In this patch we made a few changes to game mechanics, bringing it closer to our final vision of the game.
Balance
We slightly reduced overall difficulty of the game. In the past we got a lot of feedback on how easy the game was, so we made it harder, but probably too much. We are now rolling back some of those changes, making the game more accessible to the beginners, while still keeping it challenging in the late game.
Technologies
We changed how project technologies work. Some of them didn't work together very well, so now you have 4 free switchable technologies, which impact the workflow of the project, and only one of which can be active at a time. 4 additional technologies can be unlocked with money, and they work as they did before.
Technologies became easier to understand for beginners, but they still require a good level of game understanding to use them to their full potential. This also made us change Start-up and Businessman starting bonuses. We no longer give technologies as a starting option, changing it to a more appropriate choices:
- Start-upers can carefully setup their starting team. You can pick between: two beginner employees, one advanced employee, or expend $5000 to get one experienced Mentor who will give their team bonus experience. All of those starting employees are less likely to leave your company. Start-upers also get more CVs in the early game.
- Businessmans now have a choice to start with a Business Partner. They are inexperienced, but they invested in your company, so you get to start with $5000 more money. They are, however, greedy, and will demand higher salary than usual. In addition, they will never leave your company unless fired due to Partner trait. Businessmans also get more job offers in the early game.
New mail type.
We added a new mail type - "Awards". You get this letter when you make a TOP 1 project in any category. Ratio of Design/Code/Management will impact reviews you get. For example, a game with amazing design but terrible code will get an award for it's design, but will probably be unplayable and get negative reviews.
Exchange
We completely removed exchange and currency trading from the game. This feature inspired us to make a separate game Cryptofall where we fully explored simulation of asset trading, since those things seemed out of place in Go To IT.
Other small changes:
* You can see when an employee wants to leave - their happiness bar will flash red.
* Hackathons reward and difficulty now only grows in case of successfull completion of previous hackathon.
* Added tips for game speed hotkeys.
* You can see estimated TOP positions when creating your own projects.