We have been working hard to bring you the next big update on our roadmap these past few months. The landlord update will mark an important milestone for all of us as we pass the roadmap's halfway mark and are getting closer to the 1.0 version! This major update brings many new features, content, excitement, and a little something that happens to be a very highly requested system by the community.
Let's start with the little something, which is, well, not that little. We're introducing a new Phone App to manage your properties and look at ones available for purchase; no more scrolling endlessly through the whole map to find that green dollar symbol! What's more exciting is that along with the new app, we're changing up how properties are bought and sold (yes, sold!).
All properties will now be available to purchase via auctions. Each purchase will now involve more gameplay elements as Uncle Steve himself will now dress up for the occasion! You'll be able to walk around the property first, evaluate how much it's worth, before you take part in a bidding war against other landlords. Finally, the update will also allow you to sell your own properties through a similar system, this time featuring Steve as the auctioneer himself.
But let's move to the next item on our list. A vast assortment of new jobs, which includes new Elite jobs and a newly introduced type of jobs, will be added with this update. For example, there’s a new Elite contract job for a botanist who will want their place to be full of plants and other exciting items as if it was the Palmenhaus Schonbrunn itself! Overall, we will be adding over 90 new jobs altogether, which should alleviate some of the repetitive gameplay issues. Of course, we plan to still keep adding even more new jobs throughout the development, so don't worry about that!
With the addition of new jobs as we mentioned we would be bringing you the new type of job called Puzzle jobs. These jobs are for the more challenge-seeking players or simply those who want a break from the complete renovation jobs. With the Puzzle jobs, you will have less room to work with and yet more items to put in. Note you will not be able to edit the room layouts to make them any bigger. These jobs are where the challenge begins to see if you can fit all the listed items in the room, which may require you to think outside the box and use that reset button a few times here and there until it all just fits. Are you up for the challenge?
Since we've been putting more jobs and Elite contracts in the game with each update, we decided that Elite contracts needed a little more spice to them. So instead of just taking them for the money, you will now be able to unlock Elite job items each time you complete them. To unlock the full set of job items, you will need to complete each one three times. After unlocking these items, they are yours to use as your own furniture. You will notice these items scattered around in your renovation tab when renovating for jobs or your properties.
Another thing that's going to be touched up in the update is the main storyline. To make the early game smoother we added two new objectives and tweaked the cash flow quest to be less of a hurdle. Moreover, the update features important quality of life changes, including refreshing the prestige value in the room panel with each item purchase, double-clicking the item to move it, and, oh, improved loading times! Certain configurations should see up to a 50% improvement on the new patch.
And that's it for today's teaser! Landlord Update will go live in a few weeks' time and we can't wait to hear your thoughts about it! Until then, stay tuned!
Disabled winter decorations and seasonal time-limited content. Santa will return to Wondersville next holiday season.
Disabled remodelling in a few jobs.
Fixed Open House job ratings being sometimes wrongly docked for tenants not having enough past tenancies.
Fixed a number of incorrect furniture icons.
Fixed a number of wall decorations wanting to be placed right up against the wall even when they were on the wall itself.
Fixed some tenants suffering from premature balding.
Balance
Toned down tenant events frequency scaling with the number of player tenants. Introduced a hard cap starting at 22 tenants.
Cashflow problem event changed to occur to everyone but Loyal / Diligent tenants.
Date night event changed to occur to everyone except Loners with Social Animals having a boosted chance of it happening.
TV / Internet subscription upgrade event changed to occur to everyone with Gamers having a boosted chance of it happening.
Adjusted how much rent agents are able to get during lease renegotiations.
Agents with over 75 Salesmanship will now never lose money on lease renegotiations unless the tenant is already maxed out.
Adjusted what lease lengths agents are able to get during lease renegotiations.
Agents might be able to get a longer lease than your current one, while agents with over 80 Salesmanship will never get a shorter lease than your current one. However, lease lengths negotiated by agents are capped at 120 days.
We've now closed the submission form for our winter community contest and moved on to the voting stage. Now all of you can vote for your favorite designs for Santa's Toy Factory!
Thanks to everyone who found some free time during the winter break and submitted their entry!
General
All walls are now up when entering Photo Mode.
Tweaked pathfinding to avoid pathing inaccuracies in tight spaces.
Tweaked the way the final review message is chosen to make it easier to get better reactions from tenants after their lease ends.
Adjusted PIGEON Sink's height offset.
Fixed a few issues with the RV toilet not being considered in apartment requirements.
Fixed a number of game-breaking issues with some of the Uncle Steve interactions resulting in erratic behavior (things not disappearing properly, fixed issues coming back as failures, etc.).
Fixed an issue with some of the tenant events granting negative happiness values after switching in and out of their district for a longer period of time.
Tweaked Bar's colliders in the Train job to make it easier to place.
Happy Holidays to everyone! Today we're releasing this year's last update as we're reliving all the exciting stuff that happened since last December. We released The Tenants in Early Access back in March to an overwhelmingly warm reception from you, and since then, we've managed to follow it up with two major updates (the Tenancy Update and the Renovation Update) with a great deal of smaller patches sprinkled in between the major releases.
We've decided to spend some time on this special update to tie up 2021. Among a number of smaller fixes and polishing, there's also some jolly time-limited content to spice up your winter holidays. We're also putting The Tenants on a -30% sale, so if you haven't gotten yourself any gift yet, now's your chance!
Santa Is Back
Just like we mentioned in the teaser, Santa is now back in town, and he needs help building a new Toy Factory to start delivering Christmas gifts on time. The job is a special one, as you and your design can also take part in a community event to compete with other landlords for prizes!
Santa's Helpers is a community contest organized to celebrate the winter holidays and the return of Santa! In order to participate in the event, all you have to do is play the game, complete the new Elite Contract at Arctic Circle 24/01 in the Slums, and take a few screenshots to submit your entry.
Example design by our long-standing community member, vritto.
Winter holidays are all about spending time with people, and some of your tenants might be running a bit low on them! Chances are they'll come to you asking you to come to hang out, giving you a unique opportunity to play the new music mini-game built specifically for this update. Try to take them on in this battle of ears and see if you can have a flawless run yourself!
Photo Mode
Since Wondersville is going through some changes this snowy season, we thought it'd be appropriate to get you some tools to properly capture the new scenery! The in-game phone got updated with a new Camera app that implements the long-awaited photo mode. Zoom in on your favorite, or the least favorite, tenant and take embarrassing pictures of them to show your friends and family!
And that's it for today! On behalf of everyone at Ancient Forge Studio, we'd like to wish you a fun-filled holiday season and best wishes for a happy New Year!
Full Changelog
Features
Added a new in-game phone app: Camera.
Content
Added a time-limited Elite Contract: Toy Factory.
Added a time-limited tenant request: Wonderful Time.
Added a time-limited tenant event: Singing Carols.
Decorated the main menu and the district maps for the time-limited Winter event.
Added two new loading screens.
Added an item set designed by the Halloween community contest winner, @vritto.
General
Fixed an issue where overlapping furniture slotted on the shelves and similar spots wouldn't detect collisions between each other.
Fixed an issue with furniture being placed outside apartment boundaries in some cases.
Fixed an issue with calculating agent work days in a given time period.
Fixed a host of issues related to sound effects.
Fixed a few issues with item placement.
Fixed an issue that occurred when changing the target room mid-negotiation with a tenant.
Fixed an issue with job clients rating items from a different room.
Fixed an issue with the rendering of corners pieces for exterior walls.
Fixed an issue with tenants getting stuck on certain actions.
Fixed an issue with the missing game mode tooltip in the main menu.
UI
Hidden the duration of the tutorial Pedro babysitting task.
Fixed an issue with displaying nearby item connections after leaving renovation.
What are everyone's plans for the winter holidays? If you're still on the fence or are perhaps looking for a game to spend your cozy evenings with, playing The Tenants might be just the right move! You might enjoy that the game is now 35% off starting today as part of the House Flipper Franchise Sale. If you've been looking for an opportunity to snatch a cheap copy, this is your chance! Moreover, you may want to mark your calendar for the next week as winter is finally coming to Wondersville!
Santa Needs Help
Did you know that to deliver gifts all over the world, Santa goes down to the mayor of each major city to get a building permit for his workshop there? Well, Wondersville is no exception! Christmas Pops decided to settle down here with his elves, and the word through the grapevine is that he'll be looking for help to set up his new factory. The stakes couldn't be higher!
Santa's Helpers is our next community event that will begin on December 22nd, along with the launch of the Winter Update. Aside from the new elite contract, in which you'll be able to submit your design to compete with other landlords for exciting prizes, the update will bring more seasonal content. Snowy weather will make tenants needier than ever, and as such, they might ask you to hang out with them for Christmas. Some might also ask you to do renovation work in preparation for the big day. Oh, and to properly enjoy the views, you'll have a chance to play with the new photo mode, which of course, will stay here for longer.
We're excited to bring you another update that addresses a lot of the concerns mentioned by the community. On top of the many QoL changes we're introducing, we're also adding a brand new feature in the form of Elite Contract Intros that aims to bring more depth into the jobs you'll be undertaking. Let's get right into it!
Steam Awards
As you probably already know, the voting for this year's Steam Awards has already begun and we'd like to invite all of you to vote for The Tenants in the "Sit Back And Relax" category. The interesting part is that initially we had actually aimed for more tycoon-like gameplay, but thanks to the players' feedback we ended up going in the more chill direction that focuses on unleashing your design creativity instead of comparing tax rates and graphs all day.
We're extremely happy with the community that's gathered around The Tenants and we're looking forward to developing the game further with your continuous support and feedback. Not to say that we're not looking forward to your votes :tt_wink: Oh, and make sure to join us over on Discord (click here) if you ever need help with the game or simply want to chat!
Elite Contract changes
We've always strived to make Elite Contracts truly elite and as such today's update brings changes that introduce more personality to them. As of now, each contract will start with an additional step of having you inspect the property you're about to work on and the actual job will start once you uncover the roof of the building. Do so and your client will appear to give you a bit of background and talk more details about the job at hand! In the future Elite Contracts will also feature new and exciting permanent item unlocks.
Skill Tree upgrades
It seems like almost everyone wanted Uncle Steve to move even faster and so we had him work out a bit these last few weeks! Movement speed upgrades have been buffed and additionally a few new skills have been introduced pertaining to the tenant research feature. You'll now be able to increase research speed as well as add an additional research slot to make your landlording that much more expedient.
Tutorial revisions
As the game keeps growing, new features and mechanics end up being added with pretty much every bigger update. Some of them, however, haven't been properly explained by the in-game tutorial and with today's update, we went back and made sure to cover them all! Placing and demolishing windows, item proximity bonuses, the skill tree, item tags and color variants have all gotten a much-needed in-game debriefing.
QoL tweaks
Small quality of life tweaks are sometimes equally if not more important than new features and this update brings a few very much needed ones. The item checklist in the renovation UI got spruced up and will now merge multiple instances of the same required item into one list entry by providing the required amount right next to the item name. The in-game music will now fade out when you're watching musicians jam it out, and tenant item tag preferences have finally made their way to the UI. We've also heard your feedback regarding trashing and all tenant archetypes will now be a bit less keen to mess your apartments. Not only that but a few lingering bugs have been also smashed and should be now gone for good!
Halloween Contest results
Around a month ago a mysterious man from afar called Dracoola invaded Wondersville and offered a one-of-a-kind job that attracted many aspiring landlords. Dracoola's Call was our first ever design community event and we're extremely satisfied with its reception and impressed by the quality of your submissions! It got close, but in the end in the final voting on Discord one entry prevailed and @vritto became our official winner! Congratulations to the winner and with vritto being our long-time community member we'd like to take the opportunity and thank them for their continuous support of the game.
The main prize of the contest included designing a new furniture set and below is a sneak peek after a session of brainstorming with our victor!
And that's it for today's announcement! Next up we'll be gearing up for the Winter Update which will be followed by the next major update from our roadmap. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy the new version of the game and we can't wait to hear your thoughts!
Full Changelog
Features
Implemented Elite Contract intros.
Content
Added new skills in the Skill Tree that increase research speed.
Added a new skill in the Skill Tree that unlocks a second research slot.
General
Added a few new tutorials to explain new mechanics introduced in previous updates.
Added new steps to the remodeling tutorial that cover placing and removing windows.
Tenants will now send their text message responses to apartment events only after Uncle Steve leaves the property.
Tweaked the way item smart snapping works.
Revised proximity bonuses for a great deal of items.
Fixed an issue with moving back to a district with an active tenant request for a tenant that had their contract run out.
Fixed an issue with Open House guests being uninteractable.
Fixed a host of issues with overlapping sound effects and music.
Fixed an issue with time scaling in Creative mode.
Fixed an issue with players having too many available skill points for the number of available skills in the game.
Jobs
Added a new step to perform in the Elite Contracts where the player first has to click on the building to hide its roof and start the job.
UI
Merged multiple instances of the same item into single entries on the renovation checklist.
Fixed an issue with skills on the Skill Tree looking like they can be unlocked when they weren't.
Changed the default tab in the Skill Tree to "Tenants".
Tenant tag preferences are now displayed in their context menu.
Added a close button to the tag filter panel.
Tweaked the renovation checklist elements to be clickable (and searchable) while in the Remodelling or Finalize tab.
Fixed an issue with the room context panel not always refreshing on room layout changes.
Fixed the position of negotiation indicators.
Balance
Increased the speed boosts for Uncle Steve's movement speed skills.
Decreased the pace at which tenants generate garbage in their apartments.
Lowered the required tag scores for the tag category ratings.