Hi everyone!

As announced earlier the performance of SC will be greatly improved in Beta 24. This last week I've been struggling to make the update compatible with all setups/computers.

A lot of the testers have been getting a white-screen crash which has taken up a lot of my time. Fortunately it looks like it's all sorted out now. Performance is still way way better compared to Beta 23.




This is a big one! I'm finally happy to announce that all of you (the community) can finally contribute by translating Startup Company to your native language. The tool is still very much in beta and missing lot of quality of life improvements, but it works!

To start translating, go to the following URL and register:
Startup Company on Localizor

Localizor is a brand new translation tool from Hovgaard Games. Right now we're testing the tool exclusively on Startup Company, but as the tool has matured we want to invite other game developers to use it.

Do you want to help out testing Beta 24? Then all you have to do is go check out the pinned message in the #testing channel on our Discord server. All help is much appreciated!

That's it for this week!

Best,
Jonas

Hi everyone,

First of all welcome to all the new players coming in the last two weeks, it has been incredible to see all the new faces joining our community hub, Discord and providing super valuable feedback for the further development of Startup Company. :-)

This week has been a combination of working on Startup Company and working on Localizor.

We already begin testing Localizor (only on Discord for now). Hopefully we'll soon be able to invite everyone to come help translate Startup Company into any language they'd like.

Beta 24 will add another option to your CEO: HR Management. Just like the usual HR Managers, you can now use your CEO to set working schedules and adding speed bonus.

The CEO will still be able to recruit, meaning the CEO is the first employee type to be able to do multiple task types.

Beta 24 makes managers even more useful with the new feature: Shared Production Plans. Instead of having all your managers working independently, they can now share the same production plans. I also took some time to redesign the UI of the screen making it a bit easier to find the components or modules you're looking for.



For a long time there has been a bug allowing the game to "shrink" the internet population. I'm now working on improving this. I'm also experiencing with a "close competitor" functionality. I hope to tell you more about this in next devlog.

It's time to get the roadmap updated. I really think the future looks suuuper exciting! I can't wait to get started on the development.




That's it for this week!

Best,
Jonas

Hi everyone,

This week the main focus has been on support and bug fixing.

Last Saturday Startup Company was featured as Steam's Daily Deal. We had an amazing week where we welcomed a lot of new players. We even managed to break the old record of max concurrent players from 1403 to 1969 on April 21, 2019. (Super close to 2000!).

• Third floor added to the HQ building.
  
• Removed framework max level limitation to allow for modding.
  
• Fixed HTML in Korean speech bubbles.
  
• Increased aging speed by 33%.
  
• Removed landing page as a premium feature option.
  
• Fixed a bug causing contracts not to be cancelled when firing sales executives.
  
• Fixed bug where an employee could have two demands for firing the same employee.
  
• Fixed bug allowing players to generate components for free by cancelling current task.
  
• Fixed keyboard shortcuts that did not work.
  
• Increased maximum negotiation bid for expert candidates to $25.000.
  
• Fixed bug making it hard to unlock the Researcher achievement.
  
• Adding sorting to Sales Executive leads and sort default by time of creation.
  
• Removed framework max limit limitation for mods.
  
• Fixed bug making it impossible to move items or workstations between floors.

Bruno has returned and is working on the new citymap. We still need to make it more obvious what buildings are rent-able and some additional details, but overall I'm pretty happy with the result already.


Localizor, our upcoming game translation tool from Hovgaard Games is soon going into beta testing.

The tool will be used to allow you guys (the community) to mainly help translate Startup Company into more languages, but also to improve the existing translations.

If you're interested in joining the beta, make sure to subscribe to our newsletter at the Startup Company website and following Hovgaard Games on Steam.


That's it for this week!

Best,

Jonas

Hi everyone,

Usually I don't post announcements for minor updates, but this one is special. Today my designer sent me the third floor of the new headquarter building!

Instead of waiting till Beta 24, I decided to include the new floor with Beta 23.5 right away!

If you haven't already received the update, simply close the game and restart your Steam client.

I hope you all enjoy the extra space! :-)

Have a great Monday!

Best,

Jonas

Today we’re launching the last big discount before leaving early access! (Date will be announced soon)

For the next 48 hours you can snatch up a copy for yourself, or a friend, for 50% off! This means that Startup Company will be available for purchase for only $4.99 (or your regional equivalent)!

For new players, we recently released Beta 23, which includes a brand new ‘’Help System’’, giving you the tools you need in order to establish your own company and grow it to dominate the market! The new Help System is currently only available in the English language but will be translated to the other supported languages as soon as possible.



Even thought we'll soon be leaving Early Access it doesn't mean we'll stop developing the game. There's still a bunch of fixes, changes and brand new features in the pipeline to be released after the "full release". We’ve been in the Early Access program since August 2017 and have released more than 72 updates, which means that on average we’ve put out 3-4 updates per month!

I’m incredibly excited to see new players be founding new companies and look forward to your experience, feedback and impression of the game! In case you’re gifting a friend a copy of Startup Company, a big thank you for your continued support of the development of the game.

Also, feel free to join the official Discord server of Startup Company, which is linked below (click on the image). It’s the perfect place for receiving tips from experienced CEOs (our supporters are ready for all your questions), sharing highscores or simply have a chat with our amazing community.


I hope you’ll have a ton of fun with Startup Company!

Best,
Jonas

Hi there! :schappy:

Beta 23 is now available. Restart Steam to get it right away!

On paper Beta 23 might not be a super exotic update. Fortunately it feels very different once you start playing. The brand new time machine and the additional play speed comes as the main changes. Together with tons of "rebalancings" across all parts of the game the overall gaming experience is now much more smooth (I know, this sentence is bad. Help!).

As with each Beta release we just want to make sure that you’re aware of the fact that there might be some bugs or other unexpected issues. Jonas is on standby, ready to make sure that any discovered issues are fixed as soon as possible. If you find any bugs or experience any issues make sure to either let us know on the community hub or by joining our Discord!



The new help system is introduced in Beta 23. The system will help you understand every aspect of Startup Company, this is especially interesting for new players.

The system will first be introduced in English only. Once we're sure everything is covered, we'll have to translated later to the other languages.


Finally! Many of you requested one more play speed and I can happily say that it is included in Beta 23.



Some time ago I received a review on Steam where the time machine was described as: "It feels like one of those annoying popup ads" I never really received any other complaints about the time machine but I completely understood what was meant by it. After some investigating, I've found a way to simultaneously allow the time machine to run and still allow you to work on your company! The updated time machine is also shipped in Beta 23.

Switching tabs while the time machine is running.


Achievements in Startup Company have always been extremely popular. Therefore Beta 23 will include 8 brand new achievements:

Beta 23 includes new components and modules. I've been focusing on 3 things:

• Designers: Will now be even more relevant, especially late game. The designer is now able to merge designer components into brand new designer modules. There are now components for Beginners, Intermediate and Experts.
  
• SysAdmins: The SysAdmin is now able to merge SysAdmin components into new SysAdmin modules. There are now also components for Beginners, Intermediate and Experts just like the Designer. Configuring servers will require different components/modules depending on the type/throughput.
  
• Website features: Rebalanced current feature upgrade requirements to better fit the progress of the game. High level features will now require high level modules.

Beta 23 introduces new late-game milestones making the journey to Top #1 more smoothly.


That's it for Beta 23!

Best,
Jonas

Hi everyone,

It's been a pretty efficient week, lots of progress and testing!

Finally! Many of you requested one more play speed and I can happily say that it will be included in Beta 23.



Some time ago I received a review on Steam where the time machine was described as: "It feels like one of those annoying popup ads" I never really received any other complaints about the time machine but I completely understood what was meant by it. After some investigating, I've found a way to simultaneously allow the time machine to run and still allow you to work on your company! The updated time machine will also be shipped in Beta 23.

Switching tabs while the time machine is running.


Achievements in Startup Company have always been extremely popular. Therefore Beta 23 will include 8 brand new achievements:

Beta 23 will also have a few new components and modules. I've been focusing on 3 things:

• Designers: Will now be even more relevant, especially late game. The designer is now able to merge designer components into brand new designer modules. There are now components for Beginners, Intermediate and Experts.
  
• SysAdmins: The SysAdmin is now able to merge SysAdmin components into new SysAdmin modules. There are now also components for Beginners, Intermediate and Experts just like the Designer. Configuring servers will require different components/modules depending on the type/throughput.
  
• Website features: Rebalanced current feature upgrade requirements to better fit the progress of the game. High level features will now require high level modules.

With the introduction of the new headquarters building a lot of players have complained about two things:

• The new HQ isn't large enough compared to the skyscraper.
  
• Losing the office layout (furniture and workstations) of floors 3, 4 and 5 if you upgrade from the skyscraper is unacceptable.

Because of the feedback I've ordered an update for the HQ to add one more floor. The designer is still immensely busy with the creation of a new city map, so I don't have an ETA on this update. The amount of floors the skyscraper has will be reduced to 3 floors to fix the issue where you lose the floor layout when upgrading. This change will only affect new savegames. If you already use a 5 floor skyscraper nothing will change.

Beta 23 will introduce new late-game milestones making the journey to Top #1 more smoothly.

Beta 23 went into public testing last week on our Discord server. The community found some ugly bugs that I'll be fixing next week. I still don't have a release date for Beta 23, but it will be soon and definably before the end of April.

All the notes that are listed above are simply a preview of what's coming up in Startup Company. These new changes and items are not yet available in the public build of the game.


That's it for this week!

Best,

Jonas & Robert

Hi everyone,

In this week I have mainly been working on the new help system in Startup Company (which is incredible time consuming task to create). I've found some time to ship a couple of hotfixes for Beta 22 as well. (see #news on our Discord server.)

The new help system will be introduced in Beta 23. The system will help you understand every aspect of Startup Company, this is especially interesting for new players.

The system will first be introduced in English only. Once we're sure everything is covered, I'll have to translated later to the other languages.


All the notes that are listed above are simply a preview of what's coming up in Startup Company. These new changes and items are not yet available in the public build of the game.

The roadmap has been updated to represent my current expectations.

Click the thumbnail to see full size.

It's already been 1½ years since Startup Company was released in Early Access on Steam. The game has been undergoing huge changes and is now in a much more stable and accessible state than when it was released.

We feel confident that with the release of Beta 23 the quality of the game is suitable to leave Early Access and become a full release. An official full release date is yet to be determined.

So does this mean development of Startup Company will stop? Absolutely not. We just want to stop sending the signal to new players that the game is a buggy and bad experience, because we really think it's not.

I will still continue to follow the roadmap and release new features after the full release.

As most of you know, all development of Startup Company is done by me (Jonas). This is great as it keeps expenses down, but it also slows down how often new features can be introduced and how big they can be.

This is why I want to ask how you feel about a DLC. My idea is that the income from the DLC covers the expenses of hiring another developer who could work exclusively on new content.

As always, you guys, the community, comes first. So please let me know what you think. Should I drop the idea and just continue working solo or would you gladly pay for a DLC in order to get more content faster? All feedback is very much appreciated!


That's it for this week!

Best,

Jonas & Robert

Hi there!

Beta 22 is now available. Restart Steam to get it right away!

Beta 22 introduces quite a big list of new features, changes and improvements to the game. We're very excited to see how all our players will adapt their companies to these changes and how new companies will use them to prosper! We're very eager to share this all with you!

As with each Beta release we just want to make sure that you’re aware of the fact that there might be some bugs or other unexpected issues. Jonas is on standby, ready to make sure that any discovered issues are fixed as soon as possible. If you find any bugs or experience any issues make sure to either let us know on the community hub or by joining our Discord!



After enormous demand from you guys, it's finally time to introduce the new office building. You get 2 floors and an 400 employees high limitation. Enjoy!



Beta 22 introduces two big changes to the Sales Executive: First, the maximum amount of leads has been increased. For individual Sales Executives the numbers will be:

However, if you choose to team up multiple Sales Executives using a Manager, you'll be able to share leads between your executives! The lead limits for teams will be slight lowered like so:

The second exciting update to the Sales Executive is filters. You'll now be able to choose the minimum and maximum impressions you're looking for. No more rejecting offers because the impressions don't fit your time-slot. This has been heavily requested by the community.



Startup Company has always been using auto-save for handling savegames. This is convenient as players don't have to remember to save. However, with a tycoon game like Startup Company, you sometimes want to try things out without having to start over if it goes wrong.

Beta 22 introduces manual save functionality. You'll now have to save your game manually and choose a name for your savegame (basically "slots" as you know it from other games). The game will still auto-save (now every 5 minutes), but instead, save to a new "hidden" savegame and not overwrite your existing savegames.


Beta 22 includes another highly demanded feature: Changing your website's name and selecting a logo.


I've been able to put some hours into the Employees Menu. For a long time, it has been missing a "multi-employee actions" feature. The list was also incredibly laggy later on in the game.

The new menu introduces a couple of new features:

• Added icon next to speed to show if the employee is ready to be upgraded.
  
• Show if an employee is unseated.
  
• Remember the selected sorting order when re-opening the menu.
  
• Added mass action functionality allowing you to apply the following actions to multiple employees at once: remove from desk, fire, send home (1/3 days), start/stop training and release from manager.
  
• Greatly improved performance and removing lag when having more than 200 employees.

A brand new "Employee Switcher" will also be introduced in Beta 22. It will allow you to quickly cycle through your employees. The switcher will follow the order of your Employees Menu allowing you to customize the sorting.

When changing employee, the switcher will automatically stay on the same tab if it's available for the employee type.



Beta 22 offers you the ability to pay your employees bonuses. Paying a bonus will instantly increase your employee's mood to 100%. The price is based on a combination of the employee's salary and their current mood.

The bonus is meant as an alternative to sending your employees home in order to restore mood. Once a bonus has been paid you'll have to wait 30 in-game days before paying another bonus.



The number one question asked since Ad Contracts were introduced has been "Why do I lose money when the finance overview says I earn money every day?". Most players never noticed that contracts were paid upfront and if you had a contract running for 7 days (for example) it would mean you'll have 6 days with no payments.

Beta 22 changed this and instead made payments happen daily.

I personally wasn't too happy with this change, as I liked the realism of having to take into consideration when contracts were paid out (I know a few of you agree with me). However, the frustration and confusion for new players simply wasn't worth it.



HR Managers will be updated too. Scheduled training days work identically with "Days Off" by simply allowing you to define weekdays in which the employee should train.

Once an employee starts a training day this cannot be cancelled (same with days off). "Days Off" and ''Training Days'' cannot be scheduled to the same weekdays (obviously).

Limitations have also been added: Setting "days off" requires an Intermediate Level. Setting "Training Days" requires an Expert level.



The current production system for developers, designers, etc. allows you to switch between the Repeat and Queue functionality. In Beta 22 those two functionalities are combined into one: an ''Infinite Repeating Queue''. The queue size has also been increased to 10.

Components will remain in the queue after they have been produced. The blue background indicates which component is currently in development.

• "Fire Employee" is now rarer and will only occur for existing employees, and not new candidates.
  
• Employees' demands are now more realistic, especially with desks, including demanding the correct Programmer/Executive desk at Expert level.
  
• Differ the number of new demands generated on employee upgrade based on level.

Beta 22 brings two new loans allowing you to loan 1 and 2 million. Loans will only be available if you meet the minimum company valuation (valuation of all websites combined). Fever Inc (the 600k loan) has also been limited to companies with a minimum valuation of 1.2 million.

I've added an additional mechanic which gives the player a last chance before the company is declared bankrupt. The offer only comes if the player owns more than 15% of his website, hasn't bought out the investor and no loan options are available in the banks.



The stats in the bottom of the hosting centre has been improved to support larger numbers. A "bottleneck alert" has also been added to make it easier to understand what to increase in order to increase produced CU.



When removing furniture and desks from your office they will now be added to your "purchase inventory", allowing you to save items for later use.



Beta 22 makes it much easier to find the right employee when you have a lot of unassigned employees. The new table allows sorting and introduces a "Hired" column, making it easy to find the newly hired employee.



We made a lot of minor changes as well, which are outlined in the bulleted overview below:

• Fixed bug causing employee not to quit if ignoring competitor offer.
  
• Fixed bug causing employees with missing requirements not showing as flashing overlay.
  
• Fixed two memory leaks causing lag in late-game.
  
• Fixed bug causing merging competitors to fail or end prematurely.
  
• Fixed bug causing events to be launched too early (at game start)
  
• Fixed bug causing hosting building temperature not to update correctly.
  
• Fixed bug causing employee name changes not to update on overlays.
  
• Added support for panning using arrow keys.
  
• Added PageUp/PageDown keyboard shortcut for changing floor.
  
• Added Q/E keyboard shortcut to toggle between employees (switcher).
  
• Improved sliders when buying/selling competitor stocks.
  
• Added time limitation to investment offers.
  
• Limited feature efficiency from a maximum of 104% to a maximum of 100% (only affects new savegames, not existing ones).
  
• Changed overlay label to "At home" when not at the office.
  
• Added "sell" feature to rack devices
  
• Added the new 6-frame hand animations.
  
• Suppressed "office upgrade"-confirmation when renting the very first office.
  
• Show relevant Research category when clicking on "Research more" tips.
  
• Added hovering + sorting to Manager's employee list.
  
• Improved UI of rack stats and (mass)configure view.
  
• Added localisation for watt, kilowatt and megawatt.
  
• Added popup to the rack's Add Device view, allowing you to see throughput and size before buying.
  
• Added warning when trying to add a device to a rack with no space left.
  
• Added tooltip explaining manager bonus. Lowered the bonus when a manager isn't at the office.
  
• Improved demands view in employees' stats menu.
  
• Allowed employees to demand for "Coffee Machine" to be fulfilled by "Industrial Coffee Machine"
  
• Features' level marked with blue if at framework's maximum.
  
• Changed "Sell Out" achievement percentage from 10% to 50%.
  
• Fixed bug causing duplicated "Fire co-worker" demand.
  
• Stopped action-depending events from firing when the time machine is active.
  
• Changed the minimum marketing campaign conversion rate from 0% to 1%.
  
• Improved UI of "change desk" view.
  
• Added "Go to Manager" button to all employees.

As always, we're dedicated to making sure everything runs smoothly by fixing potential issues, listening to the community and continuing the development by working towards Beta 23.


All the best,
Jonas & Robert