If you are following me on twitter, you'll know my internet connection has been disconnected and it'll take at least 5 days to get it back. As I don't have access to my build server I can't release the mac version until I get my internet back. I'm sorry for the inconvenience.

This is mostly bug fixes. I have read all your feedback and will be working on balancing the game and implementing your feedback the next couple of days for alpha 9.2.1.

Changes

• Add doors and windows to blueprint placement model
  
• Pause game when error message appears
  
• Add missing funds warning to furniture replacement window

Fixes

• Bug in how averages were weighted caused product quality to always be really low, despite high reviews
  
• Forgot to localize Network specialization
  
• Can't save blueprints
  
• Retroactively fixed save files breaking when employees retire
  
• Removed possibility of having marketing window open throughout development and then starting pre-marketing tasks after release and fixed sometimes not updating choice from pre to post
  
• Fixed team compatibility being -1 at load time causing negative effectiveness
  
• Fixed changing language will break game and need restart
  
• Furniture replacement button visible for furniture with no replacements
  
• Fixed employees leave times +-30 min based on laziness
  
• Various other bugs
  
• Can't create a second project management group

If you are following me on twitter, you'll know my internet connection has been disconnected and it'll take at least 5 days to get it back. As I don't have access to my build server I can't release the mac version until I get my internet back. I'm sorry for the inconvenience.

This is mostly bug fixes. I have read all your feedback and will be working on balancing the game and implementing your feedback the next couple of days for alpha 9.2.1.

Changes

• Add doors and windows to blueprint placement model
  
• Pause game when error message appears
  
• Add missing funds warning to furniture replacement window

Fixes

• Bug in how averages were weighted caused product quality to always be really low, despite high reviews
  
• Forgot to localize Network specialization
  
• Can't save blueprints
  
• Retroactively fixed save files breaking when employees retire
  
• Removed possibility of having marketing window open throughout development and then starting pre-marketing tasks after release and fixed sometimes not updating choice from pre to post
  
• Fixed team compatibility being -1 at load time causing negative effectiveness
  
• Fixed changing language will break game and need restart
  
• Furniture replacement button visible for furniture with no replacements
  
• Fixed employees leave times +-30 min based on laziness
  
• Various other bugs
  
• Can't create a second project management group

Currently software quality is always horrible. This is fixed for the next patch.

Fixed not being able to promote from alpha and credits window not working

• ALPHA 8 SAVES ARE NOT COMPATIBLE WITH ALPHA 9
  
• TUTORIALS ARE BROKEN
  
• GAME BALANCE MAY BE EXTREMELY BROKEN
  
• PLEASE GIVE FEEDBACK
  
• MODDING: FEATURE CATEGORIES(SPECIALIZATIONS) ARE NOW MANDATORY AND FURNITURE UPGRADE SYSTEM HAS CHANGED AGAIN, SEE http://softwareinc.coredumping.com/wiki/index.php?title=Furniture_Modding#Replacements.2Fupgrading

• Alpha and beta phases have been overhauled to replace progressbar system with peer review system
  
• Pre-marketing has been divided into separate actions and post-marketing is now an endless money sink, with different requirements per software category
  
• Product support is now endless and demand is dynamic based on product success
  
• Project quality calculation has been overhauled
  
• Overhauled product review article generator to give better feedback
  
• Overhauled project management to be assigned per leader and more managable
  
• Overhauled distribution mechanics
  
• Added printers for player to print physical copies of products

• Price discounts
  
• Subsidiaries
  
• Tutorial updates
  
• Press build newspaper review (Forgot to add this)
  
• Monthly bill breakdowns
  
• More product printers

Changes

• Ability to develop software for in-development OSs
  
• Instead of forcing the player to chose what to do when they lose, give them 24 hours to rectify the situation, so they have more options than just loans, insurance or stocks
  
• Updated to Unity 5.5.0f3
  
• Save files are now compressed and only take up about 20% of what they used to
  
• Added an extra wall toggle where only outer walls and furniture facing camera are hidden
  
• Changed upgrade categorization for furniture to use group names instead of direct furniture names, so furniture A can be upgraded to furniture B if furniture A's UpgradeFrom or UpgradeTo equals furniture B's UpgradeTo name, so mods don't break when new furniture is added
  
• Removed mini-games
  
• Contract window should have same Team/Artist/Design count information as design document window
  
• Are you sure you want to promote from design warning
  
• Have info button on dev work items to show the info in the design document
  
• Make multi select window scrollable, so server options become manageable
  
• Difficulty should not affect employee skills, only ease of market breakthrough
  
• Ability to pause work items, especially needed for new endless marketing task
  
• Add ctrl+S autosave keyboard shortcut and saving indicator in top right corner
  
• Software categories should not have direct reference to RandomNameGenerator, to enable modding random name generators without changing any software
  
• Turn CompanyType "Types" into Dictionary<string, string[]> to enable AI companies making software in several specific categories for the same software type, null = all categories
  
• Added save file backup option to combat corrupted save files, enabled by default
  
• Instantiate product windows separately, but keep track using ID
  
• Move product window action buttons below list
  
• Add current floor level indicator
  
• Make parking spaces selectable and add ability to limit use to anyone, staff, cooks, delivery, guests or employees
  
• Right click priority buttons on tasks to instantly max or min priority
  
• Server temperature is now scaled with its current load
  
• Added staff tooltips to explain their function
  
• Skyscraper prettification
  
• Replaced payment list in insurance window with terminations list, which also shows role, team and years hired
  
• Only show one sick message per day
  
• Made Big Server Rack mod part of main game
  
• All newspaper articles are now saved forever and divided by date in the interface
  
• Made UI.xml parsing recursive so there's is no limit to tree depth when localizing to allow more freedom for categorizing
  
• Balanced contract work a little
  
• Re-did color grading and tonemapping
  
• City environment should be default
  
• One software feature can now have different specializations depending on whether the actual work is art or code based, using <ArtCategory>

Fixes

• Employee idle button not hidden in build mode
  
• Upgrading a server on a table with chairs would not delete table
  
• Fixed employees not taking vacation if sent on education after they went home
  
• Bug in save system that would sometimes fail to load huge saves with a buffer size exception
  
• Added in extra file flushes despite closing stream, since some save games seemed to be missing data after exactly 1 or 2 megabytes written
  
• Employees should note their work day length and which hour they arrived at work and base their departure time on that, instead of always leaving at a set hour, since that could be 24 hours away if they arrive very late due to traffic congestion
  
• Screen zooms when scrolling with cursor between work tasks
  
• Fixed tangents of walls near windows and doors so that they don't appear to be misaligned in certain light conditions at certain angles
  
• Insurance window auto corrects value of input text if non standard currency is used
  
• Insurance account and company weren't associated when loading a previously saved game, breaking stock worth calculations
  
• Accidentally made lowest bid instead of highest when no one on market can afford stock
  
• Fixed furniture getting squished in rare circumstances due to comparing squared magnitude with non squared magnitude
  
• Fixed bugs in WindowManager.AddElementToElement
  
• Removed duplicate entries from UI.xml localization file

Optimizations

• Enumerate employee thoughts, problems and affectors, should not localize them each frame and save to file
  
• Move in-world warning icons from OnGUI to Canvas to increase performance and to have them behind the HUD
  
• Replaced most masks with RectMask2D
  
• Make a IconFillBar and use it to replace the current reputation stars
  
• Changed A* path node connection list to hashset
  
• Optimized skyscraper mesh generation code

Currently software quality is always horrible. This is fixed for the next patch.

Fixed not being able to promote from alpha and credits window not working

• ALPHA 8 SAVES ARE NOT COMPATIBLE WITH ALPHA 9
  
• TUTORIALS ARE BROKEN
  
• GAME BALANCE MAY BE EXTREMELY BROKEN
  
• PLEASE GIVE FEEDBACK
  
• MODDING: FEATURE CATEGORIES(SPECIALIZATIONS) ARE NOW MANDATORY AND FURNITURE UPGRADE SYSTEM HAS CHANGED AGAIN, SEE http://softwareinc.coredumping.com/wiki/index.php?title=Furniture_Modding#Replacements.2Fupgrading

• Alpha and beta phases have been overhauled to replace progressbar system with peer review system
  
• Pre-marketing has been divided into separate actions and post-marketing is now an endless money sink, with different requirements per software category
  
• Product support is now endless and demand is dynamic based on product success
  
• Project quality calculation has been overhauled
  
• Overhauled product review article generator to give better feedback
  
• Overhauled project management to be assigned per leader and more managable
  
• Overhauled distribution mechanics
  
• Added printers for player to print physical copies of products

• Price discounts
  
• Subsidiaries
  
• Tutorial updates
  
• Press build newspaper review (Forgot to add this)
  
• Monthly bill breakdowns
  
• More product printers

Changes

• Ability to develop software for in-development OSs
  
• Instead of forcing the player to chose what to do when they lose, give them 24 hours to rectify the situation, so they have more options than just loans, insurance or stocks
  
• Updated to Unity 5.5.0f3
  
• Save files are now compressed and only take up about 20% of what they used to
  
• Added an extra wall toggle where only outer walls and furniture facing camera are hidden
  
• Changed upgrade categorization for furniture to use group names instead of direct furniture names, so furniture A can be upgraded to furniture B if furniture A's UpgradeFrom or UpgradeTo equals furniture B's UpgradeTo name, so mods don't break when new furniture is added
  
• Removed mini-games
  
• Contract window should have same Team/Artist/Design count information as design document window
  
• Are you sure you want to promote from design warning
  
• Have info button on dev work items to show the info in the design document
  
• Make multi select window scrollable, so server options become manageable
  
• Difficulty should not affect employee skills, only ease of market breakthrough
  
• Ability to pause work items, especially needed for new endless marketing task
  
• Add ctrl+S autosave keyboard shortcut and saving indicator in top right corner
  
• Software categories should not have direct reference to RandomNameGenerator, to enable modding random name generators without changing any software
  
• Turn CompanyType "Types" into Dictionary<string, string[]> to enable AI companies making software in several specific categories for the same software type, null = all categories
  
• Added save file backup option to combat corrupted save files, enabled by default
  
• Instantiate product windows separately, but keep track using ID
  
• Move product window action buttons below list
  
• Add current floor level indicator
  
• Make parking spaces selectable and add ability to limit use to anyone, staff, cooks, delivery, guests or employees
  
• Right click priority buttons on tasks to instantly max or min priority
  
• Server temperature is now scaled with its current load
  
• Added staff tooltips to explain their function
  
• Skyscraper prettification
  
• Replaced payment list in insurance window with terminations list, which also shows role, team and years hired
  
• Only show one sick message per day
  
• Made Big Server Rack mod part of main game
  
• All newspaper articles are now saved forever and divided by date in the interface
  
• Made UI.xml parsing recursive so there's is no limit to tree depth when localizing to allow more freedom for categorizing
  
• Balanced contract work a little
  
• Re-did color grading and tonemapping
  
• City environment should be default
  
• One software feature can now have different specializations depending on whether the actual work is art or code based, using <ArtCategory>

Fixes

• Employee idle button not hidden in build mode
  
• Upgrading a server on a table with chairs would not delete table
  
• Fixed employees not taking vacation if sent on education after they went home
  
• Bug in save system that would sometimes fail to load huge saves with a buffer size exception
  
• Added in extra file flushes despite closing stream, since some save games seemed to be missing data after exactly 1 or 2 megabytes written
  
• Employees should note their work day length and which hour they arrived at work and base their departure time on that, instead of always leaving at a set hour, since that could be 24 hours away if they arrive very late due to traffic congestion
  
• Screen zooms when scrolling with cursor between work tasks
  
• Fixed tangents of walls near windows and doors so that they don't appear to be misaligned in certain light conditions at certain angles
  
• Insurance window auto corrects value of input text if non standard currency is used
  
• Insurance account and company weren't associated when loading a previously saved game, breaking stock worth calculations
  
• Accidentally made lowest bid instead of highest when no one on market can afford stock
  
• Fixed furniture getting squished in rare circumstances due to comparing squared magnitude with non squared magnitude
  
• Fixed bugs in WindowManager.AddElementToElement
  
• Removed duplicate entries from UI.xml localization file

Optimizations

• Enumerate employee thoughts, problems and affectors, should not localize them each frame and save to file
  
• Move in-world warning icons from OnGUI to Canvas to increase performance and to have them behind the HUD
  
• Replaced most masks with RectMask2D
  
• Make a IconFillBar and use it to replace the current reputation stars
  
• Changed A* path node connection list to hashset
  
• Optimized skyscraper mesh generation code

Hey lovely people! I’m so sorry for the wait.

For the sake of transparency, here’s a breakdown of what’s been going on since the last release status update.

As I mentioned in the last update, I moved offices on the 15th of December, which is to say me and my wife moved to a new place, since our lease was up. I don’t actually have a separate office somewhere, I work from home, but it seems appropriate to call it that, given the context.

I was supposed to have an internet connection on the 20th of December, but there was a mix up at the post office, which made the delivery guy send my modem back to the ISP, assuming it was sent to the wrong address. I called the ISP on 3 separate occasions, until I figured out what went wrong and I finally got the modem on the 30th of December. Meanwhile, I’ve been bedridden with a fever for the last couple of weeks of December, so pretty much no work has taken place between my last update and January.

I read all your comments while I was sick and panicked. It seems like a lot of you are really hyped for alpha 9, even though I specifically told you I haven’t made huge advancements. What the heck. I scrambled to add new distribution mechanics, so hopefully it doesn’t end up being a big disappointment. I just finished these mechanics, as you can see in the gifs, and I’m basically back to where I was in December: Still need some balancing work and to write reviews for the review generator. I’m already pretty close to finishing the balancing work. Hopefully writing reviews won’t take too long, even though I’m quite bad at it. I’m not going to give an ETA at this point, as that hasn’t worked out for me these last couple of months.


Having a bunch of separate physical and digital stores has been removed and instead you always sell physical and digital copies of your products. Selling any digital copies in the 80s will be tough, but the market evens out around 2014. You have to actually buy physical copies of your products to sell, or you will only be selling your products digitally. You can buy printers and hire couriers to take over the printing process yourself and possibly earn a little extra by printing for your competitors at a lower price. You can still open an online store to sell your products digitally, but you must make distribution deals with each company separately, taking into account how much of the market you sell to and how big the client is.

Got really sick + no internet = no work done in December. Panicked about expectations, overhauled and improved distribution mechanic, thereby delaying alpha 9 even further. Alpha 9 shouldn’t be too long now.

Hey lovely people! I’m so sorry for the wait.

For the sake of transparency, here’s a breakdown of what’s been going on since the last release status update.

As I mentioned in the last update, I moved offices on the 15th of December, which is to say me and my wife moved to a new place, since our lease was up. I don’t actually have a separate office somewhere, I work from home, but it seems appropriate to call it that, given the context.

I was supposed to have an internet connection on the 20th of December, but there was a mix up at the post office, which made the delivery guy send my modem back to the ISP, assuming it was sent to the wrong address. I called the ISP on 3 separate occasions, until I figured out what went wrong and I finally got the modem on the 30th of December. Meanwhile, I’ve been bedridden with a fever for the last couple of weeks of December, so pretty much no work has taken place between my last update and January.

I read all your comments while I was sick and panicked. It seems like a lot of you are really hyped for alpha 9, even though I specifically told you I haven’t made huge advancements. What the heck. I scrambled to add new distribution mechanics, so hopefully it doesn’t end up being a big disappointment. I just finished these mechanics, as you can see in the gifs, and I’m basically back to where I was in December: Still need some balancing work and to write reviews for the review generator. I’m already pretty close to finishing the balancing work. Hopefully writing reviews won’t take too long, even though I’m quite bad at it. I’m not going to give an ETA at this point, as that hasn’t worked out for me these last couple of months.


Having a bunch of separate physical and digital stores has been removed and instead you always sell physical and digital copies of your products. Selling any digital copies in the 80s will be tough, but the market evens out around 2014. You have to actually buy physical copies of your products to sell, or you will only be selling your products digitally. You can buy printers and hire couriers to take over the printing process yourself and possibly earn a little extra by printing for your competitors at a lower price. You can still open an online store to sell your products digitally, but you must make distribution deals with each company separately, taking into account how much of the market you sell to and how big the client is.

Got really sick + no internet = no work done in December. Panicked about expectations, overhauled and improved distribution mechanic, thereby delaying alpha 9 even further. Alpha 9 shouldn’t be too long now.

The bad news is that I won't be able to release alpha 9 before I move offices, but the good news is that all functionality for the initial testing release is complete, I just need to polish everything up, as all timing and balancing is completely broken at this point, and then I need to write some sentences for the new review generator.

I'll be packing down all dev equipment tomorrow and I'll be setting up the new office during the weekend. My ISP has confirmed I should have an internet connection on the 20th of December, so I'll be able to pick up work in the last couple of weeks of December. Hopefully I'll be have something ready during late December, but if not, I'll most definitely have something ready early January.

The bad news is that I won't be able to release alpha 9 before I move offices, but the good news is that all functionality for the initial testing release is complete, I just need to polish everything up, as all timing and balancing is completely broken at this point, and then I need to write some sentences for the new review generator.

I'll be packing down all dev equipment tomorrow and I'll be setting up the new office during the weekend. My ISP has confirmed I should have an internet connection on the 20th of December, so I'll be able to pick up work in the last couple of weeks of December. Hopefully I'll be have something ready during late December, but if not, I'll most definitely have something ready early January.

It's now been almost 2 months since the last update. I'd like to say I've made huge advancements, but the truth is these have probably been the slowest months in the development of Software Inc. A lot of non-programming related work has come up during these past months. I'll be moving to a new location on the 15th of December and development should pick up again and be back to full speed from January. The good news is that the amazing support I've received from you has allowed me to work in my company for at least another 4 years, which means I'll be able to finish Software Inc. in good time and start working on a new game as well.

I'm currently done with the bulk of gameplay changes for Alpha 9. There's still a lot of polishing, bug fixes and balancing to be done, before it's ready for release. As always, I'll be doing a testing release initially, to make sure things are relatively balanced and bug free. I'm hoping to have this initial release out before I move to the new location, but if I don't make it before the 15th December, it'll most likely be out in January.

To make sure you get this release earlier, I've decided to cut some features for the initial release, but I'll make sure to “make room” for the features in the save files, so they'll be out by the time Alpha 9 is done.


Development no longer works by filling up a progress bar, instead the game now differentiates between code and art progress, and the actual quality of the work done. There's no longer a clear indication of when a product is done, because that doesn't really make sense in the real world and it makes the gameplay a little too simple. To find out how good your product is during development, you'll have to do “peer reviews”, by letting your employees, other companies or clients look over your alpha and rate it.


The pre-marketing tasks have been split up and now force you to make timing based decisions. Pre-marketing will attract followers to your product, which represent guaranteed purchases, but you should be vigilant to not lose them again, and make sure you deliver a worthy product, on time. When you product is released, there is no longer a set amount of marketing you have to do each month, instead you'll just have to throw enough employees and money at it, to make sure your product has better exposure than your competitors.


Support will now play a bigger role in the game. Support tickets will dynamically follow active user count, there will be no clear indication when support has finished and bugs will have an impact on your sales in the form of refunds.


Project management has been fixed and completely overhauled. You can have more teams per phase, you can queue up your own projects at will and design and development phases can interleave. There's no longer any education needed and project management tasks are assigned directly to a leader, who must actively work to accumulate “action points” to advance projects.

There's also been a bunch of optimizations, bug fixes and improvements. Notably, you can now develop products for operating systems that are still in development.

The initial release of Alpha 9 will not include these features, but I expect them to be out and compatible with Alpha 9 saves.

• Subsidiaries, which lets you buy out a company without closing them down.
  
• Discounts, the ability to change the price after release and simulate the effects of this.
  
• Individual distribution channels will be removed from the game and replaced with a much simpler system, that will still allow the player to host their own online distribution channel. The player will also have to pay to have physical copies printed of each product.
  
• The ability for the player to print their own or other companies' products, which will involve building product printers and hiring transportation.

It's now been almost 2 months since the last update. I'd like to say I've made huge advancements, but the truth is these have probably been the slowest months in the development of Software Inc. A lot of non-programming related work has come up during these past months. I'll be moving to a new location on the 15th of December and development should pick up again and be back to full speed from January. The good news is that the amazing support I've received from you has allowed me to work in my company for at least another 4 years, which means I'll be able to finish Software Inc. in good time and start working on a new game as well.

I'm currently done with the bulk of gameplay changes for Alpha 9. There's still a lot of polishing, bug fixes and balancing to be done, before it's ready for release. As always, I'll be doing a testing release initially, to make sure things are relatively balanced and bug free. I'm hoping to have this initial release out before I move to the new location, but if I don't make it before the 15th December, it'll most likely be out in January.

To make sure you get this release earlier, I've decided to cut some features for the initial release, but I'll make sure to “make room” for the features in the save files, so they'll be out by the time Alpha 9 is done.


Development no longer works by filling up a progress bar, instead the game now differentiates between code and art progress, and the actual quality of the work done. There's no longer a clear indication of when a product is done, because that doesn't really make sense in the real world and it makes the gameplay a little too simple. To find out how good your product is during development, you'll have to do “peer reviews”, by letting your employees, other companies or clients look over your alpha and rate it.


The pre-marketing tasks have been split up and now force you to make timing based decisions. Pre-marketing will attract followers to your product, which represent guaranteed purchases, but you should be vigilant to not lose them again, and make sure you deliver a worthy product, on time. When you product is released, there is no longer a set amount of marketing you have to do each month, instead you'll just have to throw enough employees and money at it, to make sure your product has better exposure than your competitors.


Support will now play a bigger role in the game. Support tickets will dynamically follow active user count, there will be no clear indication when support has finished and bugs will have an impact on your sales in the form of refunds.


Project management has been fixed and completely overhauled. You can have more teams per phase, you can queue up your own projects at will and design and development phases can interleave. There's no longer any education needed and project management tasks are assigned directly to a leader, who must actively work to accumulate “action points” to advance projects.

There's also been a bunch of optimizations, bug fixes and improvements. Notably, you can now develop products for operating systems that are still in development.

The initial release of Alpha 9 will not include these features, but I expect them to be out and compatible with Alpha 9 saves.

• Subsidiaries, which lets you buy out a company without closing them down.
  
• Discounts, the ability to change the price after release and simulate the effects of this.
  
• Individual distribution channels will be removed from the game and replaced with a much simpler system, that will still allow the player to host their own online distribution channel. The player will also have to pay to have physical copies printed of each product.
  
• The ability for the player to print their own or other companies' products, which will involve building product printers and hiring transportation.