begun the next ladder season. All boards have been reset, and the top 10 players from each ladder have been recorded into the "Hall Of Fame". We had so many entry's in the first season "Launch Legends" with some amazing scores. Thank you to everyone for playing the game and putting in the time to shatter the top scores over and over.
Older saves will continue to work if you were in the middle of a play through and wish to continue, but only new saves created on August 1 or later will be eligible to post scores to the new seasons leader boards.
Fixes
Crypto Exploit
There was an exploit with crypto markets that would allow you to buy -2.1 billion worth of a coin and then sell that coin for a profit. This is no longer possible all coins are caped at 2.1 trillion for individual transactions.
ESC To Close Menus
Fixed an issue that caused the ESC key to not work to close menus. This was not functioning properly due to not being able to be run when the game was paused. This has been addressed and will now work correctly to close the majority of open menus when using the ESC key.
Variety Of Fixes
Fixed a variety of small issues, bugs, and typos. The game is still far from perfect, but we will continue to make these small but impactful changes to the games polish as they are reported.
Translation Improvements
There have also been a variety of translations improvements based on user feedback. Once again these are still far from perfect, but with each patch and your help they continue to improve. It hurts my heart when players review the game and mention the translations are poor, but there is no way around that without professional translations. Until that day comes we will continue to improve the translations with your help.
Changes
Studio Command Bar Rework
The studio command bar has had a major rework. We have gone from 16 buttons to 32 buttons that are categorized by types. The categories are "Game Dev", "Studio", "office", and "Info".
Many important menus that were nested inside of other menus have been brought out into their own menus to improve the flow of the game. I won't go into specifics here as it would make this post even longer, but you can view them all inside the game.
The icons for these new menus are contextually inaccurate, and some don't make that much sense. I apologize for that, but I am in the process of having brand new icons created that will give a much better visual representation of the menus. I am not a great artist, so I have had to make use of icons I owned. We will soon have fresh new icons made by someone with far better skill than myself that will feel a lot better based on the context of the menus. Stay tuned...
Merged Manage Engines
Manage engines and salvage engines have been changed into one menu with both functions. This menu has its own section in the new studio command bar under manage engines. This is also separate from the create engine menu which also has its own button in the game dev section of the studio bar.
Balance Changes
There have been a series of balance tweaks and changes. The majority of these were nerfs to game sales particularly in the larger games. Smalls have not been reduced by much but large and AAA have been reduced. Some engine features and creations have been tweaked as well to better align with player progression. Keep in mind that master difficulty is meant to be harder on you financially. If you want cheap engines costs please consider changing that setting to match what you want.
Crypto Sorting
Crypto markets now remain sorted when you review a coin and then return to the main menu.
Bonus Tasks Changed
There have been some changes to a few bonus tasks to align with some of the recent changes to some game systems such as hardware and workers.
Variety Of Tweaks And Changes
There have been a variety of small tweaks, changes, and QOL improvements. These include such things as improving consistency across menus, disabling and enabling of certain aspects, adding your money and RP balance to certain menus, and a variety of small improvements. big shout out to "DoorFail" from discord for his efforts and reports. He has gone a long way to making many small improvements that have improved the games polish in large ways, and earned a spot in the games community credits.
Additions
Contract Tracking
Added a tracking number to contracts that will at a glance show you how many contracts are available. The number reduces as you complete contracts. This should make it easy to at a glance see when 6 new contracts have been made available or when you are about to finish your final contracts.
Auto Research
Added the ability to auto research topics and genres. From the research HUD topic / genres menu you can now choose to learn a specific topic or genre or you can begin auto researching. This auto research can be stopped in the same way you stop auto training by clicking on the worker and hitting stop work. You can also use the new worker menu to stop all auto work.
This auto research will continue until there are no valid topics or genres to learn or if you lack the RP to continue research unless stopped by the player.
Bulk Stock Options
Added the ability to purchase 25 stocks at once instead of just 1 or 5. To buy stock in bulk you need to hold shift and then click on the buy 5 >> icon. You can also sell 25 at once.
Worker Menu Addition
We have added a new worker menu. This menu now has its own button and should be easier for players to locate when looking to hire additional staff. This menu also comes with the ability to begin mass training of workers for a specific stat. This menu also has a mass stop auto work button you can use to quickly tell all workers to stop there auto work when they complete their current tasks.
Reworked Hardware System
There has been a complete rework to the hardware system. Instead of an individual worker needing to buy hardware we now have an office wide upgrade system. These upgrades are locked based on the current office you are in and have a much more realistic cost associated with them.
The old system used insane amounts of money to make it a progression system, but this left a lot of players scratching their heads as to why a monitor would cost $500k. By making it office wide we have removed the tedium from the process, and by making them locked to offices we have made it a progression system while lowering the costs to be a lot more realistic.
A big thanks for this idea goes out to a variety of players across the steam boards and discord. Thank you all so much for the support, and great ideas.
Hard Mode Added
A brand-new hard mode has been created to test the best GDM players. This mode has its own leader boards, and static difficulty settings.
In this mode you will begin with 8 paragon points to spend on whatever paragon skills you wish, and the difficulty settings are taken to a new high.
The epic engine is not available and the cheats are also not available. On top of this there are a few specific settings and changes that make this mode the most difficult mode to date.
In order to play on this mode, you first must reach office 3 on a previous game save. This exists to prevent any new players from starting on Hard Mode and then getting frustrated by how difficult it is. I cannot look back at your old saves to flag veteran players with the ability to play hard mode as some players will have deleted old saves and what not.
However, you can easily start a new game, enable cheats, add $100m, upgrade to office 2 and then 3, and then save and exit to menu. This will quickly flag your game as eligible for hard mode quickly.
If you are one of the top players and you are diving into hard mode. Please give me some feedback around this mode. It might be too difficult or not hard enough and I would love to hear your feedback. I have tested it myself extensively, but I am only one person. With your help and feedback, we will shift hard mode balance until players think it is perfect.
Whats Next
First off, I would like to just say thank you to everyone who has supported the game and to those players who have contributed some amazing ideas and feedback. It really means a lot to me to have players engaged in the game playing hard and then taking the time to tell me what they love and what they would love to see added or changed. Your positive feedback and reviews bring me more joy than you can imagine, so thank you for that.
My current plan is to run this next league until the end of September. Based on feedback I know you guys want quick seasons, and provided we get enough ladder entries I am happy to keep recording scores to the hall of fame and starting a new season for players.
I intend to post new scores as usual while hanging out with players ready to jump on any issues that might arise from the 1.3 patch. After posting a hotfix if needed and having a week or 2 pass to know the game is stable. I am planning to take some time to explore the ability to port GDM to mobile. My plan is to create a buy 2 play version of the game for mobile with no ADS or monetization in any way. I think a small buy in fee is more than enough and I think people deserve to have games on mobile that they can play offline or while online anytime they want.
Beyond looking into creating a mobile version I have several great ideas I want to bring to the game. Some of these are ideas are found in the road map as well as many others that have been recently submitted from players. We have had some new additions to the discord who have given some amazing ideas we can use to improve the game. One in particular is BrandonS who has given some great ideas we will make use of soon. I hope to have a big content patch ready for the end of Sept timed out with the next season start that will include fresh icons and HUD changes.
Thank you to everyone, and I hope you enjoy the current patch. Please leave any feedback / suggestions in steam or on discord. The game has come a long way from its first EA launch until now, but there is still a large road ahead with major changes and additions to come. Thank you for coming along for the ride.