Hey fellow gamers !

We’re thrilled to announce that City Game Studio has been selected to be part of The Game Awards for Games Who Can’t Afford the Game Awards (TGAGWCAGA) 2024 Showcase!

TGAGWCAGA is a brand new showcase designed to spotlight incredible indie games that truly deserve more attention—while also poking a bit of fun at the exclusivity of The Game Awards.

Catch our trailer during the TGAGWCAGA showcase:

• Date: Friday, December 13
  
• Time: 5:00 PM UTC / 6:00 PM CET / 12:00 PM ET

Subscribe to the YouTube channel and don’t miss it!
https://www.youtube.com/@TGAGWCAGA


Take care
Xavier aka Binogure

Hello everyone!

A small studio director update, because sometimes he took his boss role a bit too seriously.

I fixed some bugs that could be a bit frustrating. The biggest one affected those of you with more than 2,000 employees (yes, you're monsters!). Actually, when you tried to automatically assign or withdraw your employees, the game pretended everything was fine but was silently crashing. That's fixed!

The studio director also had some management issues:
- He would sulk when you moved or lost an employee. He'd freeze up, like a boss who doesn't know what to do without their favorite employee.
- Same thing when you sold the last desk of the last studio. He didn't know where to sit anymore, so he just stopped doing anything.
- And now, when you try to sell a busy studio, you'll get a nice explanation tooltip instead of radio silence.

That's all for today! I'm still working on the big upcoming update, promise!

Have a great gaming session
Xavier aka Binogure

Hello folks!

I'm thrilled to announce that City Game Studio has been selected to participate in the Zero Carbon Quest festival on Steam from November 25th to December 2nd, 2024. As a solo developer creating a game about building successful gaming companies, it feels pretty meta to be thinking about my own studio's environmental impact!

For those wondering - yes, I've been tracking my carbon emissions during development (turns out my coffee machine is responsible for 73% of it... just kidding!). But in all seriousness, I'm proud to be part of this initiative alongside other environmentally conscious developers.

While City Game Studio isn't about saving the planet (unless you count saving virtual game companies from bankruptcy), I believe that every studio, big or small, has a role to play in making our industry more sustainable. After all, you wouldn't ignore your game's budget in the simulation, so why ignore my real-world carbon budget?

During the festival, you'll have the chance to grab City Game Studio at a special discount. Join me in showing that independent game development can be both creative and environmentally responsible.

Hope to see you there, and remember - in both game development and sustainability, every small action counts!

Take Care,
Xavier aka Binogure

P.S. No pixels were harmed in the making of this announcement. 🎮

Hello folks!

As the year comes to an end, I've got some exciting news! City Game Studio will be joining the Zero Carbon Quest festival with a special 40% discount. From December 9th at 3 PM CET until December 16th at 4 PM CET, you can grab your chance to become a virtual game industry mogul while being kind to your wallet (and the planet)!

Fun fact: I calculated that the energy used to develop this discount announcement could be recovered by the savings of just three players buying the game instead of running their own game studios in real life. Now that's what I call efficient resource management!

Whether you're dreaming of building the next big gaming empire or just want to experience the thrill of game development from the comfort of your energy-efficient computer, now is the perfect time to dive in.

Take Care,
Xavier aka Binogure

P.S. This message was powered by sustainable coffee ☕

Hello everyone!

I'm thrilled to announce the biggest update yet for City Game Studio!
Since the Steam Daily Deal, I've been working hard to deliver an improved version of the game.

This announcement summarizes the major changes in v1.21, so for those who've been following the devlogs these past months, feel free to skip to the end for future announcements.

I'll be honest, I was scared about implementing this feature. I thought: "If we automate game creation, there's nothing left, people will get bored and realize I'm a fraud".
Well, I implemented the studio director anyway, and it turned out to be the complete opposite. Where I used to find the game becoming repetitive, the studio director now automates all the tedious parts, leaving you with just the fun stuff. That is, managing your video game company. And I'm so glad you pushed me to implement this feature. It brings a new dimension to the game, and I think you'll love it.

So, the studio director manages one or several studios. You decide the game genre, platform, game engine, target audience, marketing campaigns, and many other aspects of game creation. The best part is that the studio director not only makes the games but also handles game reports and updates for the games they've produced.

Obviously, a studio director takes their cut, which can amount to millions of dollars if your game generates lots of money. But in return, you only need to focus on managing your company. That means designing your next game console, building new studios, hiring staff. All while keeping an eye on the digital store. Since studio directors appear from 1985 onwards, this gives you more freedom to do other things in City Game Studio! It's already giving me ideas for the future, especially about evolving the studio director's role, maybe allowing them to handle game ports or even remakes. But before we get there, I want you to try it out and give me your feedback!

Yes, City Game Studio keeps evolving, and so does its interface. v1.20.0 removed some panels and options from the game, which greatly simplified the interface. Now v1.21.0 brings back what was removed without cluttering things up. Basically, you'll find almost the same buttons, but no more. Among the most requested changes was the ability to max out game discounts with a single click. Also, knowing whether a console discount would bankrupt you.

Another change concerns the studio list. You can now control your studios directly from this list. This means you can detach all employees from a single studio without having to display it. Same goes for assigning employees or sending them on vacation. In the end, I even removed a button that nobody used and was just taking up space. Another detail, the icon on the left of the studio is blue when the studio is working on a project, and black when it's idle. I think you'll like this change too.

I've fixed tons. Like, really tons. I fixed huge bugs, like the game crashing when upgrading a company with thousands of employees. Now it's instantaneous and doesn't crash.
Another crash affected some Windows machines when launching the game for the first time, and another was due to malware that could infiltrate certain program DLLs. Just for these, I wanted to make a dedicated bug fixes section.

Another fix concerns consoles you want to use for your games. When signing an exclusivity contract, the game would give you wrong information, saying you couldn't develop games because you didn't have the console license. But actually, you couldn't develop games on certain consoles because of exclusivity contracts. It was a silly bug, but easy to fix.

There was also an annoying bug with game music. When you published a game, specific music would play to signal the publication. Well, this only worked for about 20 minutes, then the music would stop playing. So, I completely rewrote the game's jukebox to make it work all the time, and this definitely fixed other small bugs too.

There were also plenty of display bugs, with some elements going off-screen, others being unreadable, and those have been fixed too.

This will be the last point of this update. The letters Ï and ï weren't showing up in Ukrainian, and that's fixed. Now, here's the list of languages improved by the community, meaning by you:

• Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese
  
• Italian
  
• English
  
• Polish
  
• Spanish
  
• Simplified Chinese
  
• Russian
  
• Czech

I spent three days implementing all the fixes you made directly on GitHub. And honestly, you're amazing, the game will only be more perfect.
I know some people are asking for City Game Studio to be translated into Arabic, however the game doesn't support RTL languages (read right to left). And I don't plan to add this for now.

Here we are already, talking about the next update... well, time flies.
Long story short, the next update will focus on studio furnishing and consoles. I plan to add the ability to create studio templates, allowing you to copy/paste studio layouts. And for consoles, I plan to reintroduce manufacturing cost reduction based on the number of consoles sold. That's what I have planned. As for the release date, it will be at the end of Q1 2025, around March/April.

Thank you all for reading, for buying City Game Studio, for leaving reviews, and for helping make it what it is today.
If you have any comments, go ahead, I'll be happy to read them.

Have a great day
Xavier aka Binogure

Hey fellow game dev enthusiasts!

Since launching City Game Studio in 2019, this passion project has grown beyond my wildest dreams. As a solo developer (except for our awesome musician Conciliator!), I've poured countless hours into crafting and refining every aspect of the game - from the intricate management systems to the tiniest UI improvements.

Through thick and thin, your feedback has shaped CGS into what it is today. We've added numerous features like custom console creation, digital store management, and even the ability to crack competitors' games (legally in-game, of course! 😉).
Today, I'm excited to share two things:

• I've just released a brand new trailer showcasing everything CGS has become
  
• City Game Studio is eligible for Steam's "Labor of Love" award!

If you've enjoyed watching your virtual game empire grow, implementing dubious marketing strategies, or simply bankrupting your competitors, consider nominating us. This nomination would validate these years of dedication to making CGS the best game dev tycoon it can be.

Thank you for being part of this incredible journey!

Take care
Xavier aka Binogure

Hi everyone!

This week I've been working hard on the game's interface, improving translations thanks to you, and fixing bugs! I want to mention that all changes come from your feedback.

You pointed out some interface gaps, so I continued working on improving it. I've refreshed the studio list design. Now, active studios have a blue icon while idle ones have a black icon next to their name. This makes it easy to see at a glance which studios are busy and which ones are slacking.

I've also removed another menu icon. This icon wasn't well explained and barely used, even by me. Now, from the studio list, you can directly update computers, servers, assign all employees to a studio, or remove all employees from a specific studio. These small changes greatly improve the gaming experience.

I also worked on the digital store interface to make it a bit prettier, but it's not worth dwelling on.
Another feedback was about translations, and as always, you were right. There were translation issues and you fixed them!

Many languages have been corrected, including English, Italian, Simplified Chinese, and Russian, to name a few. If you're interested in helping translate City Game Studio into your native language, join the Discord server - there's a button directly on City Game Studio's Steam page with all the information.
As for bug fixes, it's the same story. Thanks to your in-game feedback form reports, I've fixed quite a few. There was an issue with game console licenses, which should now be fixed. I say "should" because I couldn't reproduce the problem on my machines, so I had to inspect the code and believe it was a display issue.

Well, that's the work accomplished this past week. And I have great news for you - the current game version is almost ready for release. Version 1.21.0 will launch on December 9th, 2024. In just under 10 days. During these 10 days, I'll focus on fixing as many bugs as possible while also preparing for a festival.

City Game Studio has been selected for the Zero Carbon festival - I think it's the oldest game participating in this festival. And that makes me a bit proud. So I need to prepare many things: the update announcement, promotions (the game will be on sale during the festival), refreshing the Steam page a bit. The screenshots are somewhat dated. I'll probably make a new trailer too. The latest one uses a game version from 2021, and in 3 years, City Game Studio has evolved quite a bit.

That's all from me, thank you for reading,
If you have any comments, advice, or suggestions, don't hesitate - I always enjoy reading them
Take care,
Xavier aka Binogure

Default version of the game, we want to make sure to have a chance to discover bugs and adjust the balancing, to give you the best game experience possible.

Access the Unstable branch on Steam by right clicking City Game Studio in your Steam library, and then select ‘Properties’. In the new window, select ‘Betas’. The Unstable branch should now be available for you to choose from.

Please leave any feedback you may have in the appropriate channel in our Discord, or in the subforum on Steam.

As always, remember to be considerate towards players not partaking in the Unstable, in case they want to avoid spoilers.

Please make sure to make backups of your save files before playing.

• Unlocked in 1985 only if you can already hire staff
  
• Studio director can publish updates on game when it shouldn't be able to do so
  
• Studio director don't take into account exclusivity deal

• Pause on auto-publish should not get triggered by the studio director
  
• Studio director keeps trying to work even if they've been fired or quit
  
• Pause / unpause sound is played even if the game isn't paused/unpaused
  
• Studio button doesn't update from black to blue or to black again

• Rework the custom platform game catalog (score is ugly, and show off our games better)

Default version of the game, we want to make sure to have a chance to discover bugs and adjust the balancing, to give you the best game experience possible.

Access the Unstable branch on Steam by right clicking City Game Studio in your Steam library, and then select ‘Properties’. In the new window, select ‘Betas’. The Unstable branch should now be available for you to choose from.

Please leave any feedback you may have in the appropriate channel in our Discord, or in the subforum on Steam.

As always, remember to be considerate towards players not partaking in the Unstable, in case they want to avoid spoilers.

Please make sure to make backups of your save files before playing.

• When closing the game, the game has 10 seconds top to close itself, afterward it kills itself.

• Studio list sohw a black information icon if the studio is idle, it's blue otherwise
  
• Add assign employees to the studio options
  
• Add withdraw all employees to the studio options
  
• Add fix everything to the studio options
  
• Add upgrade computers to the studio options
  
• Add upgrade servers to the studio options
  
• Add send to vacation to the studio options
  
• Rework the digital store cut slider

• Going through the marketing campaign panel without having any game to makret leads to a silent bug
  
• Using the studio director before the 80s might create weird games
  
• Fix an issue that shows the wrong tooltip when trying to make a game while having a manufacturer exclusivity that doens't match the selected platform

• Improve it translations (thanks to frankieorabona)
  
• Improve en translations (thanks to kappasims and PwaDesu)
  
• Improve pt-BR translations (thanks to menguele)
  
• Improve pl translations (thanks to olsza)
  
• Improve es translations (thanks to GianluPlay)
  
• Improve ru translations (thanks to AftarNik)
  
• Improve cz tranlsations (thanks to MasterStudioCZ)
  
• Improve zh translations (thanks to caiyundc)

Hey everyone!
The next update is moving forward by leaps and bounds, and I've already started working on other small things!

It's been months that I've been telling you about it, and if you're on the unstable branch of Steam, you've been able to test it and see that it's working pretty well.
Does the studio director make City Game Studio an idle game? Far from it. But does it make it a full-fledged tycoon? Certainly!

Moreover, in the latest version, release candidate 8, I added a tutorial to the studio director. I think this concludes the current version of the studio director.
Afterwards, once v1.21.0 is published to the general public, I'll review your feedback to know how to improve this feature. Then I'll move on to v1.22.0, which will be dedicated to studio furnishing!

With v1.20.0, I reduced the number of panels in City Game Studio, in order to make the interface more pleasing to the eye and less cluttered. This seems to have worked, but there's a small problem. Some information has disappeared, and I've barely started reintroducing it. I'm doing this gradually, to have a coherent and intuitive interface.

For example, in v1.21.0, a button is present at the bottom left, next to the studio names, which allows you to sell studios, but also to buy them, if you rent them, to destroy or rename them. I'm happy with this result, but an important piece of information is still missing: the summary of your company. This summary includes important information such as the total number of employees, the number of games produced, or the best game of your company.

Nevertheless, I think I have time to reintroduce this information before the publication of v1.21.0. However, I will surely not have time to introduce anything else for this version.
I want to dedicate a few days to creating a new trailer to celebrate the release of v1.21.0. Rest assured, v1.22.0 will continue to reintroduce important things, such as the reduction of console manufacturing costs based on the number of units sold.

There you go, thank you for reading me.
If you have ideas for the next trailer, don't hesitate, I'm all ears.
Meanwhile, see you next week.

Xavier aka Binogure