City Game Studio: Your Game Dev Adventure Begins news & patch notes

Hey everyone! City Game Studio is part of the SIMFEST 2026 event and I'm super excited about it!

A tycoon/simulation that has been updated for almost 10 years!

• Creates legendary games that everyone will want to play
• Buys out all your competitors one by one (muahahaha)
• Creates YOUR own game consoles that will be hits
• Manages an empire with multiple studios across the entire city
• Becomes a legend of the gaming industry

The SIMFEST Event

To celebrate this event, City Game Studio is on sale! It's the perfect time to jump into this simulation and start YOUR journey as a gaming industry manager ! Whether you're a new player curious to discover the game, or you've been hesitating for a while, this is really the right time to take the plunge. The game continues to evolve with regular updates every three months, and the community is super active!

Why City Game Studio?

Because it's the only management game that combines:

• Creating and managing video game studios
• Exploring and building a city
• The ability to create your own consoles
• A studio director who automates game creation (so you can focus on strategy)
• Real competitive AI that will give you a run for your money
• Twitch integration where your viewers become your employees!

In short, it's your chance to be the hero of YOUR gaming empire!

Bonus

If you buy the game now, you'll discover the latest major update v1.27 which completely changed the game with competitors now creating their own consoles. It's serious stuff, trust me! Have an excellent gaming session! Xavier aka Binogure You can also checkout the DLC: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2893100/City_Game_Studio_Supporter_pack/

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.

Changelog - rc2

Digital store

• Interface rework, not final, still a work in progress. The feature list is going to get reworked

Interface

• Improve the devkit panel

Cheatcode

• You can now always win Game of the Year: `game always-win-goty 1` to enable

Market research

• Fix bug with targeted audience research (leading to crash)

Previous Changelog

Market Research

• Remove the market research genre type
• Remove the market research platform type
• Add a new market research type, a unique one, that helps you research everything tied to a single genre, from platforms to themes. It's straightforward and streamlined.
• Take into account previous market research so we don't research the same items more than once.

Interface

• Improve the construction panel

Misc

• Can adjust your own salary

HR

• Add the ability to send your staff on vacation if they're not happy

Mod

• When there's a lot of mods to load, the game doesn't show anything until the first mod is loaded.
• When playing offline, don't load the mods (since the mods are not available).

Bugfix

• When playing offline, don't disable or load mods, simply don't use them until Steam is back online
• Fix crash when closing the game
• Fix the pagination buttons (on the staff panel)
• Fix the tooltip when furnishing items

Hey everyone! It's already Friday! Time flies at such a crazy speed, I barely notice it. Anyway, I didn't slack off this week! Let me tell you all about it right away.

This week's recap

I spent the week on a single task. One of the most important features of this update. It's the rework of market research. That little panel that was a bit complicated and hard to read, which lets you know which genre goes with which theme and which platform, etc., well that slightly confusing panel has been completely reworked and simplified. From now on, market research works a lot like creating a game. You pick a genre, one or more themes, one or more platforms, a marketing manager, and off you go, you can start your research. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31019566/034ea554e71b2a50fa55f1c88475e45a90cbd3ea.gif The upside is that it's simple to fill out, and you don't get lost in the type of market research anymore. On top of that, I fixed quite a few bugs related to market research. Including one that let you run the same research multiple times. Not great, so it's fixed now!

What's coming next

Right now, I'm going to work on the cheat codes to add a long-awaited command related to Game of the Year. I want you to be able to win the Game Of The Year by cheating. I'd been meaning to do it for ages, and I'll get it done next week. After that, I plan to start on the digital store and give it a proper rework. The idea is to make it visible and dynamic. I want it to feel like a game within the game, in a way. With its own complete financial report, features you can toggle on/off based on demand... I'd also like you to be able to dedicate servers to the digital store. But that will be for a future release candidate. I think RC2 is already pretty packed as it is. That's already the end of this devlog, thank you for reading, See you next week, In the meantime, take care of yourselves 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.

Changelog - rc1

Market Research

• Remove the market research genre type
• Remove the market research platform type
• Add a new market research type, a unique one, that helps you research everything tied to a single genre, from platforms to themes. It's straightforward and streamlined.
• Take into account previous market research so we don't research the same items more than once.

Previous Changelog

Interface

• Improve the construction panel

Misc

• Can adjust your own salary

HR

• Add the ability to send your staff on vacation if they're not happy

Mod

• When there's a lot of mods to load, the game doesn't show anything until the first mod is loaded.
• When playing offline, don't load the mods (since the mods are not available).

Bugfix

• When playing offline, don't disable or load mods, simply don't use them until Steam is back online
• Fix crash when closing the game
• Fix the pagination buttons (on the staff panel)
• Fix the tooltip when furnishing items

Hello everyone! It had already been a few weeks since I last wrote a devlog! I honestly missed it, and I'm quite happy to come back and talk to you directly! Since v1.27.0, I've released 4 updates that mainly came to fix stability issues, but also added a bit of content. But that's not what we're talking about today, since this is the first devlog for v1.28, which is expected around mid-September.

This week's recap

I've been working hard, even though I was busy with a lot of other projects, I still got a lot done and added features that were needed and requested. The very first one concerns your first employee's salary, that's you! From now on, you can adjust it and set it to 0. This way, you'll save some money at the start of the game. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31019566/658c3139234b4d3f3ee37f3aaf1a6d9b915311f1.gif The second change concerns human resources. They let you manage employees' schedules, as well as salary raises. Now, human resources will also be able to manage employee happiness. There's a small gauge available that you can adjust. This gauge lets you set the minimum happiness level for your employees before they go on vacation. In other words, if you set the gauge to 50% happiness, and your employees are at 45% happiness, they'll automatically go on vacation. But if they're at 60% happiness, they won't go on vacation, unless their schedule allows it or they're exhausted. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31019566/77c1d1b3f5854f8992c486136f4e71b01bc5fe94.png On top of that, I made a few fixes related to mod loading, as well as the interface. In particular, the page that lets you build buildings, I've slightly reworked it, and it should be clearer now.

What's coming next

That's it for what's been done, and now for what's coming next. I have a big project ahead: the digital store. I want to completely rework it to make it easier to use, and give you more decision-making power. I have other things planned too, like giving the marketing manager the ability to put games on sale automatically. Or reworking market research. In short, v1.28 will add depth to the game's secondary features. Something to make the biggest City Game Studio players happy! I hope you like this plan, I know not all your suggestions are in there, and that's normal since I prioritize ideas based on their potential improvements to the game! That's all from me, thank you for reading, See you next week for the next devlog, In the meantime, take care of yourselves 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.

Changelog - rc0

Interface

• Improve the construction panel

Misc

• Can adjust your own salary

HR

• Add the ability to send your staff on vacation if they're not happy

Mod

• When there's a lot of mods to load, the game doesn't show anything until the first mod is loaded.
• When playing offline, don't load the mods (since the mods are not available).

Bugfix

• When playing offline, don't disable or load mods, simply don't use them until Steam is back online
• Fix crash when closing the game
• Fix the pagination buttons (on the staff panel)
• Fix the tooltip when furnishing items

Changelog - v1.27.4

Misc

• Optimized post-mortem event generation
• Optimized the top competitors and companies list

Bugfix

• Fixed a sharp drop in console sales when reaching certain sales thresholds for no reason
• Fixed a crash when canceling a game port that had already been canceled, causing the event to trigger twice
• Fixed competitors not being sorted correctly when buying stocks
• Fixed an incorrect tax calculation order in reports: taxes were applied before the studio director's cut instead of after, which inflated the cut you received if you used an accountant. Net income was correct, but taxed income and computed taxes were wrong. Existing reports won't be corrected retroactively, but new ones will compute correctly

Changelog - v1.27.3

Studio Director

• Added the ability to cancel updates made by a studio director

Bugfix

• Fixed detaching a studio director not deactivating them, causing them to keep creating empty projects
• Fixed competitor stocks not being sorted correctly
• Fixed a crash when a studio director tried to update a game that no longer exists
• Fixed a crash when a studio director tried to port a game that no longer exists
• Fixed a crash when loading an excessive number of mods simultaneously
• Fixed a bug when an update was queued for a game that no longer exists

Changelog - v1.27.2

Platforms

• Gamestation 2 is now online compatible
• Grantendo DS is now online compatible
• Gamestation GSP is now online compatible

Localization

• Improved Italian translations

Bugfix

• Fixed a random crash occurring during gameplay

Changelog - v1.27.1

Platforms

• Defined correct game genre matches for the following platforms, which were all defaulting to "Ok match":
  • Grantendo Swap 2
  • Handboy Colors
  • Grey TV
  • Telsun Gunpowder
  • Teamdock
  • Linux Kernel 4+

Localization

• Improved Ukrainian translations (thanks to deltverden)

Bugfix

• Fixed an issue with tips that was preventing updates and balancing from applying

Hey everyone!! So where are we at with City Game Studio? The last major update rebalanced the game, improved performance across the board, and honestly left things in a pretty great spot. So what's even left to add in v1.27? I mean, v1.26 already felt close to perfect. What could possibly make you want to fire up a new playthrough? Turns out, quite a lot.

The Annual Financial Report

Brand new, fresh out of the oven. At the start of every new year, the game now generates a financial report summing up the year that just passed. The whole point is to know whether you're raking in the cash or burning through your budget chasing that next AAA release that's going to finally take your company to the next level. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31019566/319347314d385dc724974bcf7eeb53615d8f5b7c.png Inside you'll find a quick overview of the year, broken down by sector. Did your games actually make money? Are you overspending on game engine development? You'll also get a few handy stats in there, like your current headcount.

The Interface

I don't think there's been a single major update without some interface improvements, and v1.27 is no exception. The changes are pretty significant if you're used to how things worked before, but don't worry, you won't feel lost. If anything, things should feel more natural. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31019566/8c9db705dd0b72db5845ada11da98620c62e2ffa.png The bottom menu got a small cleanup. I removed a button that used to let you repair coffee machines, but since coffee machines can no longer break down, that button had been sitting there doing absolutely nothing. I also reorganized the remaining buttons to make the whole bar feel more intuitive. While I was in there, I added tooltips to your money display and fan count. Hover over either one and you'll see the exact figures.

Quality of Life

A handful of small but welcome additions throughout the game. For example, when you're attending conventions, there's now a button that lets you assign the same game to every booth in one click. A small thing that saves a surprising amount of clicking. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31019566/68ece972ff19555096062322293478af7f23400d.gif I also added the ability to change which studio is assigned to a game update. And since DLCs are a thing too, that same option is now available for DLCs as well. That side of things should feel a lot more manageable now. You may also notice the calendar looks a bit different. Instead of displaying month names in English, they now show up in whatever language you're playing in. Only the first three letters are shown, but that should be more than enough. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31019566/e21cb30a32579df906319df28cf571bbb9653361.png On the comfort side of things, the hacking mini-game that pops up when you publish a game can now be skipped for $1,000,000. Not a huge amount at that stage of the game, and it gives people who just don't enjoy that mini-game a way out.

The Studio Director

A few tweaks here too. First up, when it comes to game ports, you can now filter consoles by market share, which makes the whole decision a lot easier. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31019566/8f4d8cd605c4e3b26294c4edbef3ee51043679d6.png And the big one: the Studio Director can now work on game sequels. You stay in full control though. If you'd rather keep things to original titles only, you can tell them to stick to that.

Balancing

Contracts have been significantly reworked. On easy mode, you probably won't notice much difference. But crank up the difficulty and contracts will become noticeably scarcer. There's also no longer an infinite supply of them. Once you've cleared the available contracts, you'll need to wait a few months for new ones to come in. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31019566/2fbf07219c3cbed41ea49be6e5ed6c64fc933d21.png On the server side, a new server tier unlocks from 2020 onwards, capable of handling twice the player load of the previous generation. To reflect that, the servers that were available from 2007 are now retired by 2020. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31019566/5967e867ecdb6b97a93e4a7b13fa1cc544ed03d9.png Competitors will now generate game offers that actually make sense. No more unreasonable demands with impossible genre and platform combinations. Offers are now logical and well constructed. While I was in there, I also cleaned up the interface for that panel to bring it in line with the rest of the game.

Minor Changes and Bug Fixes

The game name generator has been reworked to produce more varied names, sometimes quite long ones. There's also a brand new company name generator. When you start a new game, you'll get some fun and sometimes ridiculous suggestions to play around with. A few bugs got squashed too. There was an issue preventing manual upgrades of individual employee computers and servers. The global button worked fine, but doing it one by one was broken. That's fixed now. The sixth difficulty level wasn't always showing up in the difficulty selection screen. If you didn't know there was a sixth one, well, now you know why you never saw it. Number formatting now adapts to your region. Firing a Studio Director no longer leaves their active projects hanging. The company logo editor was slow to update while drawing. That's been smoothed out. Studios are now sorted alphabetically. The Studio Director could sometimes generate games with a missing or malformed name. Fixed. If you were loading a save from version 0.29.0 or older, the migration to v1.27.0 wasn't completing correctly. This bug dates back to around 2020, but some players come back to the game after years away, and it would be a shame for them to lose their progress. That's now properly handled.

A New DLC on the Way

I think that covers most of the big changes. There are plenty more in the build itself, so the best way to discover them is to start a new game. As some of you know, I've been working on a DLC: the Supporter Pack. The idea is to add extra cosmetic content that doesn't affect gameplay at all. Think new company logos, small loading screen animations, slightly different magazine layouts for game reviews, and additional furniture for your studios. That's about it. If that sounds like your kind of thing, here's the link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2893100/City_Game_Studio_Supporter_pack/?utm_source=2026Q2

What's Next

Outside of this update, v1.28 is already in progress. The focus will be a redesign of the digital store along with expanded specialist powers. Marketing managers will be able to run proper marketing campaigns, and HR will get better tools for managing staff. I think that covers everything I wanted to share. Thank you to each and every one of you for playing City Game Studio. Hitting 70,000 sales is something that genuinely means a lot to me. As usual, see you next week for the first v1.28.0 devlog. Take care of yourselves. Xavier aka Binogure

Hello everyone! I caved this week, I don't know about you, but I just wanted to do a little more. So I went back and reworked part of the algorithm that handles your games' progress to make it more efficient.

This Week's Recap

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31019566/2ad8f70677ed0dd5693ce0b7e77ecb8cd0b71169.png I shouldn't have, and yet I did it anyway. I reworked how City Game Studio handles games that are currently in development. You know, that small panel on your left where the bubbles float off to. Those panels have been slightly reworked. Visually nothing has changed, but under the hood I had to overhaul everything to make sure the panels only process bubbles that are actually meant for them. Because yes, previously, every time an employee generated a design point, every single game in development would check whether that point was theirs. Now there's a dispatcher that handles routing points to the right games. For smaller saves, the difference won't be huge. But if you've got dozens of games in development at once, you're going to feel it. Smoother and much more enjoyable. As you asked, I've removed long-clicks. Some buttons required you to hold the click to confirm an action. It turns out that's really not practical on the Steam Deck. And since I've replaced most of those buttons with confirmation panels anyway, they're no longer needed.

What's Coming Next

Right now I'm preparing the v1.27 launch. I'm going through your bug reports and fixing what I can. I'm also collecting your feedback for v1.28. I touched on this in the last devlog, but to keep it simple: I'm still gathering your suggestions for v1.28, even though I already have a pretty good idea of what it'll contain. Anyway, v1.27 is coming very soon, so I'm heading back to fixing the remaining bugs and getting the launch ready! Short one this week, but see you next week! Take care of yourselves in the meantime, 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.

Changelog - rc12

Optimization

• Significantly improved performance when developing hundreds of games simultaneously. Signals are now routed through a single dispatcher instead of being broadcast to every active game panel individually

Interface

• Removed the long-click confirmation button (the one requiring you to hold a click to confirm an action)

Bugfix

• Fixed particles not being attracted to the correct panel when creating a custom platform

Previous changes

Feature

• Added a new server item to furnish your studio
• Added the ability to change the studio assigned to an update
• Added the ability to change the studio assigned to a DLC

Interface

• Added the hype value of announced games directly to the in-dev game panel
• Improved the server panel readability
• The yearly report now displays data by year instead of by month
• Fixed the yearly report not computing all values correctly
• Fixed the yearly report not taking dark mode into account
• Added a button to sort the studio list from the main view
• Reworked the bottom menu for better clarity and usability
• Reworked the discontinue game panel to display more figures, organized from income to expenses
• Release panel: adjusted the tooltip to correctly show trade publishing information when working with a publisher
• Reworked the studio customization panel
• Studio decoration: added a new wall type
• Conventions: Added a button to change all game slots at once
• Updated tab panel button colors for more intuitive navigation
• Added tooltips to the Game of the Year panel showing the full game name, company name, and game score
• Added more colors to the studio director panels
• Added a tooltip showing your exact currency amount when hovering over the currency display
• Added a tooltip showing your exact fanbase count when hovering over the fanbase display

Publishing Offers

• Reworked publishing offers to make them more interesting: theme/genre and genre/platform matches now give a proper boost
• Capped simultaneous publishing offers at 24, as generating more is resource intensive
• Fixed the platform panel not updating when viewing a publishing offer
• Fixed currency formatting in publishing offers

Localization

• Months are now translated
• Scientific units are now translated

Cheat Codes

• Added the ability to set the custom platform score
• Added a 'man' command that lists all existing cheat codes
• Added a cheat code to instantly complete a DLC or an update
• Added a cheat code to set the number of points produced for a game: `game set-produced-point game_id 99999 99999 99999`

Balancing

• Set the maximum number of units sold for custom platforms to 1.25 billion
• Servers from 2007 are no longer available after 2020
• The number of generated contracts depends on the difficulty.
• Based on the total number of contract to generate, it won't generate more contracts per month than the total number of contracts to generate. It might take up to 3 months to generate the total number of contracts

Studio director

• When porting a game, select the platform's market share (minimum)
• Studio directors now prioritize continuing existing IPs over creating new ones

Mod

• Add a new attribute to the difficulty mod to balance the number of contract to generate.

Hack Mini-game

• Added a button to pay $1,000,000 to skip the hacking mini-game permanently

Misc

• Reworked the number formatting algorithm to be more efficient and to support localization
• Added a new in-game event: a Covid-related sales boost
• Fixed DLC installation and detection
• Reworked the game name generator
• Added a company name generator

Banker

• The banker can now offer a state loan in exchange for a 10% tax increase that lasts 10 years.
• The banker can now offer to buy your shares to help you avoid bankruptcy

Bugfix

• Fixed a bug in the studio view preventing the computer upgrade panel from showing on the desk itself
• Fixed a bug when manually upgrading a server
• Fixed a save game corruption caused by a 6th difficulty slot becoming selectable after starting and canceling a new game. Selecting it worked once, but the dynamic difficulty data was never loaded, corrupting the save on subsequent loads
• When firing a Studio director it doesn't cancel it's project (game, update or gameport).
• Contract: When no studio were available, there was no tooltip shown on the Start button
• Contract: When unlocking a platform, the start button was not refreshed accordingly
• Fixed number formatting for Chinese players
• Fixed traditional publishing not computing income and expenses correctly
• Fixed studios not being sorted by name
• Fixed failed contracts being counted as income instead of expenses in the annual report
• Fixed failed games being counted as income instead of expenses in the annual report
• Fixed the exit menu in dark mode where some labels were difficult to read
• Refactored the sprite loader to prevent rare random crashes at start-up
• Fixed a crash when fast-loading a save game that was saved into a new slot
• Fixed significant lag when drawing your own company logo
• Fixed the starting currency not being properly reset when using advanced start in sandbox mode
• Fixed a freeze or unresponsive game caused by an invalid game name or game ID when saving
• Fixed games created by the studio director occasionally having no name due to a save game bug. A fallback now assigns a random name in that case
• Fixed a crash when attending conventions and using the button to set the same game across all slots, which was attempting to use non-existent seats

Hey everyone! It's hot out and the news is hot too, yes, as hot as the weather! Hope you're surviving this sweltering heat. I had time to polish up the next version by squashing bugs and tweaking the interface just a little more.

This Week's Recap

Several of you sent me the same piece of feedback: the money display doesn't change. Basically, when you're ultra-rich, you can no longer see your balance move. I'm working within the space dedicated to money in the interface, so I added the exact value in a tooltip. Now, if you want to know exactly how much money you have, just hover over it. And since the same problem could come up for your fanbase, I applied the same fix there too. So you can see at any moment exactly how many fans you have. That covers the small interface improvements. Now let's talk about fixes, because there are quite a few. As I mentioned, we're getting close to the v1.27 release, so I've been spending my time going through bug reports. And I owe you an apology for the save bug. For 2 weeks, the unstable branch wouldn't let you save at all, and I should have caught that sooner. It's fixed now and works properly. That bug was causing all sorts of issues, like the game freezing your machine for example. On top of that, there was another bug related to conventions. If you attend a convention with 4 games, everything works fine. But if you attend one with a smaller stand, things went wrong. Nothing too serious, a single condition fix sorted it out quickly.

What's Coming Next

I'll keep going through the bug reports, which should be much fewer after this update. And if all goes well, I'll do an optimization pass to make the game run a bit smoother. I actually have an idea for how to improve the studio director's performance, and it should have a positive impact on the whole game. So if everything goes to plan, I'll be working on that next week. For those wondering: v1.27 launches on June 13, 2026, with a discount. So if you're thinking about buying the game, add it to your wishlist, the deal will be worth it. And if you don't want to wait or want to show your support, you can already buy it right now. Thanks for reading. I know this devlog is a bit shorter, but as I said, I spent a lot of time debugging and going through bug reports rather than adding new features. Either way, have a great week, see you next week. Take care of yourselves in the meantime, 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.

Changelog - rc11

Interface

• Added a tooltip showing your exact currency amount when hovering over the currency display
• Added a tooltip showing your exact fanbase count when hovering over the fanbase display

Bugfix

• Fixed the starting currency not being properly reset when using advanced start in sandbox mode
• Fixed a freeze or unresponsive game caused by an invalid game name or game ID when saving
• Fixed games created by the studio director occasionally having no name due to a save game bug. A fallback now assigns a random name in that case
• Fixed a crash when attending conventions and using the button to set the same game across all slots, which was attempting to use non-existent seats

Previous changes

Feature

• Added a new server item to furnish your studio
• Added the ability to change the studio assigned to an update
• Added the ability to change the studio assigned to a DLC

Interface

• Added the hype value of announced games directly to the in-dev game panel
• Improved the server panel readability
• The yearly report now displays data by year instead of by month
• Fixed the yearly report not computing all values correctly
• Fixed the yearly report not taking dark mode into account
• Added a button to sort the studio list from the main view
• Reworked the bottom menu for better clarity and usability
• Reworked the discontinue game panel to display more figures, organized from income to expenses
• Release panel: adjusted the tooltip to correctly show trade publishing information when working with a publisher
• Reworked the studio customization panel
• Studio decoration: added a new wall type
• Conventions: Added a button to change all game slots at once
• Updated tab panel button colors for more intuitive navigation
• Added tooltips to the Game of the Year panel showing the full game name, company name, and game score
• Added more colors to the studio director panels

Publishing Offers

• Reworked publishing offers to make them more interesting: theme/genre and genre/platform matches now give a proper boost
• Capped simultaneous publishing offers at 24, as generating more is resource intensive
• Fixed the platform panel not updating when viewing a publishing offer
• Fixed currency formatting in publishing offers

Localization

• Months are now translated
• Scientific units are now translated

Cheat Codes

• Added the ability to set the custom platform score
• Added a 'man' command that lists all existing cheat codes
• Added a cheat code to instantly complete a DLC or an update
• Added a cheat code to set the number of points produced for a game: `game set-produced-point game_id 99999 99999 99999`

Balancing

• Set the maximum number of units sold for custom platforms to 1.25 billion
• Servers from 2007 are no longer available after 2020
• The number of generated contracts depends on the difficulty.
• Based on the total number of contract to generate, it won't generate more contracts per month than the total number of contracts to generate. It might take up to 3 months to generate the total number of contracts

Studio director

• When porting a game, select the platform's market share (minimum)
• Studio directors now prioritize continuing existing IPs over creating new ones

Mod

• Add a new attribute to the difficulty mod to balance the number of contract to generate.

Hack Mini-game

• Added a button to pay $1,000,000 to skip the hacking mini-game permanently

Misc

• Reworked the number formatting algorithm to be more efficient and to support localization
• Added a new in-game event: a Covid-related sales boost
• Fixed DLC installation and detection
• Reworked the game name generator
• Added a company name generator

Banker

• The banker can now offer a state loan in exchange for a 10% tax increase that lasts 10 years.
• The banker can now offer to buy your shares to help you avoid bankruptcy

Bugfix

• Fixed a bug in the studio view preventing the computer upgrade panel from showing on the desk itself
• Fixed a bug when manually upgrading a server
• Fixed a save game corruption caused by a 6th difficulty slot becoming selectable after starting and canceling a new game. Selecting it worked once, but the dynamic difficulty data was never loaded, corrupting the save on subsequent loads
• When firing a Studio director it doesn't cancel it's project (game, update or gameport).
• Contract: When no studio were available, there was no tooltip shown on the Start button
• Contract: When unlocking a platform, the start button was not refreshed accordingly
• Fixed number formatting for Chinese players
• Fixed traditional publishing not computing income and expenses correctly
• Fixed studios not being sorted by name
• Fixed failed contracts being counted as income instead of expenses in the annual report
• Fixed failed games being counted as income instead of expenses in the annual report
• Fixed the exit menu in dark mode where some labels were difficult to read
• Refactored the sprite loader to prevent rare random crashes at start-up
• Fixed a crash when fast-loading a save game that was saved into a new slot
• Fixed significant lag when drawing your own company logo

Hey everyone! This time I kept my promises, and I know that's going to make you happy! This week I worked hard, and I'm glad to tell you this version is bringing a bunch of changes you're going to love for sure!

This Week's Recap

First up: the studio director. I've been talking about this for weeks, and this time it's done. The studio director can now make sequels. They can do it, but by default they won't. It's up to you to decide whether they work on a sequel or something else. You keep control, but it's one more option to manage. So I added some colors there too, to avoid having a big wall of text that might put some players off. At least now it's colorful! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31019566/e4cea959ac56af60ee94c8ccf2a7d2d44fc80fa5.png Another change, not visual at all, but you'll notice it anyway. I'm talking about the company name generator. When you start a new game, you have to pick your name and your company name. Up until now, using the name generator for your company was actually using the game name generator. Not ideal, so I built a dedicated company name generator that should be a much better fit. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31019566/1ac397e6ee51bedb67e2b7a0356e00f210688993.png And since I was already in there, and many of you have been asking for this for years, it's done. I've completely reworked the game name generator. Or rather, I evolved it. It'll generate slightly longer names, but with more variety. You'll still find the old names, but new ones are also showing up. I tested it and tweaked it a bit, it works pretty well! Beyond those changes, I also made a few small interface tweaks to make things clearer. Like adding tooltips to the Game of the Year award panel, so you have more information at a glance.

What's Coming Next

Since you've been sending me a lot of interesting feedback, I've made quite a few changes to my TODO... my roadmap. It's gotten a bit more packed, and I'm planning to add meaningful info about employees who leave the company. Instead of a generic email, you'll get the real reasons that led them to quit. I'm planning to do this as part of a broader HR rework, as I mentioned last week. Anyway, there's no guarantee I'll have time to do everything, since v1.27.0 is coming out soon and I want it to be an ultra-stable, well-functioning release. So I'll mostly be testing the game before adding anything new. Alright, that's already the end of this devlog. And I have to thank you, because you genuinely impressed me. Last week you were close to 300 wishlists on the DLC, today you're over 400! I honestly didn't expect that many, but it's exactly what I was hoping for! Thank you for your enthusiasm and your support! See you next week for a new devlog. Take care of yourselves in the meantime, 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.

Changelog - rc10

Misc

• Reworked the game name generator
• Added a company name generator

Interface

• Added tooltips to the Game of the Year panel showing the full game name, company name, and game score
• Added more colors to the studio director panels

Studio Director

• Studio directors now prioritize continuing existing IPs over creating new ones

Previous changes

Feature

• Added a new server item to furnish your studio
• Added the ability to change the studio assigned to an update
• Added the ability to change the studio assigned to a DLC

Interface

• Added the hype value of announced games directly to the in-dev game panel
• Improved the server panel readability
• The yearly report now displays data by year instead of by month
• Fixed the yearly report not computing all values correctly
• Fixed the yearly report not taking dark mode into account
• Added a button to sort the studio list from the main view
• Reworked the bottom menu for better clarity and usability
• Reworked the discontinue game panel to display more figures, organized from income to expenses
• Release panel: adjusted the tooltip to correctly show trade publishing information when working with a publisher
• Reworked the studio customization panel
• Studio decoration: added a new wall type
• Conventions: Added a button to change all game slots at once
• Updated tab panel button colors for more intuitive navigation

Publishing Offers

• Reworked publishing offers to make them more interesting: theme/genre and genre/platform matches now give a proper boost
• Capped simultaneous publishing offers at 24, as generating more is resource intensive
• Fixed the platform panel not updating when viewing a publishing offer
• Fixed currency formatting in publishing offers

Localization

• Months are now translated
• Scientific units are now translated

Cheat Codes

• Added the ability to set the custom platform score
• Added a 'man' command that lists all existing cheat codes
• Added a cheat code to instantly complete a DLC or an update
• Added a cheat code to set the number of points produced for a game: `game set-produced-point game_id 99999 99999 99999`

Balancing

• Set the maximum number of units sold for custom platforms to 1.25 billion
• Servers from 2007 are no longer available after 2020
• The number of generated contracts depends on the difficulty.
• Based on the total number of contract to generate, it won't generate more contracts per month than the total number of contracts to generate. It might take up to 3 months to generate the total number of contracts

Studio director

• When porting a game, select the platform's market share (minimum)

Mod

• Add a new attribute to the difficulty mod to balance the number of contract to generate.

Hack Mini-game

• Added a button to pay $1,000,000 to skip the hacking mini-game permanently

Misc

• Reworked the number formatting algorithm to be more efficient and to support localization
• Added a new in-game event: a Covid-related sales boost
• Fixed DLC installation and detection

Banker

• The banker can now offer a state loan in exchange for a 10% tax increase that lasts 10 years.
• The banker can now offer to buy your shares to help you avoid bankruptcy

Bugfix

• Fixed a bug in the studio view preventing the computer upgrade panel from showing on the desk itself
• Fixed a bug when manually upgrading a server
• Fixed a save game corruption caused by a 6th difficulty slot becoming selectable after starting and canceling a new game. Selecting it worked once, but the dynamic difficulty data was never loaded, corrupting the save on subsequent loads
• When firing a Studio director it doesn't cancel it's project (game, update or gameport).
• Contract: When no studio were available, there was no tooltip shown on the Start button
• Contract: When unlocking a platform, the start button was not refreshed accordingly
• Fixed number formatting for Chinese players
• Fixed traditional publishing not computing income and expenses correctly
• Fixed studios not being sorted by name
• Fixed failed contracts being counted as income instead of expenses in the annual report
• Fixed failed games being counted as income instead of expenses in the annual report
• Fixed the exit menu in dark mode where some labels were difficult to read
• Refactored the sprite loader to prevent rare random crashes at start-up
• Fixed a crash when fast-loading a save game that was saved into a new slot
• Fixed significant lag when drawing your own company logo

Hello everyone! Well, I worked and worked on your suggestions and ideas, but not on the studio director. That said, I had to put some time into integrating the upcoming DLC, because a lot of you wishlisted it. It went from 100 wishlists to 273 by the time I'm writing this. That put a bit of pressure on me, so I got to work on it, there you go.

This Week's Recap

Since I opened this devlog talking about the DLC, I might as well get into the in-game changes. I ran into some trouble using Steam's API to check whether a player owns the DLC or not. I found a solution that seems to work well, but it took me a full day and two separate Steam accounts to test everything properly. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31019566/c77506e2c3c64630630362c4762975b7b408222f.gif Moving on. The banker. Last week I mentioned the new option that lets you avoid bankruptcy in exchange for an additional 10% tax on your income. Based on your feedback, I've changed it so the tax only lasts 10 years instead of being permanent. So if you manage to survive 10 years after your first bankruptcy, you'll be entitled to a second one, YAY! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31019566/17ea1b20666704431199f83ed4e33ce568dd4250.gif And since I was already working on the banker, I took the opportunity to add another option: selling shares to avoid bankruptcy. Fair warning though, because selling shares is a double-edged sword. You have to sell all your shares, and whatever they're worth, your debt gets wiped clean. So if you're sitting on billions in shares but only owe a few million, this isn't your best move. But if you only have around fifty shares, then it might actually be worth it! I also did a little work on the interface. Nothing major, just an improvement to make the UI easier to read. Basically, a small animation now plays on the selected button in the left panel, and I added some colors to help you find your bearings more easily. It's purely cosmetic, I could easily have bundled it into the DLC, but I felt it adds too much in terms of readability to lock it behind one. So it's for everyone!

What's Coming Next

So, what's it been now, a month?! Yeah, it must be about a month that I've been saying I need to work on the studio director to make it focus on sequels. On top of that, I want to work on the marketing manager so they can automatically put your games on sale. And I also want to work on HR so they send your unhappiest employees on vacation before they quit (very useful when playing on the highest difficulty levels). I also want to revisit the digital store to make it more dynamic and interactive. Anyway, there's still plenty to improve in City Game Studio, lots of things, but not much time left before v1.27.0 ships. So it's possible some features will get pushed to September 2026. Alright, that's already the end, thanks for reading. See you next week, Take care of yourselves in the meantime, 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.

Changelog - rc9

Banker

• The banker can now offer to buy your shares to help you avoid bankruptcy
• Adjusted the state loan to last 10 years instead of being permanent

Interface

• Updated tab panel button colors for more intuitive navigation

Misc

• Fixed DLC installation and detection

Bugfix

• Fixed significant lag when drawing your own company logo

Previous changes

Feature

• Added a new server item to furnish your studio
• Added the ability to change the studio assigned to an update
• Added the ability to change the studio assigned to a DLC

Interface

• Added the hype value of announced games directly to the in-dev game panel
• Improved the server panel readability
• The yearly report now displays data by year instead of by month
• Fixed the yearly report not computing all values correctly
• Fixed the yearly report not taking dark mode into account
• Added a button to sort the studio list from the main view
• Reworked the bottom menu for better clarity and usability
• Reworked the discontinue game panel to display more figures, organized from income to expenses
• Release panel: adjusted the tooltip to correctly show trade publishing information when working with a publisher
• Reworked the studio customization panel
• Studio decoration: added a new wall type
• Conventions: Added a button to change all game slots at once

Publishing Offers

• Reworked publishing offers to make them more interesting: theme/genre and genre/platform matches now give a proper boost
• Capped simultaneous publishing offers at 24, as generating more is resource intensive
• Fixed the platform panel not updating when viewing a publishing offer
• Fixed currency formatting in publishing offers

Localization

• Months are now translated
• Scientific units are now translated

Cheat Codes

• Added the ability to set the custom platform score
• Added a 'man' command that lists all existing cheat codes
• Added a cheat code to instantly complete a DLC or an update
• Added a cheat code to set the number of points produced for a game: `game set-produced-point game_id 99999 99999 99999`

Balancing

• Set the maximum number of units sold for custom platforms to 1.25 billion
• Servers from 2007 are no longer available after 2020
• The number of generated contracts depends on the difficulty.
• Based on the total number of contract to generate, it won't generate more contracts per month than the total number of contracts to generate. It might take up to 3 months to generate the total number of contracts

Studio director

• When porting a game, select the platform's market share (minimum)

Mod

• Add a new attribute to the difficulty mod to balance the number of contract to generate.

Hack Mini-game

• Added a button to pay $1,000,000 to skip the hacking mini-game permanently

Misc

• Reworked the number formatting algorithm to be more efficient and to support localization
• Added a new in-game event: a Covid-related sales boost

Banker

• The banker can now offer a state loan in exchange for a 10% tax increase that lasts 10 years.

Bugfix

• Fixed a bug in the studio view preventing the computer upgrade panel from showing on the desk itself
• Fixed a bug when manually upgrading a server
• Fixed a save game corruption caused by a 6th difficulty slot becoming selectable after starting and canceling a new game. Selecting it worked once, but the dynamic difficulty data was never loaded, corrupting the save on subsequent loads
• When firing a Studio director it doesn't cancel it's project (game, update or gameport).
• Contract: When no studio were available, there was no tooltip shown on the Start button
• Contract: When unlocking a platform, the start button was not refreshed accordingly
• Fixed number formatting for Chinese players
• Fixed traditional publishing not computing income and expenses correctly
• Fixed studios not being sorted by name
• Fixed failed contracts being counted as income instead of expenses in the annual report
• Fixed failed games being counted as income instead of expenses in the annual report
• Fixed the exit menu in dark mode where some labels were difficult to read
• Refactored the sprite loader to prevent rare random crashes at start-up
• Fixed a crash when fast-loading a save game that was saved into a new slot

Hey everyone! This week I made solid progress on v1.27.0, I even had time to work on things that weren't originally planned. As usual... I didn't make progress on the studio director. I know I need to do it and I will, just not this week. But I've got some nice things to show you!

This Week's Recap

Let's start with the interface, and yes, City Game Studio's interface changes all the time, but don't worry, it's a light touch and you won't get lost. And this particular change is going to make your life easier. It's a new button for conventions that lets you swap the game being showcased across all your convention stands at once. I tested it myself, it's really handy and works great! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31019566/c2be1ebb7fb04075185f1eee56ce71a1fae1175a.png Beyond the interface, the banker got a small improvement too. From now on, if you go bankrupt, the banker will offer you a new option to avoid shutting down for good. But it comes at a cost. The banker will offer to buy back your debt in exchange for an additional 10% tax on all your income. And 10% is a lot, especially on the highest difficulty levels where you're already taxed at over 50%. So this option is great for surviving early-game bankruptcy, but it's expensive in the long run. On a slightly more cheerful note, the game gets a little easier thanks to a new in-game event arriving in March 2020. You've probably guessed it, it's tied to the global pandemic. This event gives a 21% visibility boost to all your games for 24 months starting from March 2020. Told you it would make you happy!

What's Coming Next

I have plenty of ideas swirling around, but starting next week I'm fully focusing on the studio director. I'll be adding the option for them to make game sequels. I also have another idea related to HR. It would be great if HR could also manage employee happiness. The unhappiest employees would be sent on vacation before they decide to quit the company entirely. What do you think of that idea? Feel free to leave a comment, I'm very much open to your feedback!

A Quick Closing Note

This is a first, and I think it'll interest you, especially if you've been playing City Game Studio for years. I've started working on a small DLC. It only adds cosmetic content, nothing gameplay-altering. Just a few additions that should make you happy: new magazines, new logos, new furniture, and a few other little things. Feel free to add it to your wishlist if you're interested: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2893100/City_Game_Studio_Supporter_pack/?utm_source=CGS-04052026 Alright, that's already the end of this devlog. Thanks for reading! See you next week, Take care of yourselves in the meantime, 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.

Changelog - rc8

Interface

• Conventions: Added a button to change all game slots at once

Banker

• The banker can now offer a state loan in exchange for a 10% tax increase

Misc

• Added a new in-game event: a Covid-related sales boost

Bugfix

• Fixed a crash when fast-loading a save game that was saved into a new slot

Previous changes

Feature

• Added a new server item to furnish your studio
• Added the ability to change the studio assigned to an update
• Added the ability to change the studio assigned to a DLC

Interface

• Added the hype value of announced games directly to the in-dev game panel
• Improved the server panel readability
• The yearly report now displays data by year instead of by month
• Fixed the yearly report not computing all values correctly
• Fixed the yearly report not taking dark mode into account
• Added a button to sort the studio list from the main view
• Reworked the bottom menu for better clarity and usability
• Reworked the discontinue game panel to display more figures, organized from income to expenses
• Release panel: adjusted the tooltip to correctly show trade publishing information when working with a publisher
• Reworked the studio customization panel
• Studio decoration: added a new wall type

Publishing Offers

• Reworked publishing offers to make them more interesting: theme/genre and genre/platform matches now give a proper boost
• Capped simultaneous publishing offers at 24, as generating more is resource intensive
• Fixed the platform panel not updating when viewing a publishing offer
• Fixed currency formatting in publishing offers

Localization

• Months are now translated
• Scientific units are now translated

Cheat Codes

• Added the ability to set the custom platform score
• Added a 'man' command that lists all existing cheat codes
• Added a cheat code to instantly complete a DLC or an update
• Added a cheat code to set the number of points produced for a game: `game set-produced-point game_id 99999 99999 99999`

Balancing

• Set the maximum number of units sold for custom platforms to 1.25 billion
• Servers from 2007 are no longer available after 2020
• The number of generated contracts depends on the difficulty.
• Based on the total number of contract to generate, it won't generate more contracts per month than the total number of contracts to generate. It might take up to 3 months to generate the total number of contracts

Studio director

• When porting a game, select the platform's market share (minimum)

Mod

• Add a new attribute to the difficulty mod to balance the number of contract to generate.

Hack Mini-game

• Added a button to pay $1,000,000 to skip the hacking mini-game permanently

Misc

• Reworked the number formatting algorithm to be more efficient and to support localization

Bugfix

• Fixed a bug in the studio view preventing the computer upgrade panel from showing on the desk itself
• Fixed a bug when manually upgrading a server
• Fixed a save game corruption caused by a 6th difficulty slot becoming selectable after starting and canceling a new game. Selecting it worked once, but the dynamic difficulty data was never loaded, corrupting the save on subsequent loads
• When firing a Studio director it doesn't cancel it's project (game, update or gameport).
• Contract: When no studio were available, there was no tooltip shown on the Start button
• Contract: When unlocking a platform, the start button was not refreshed accordingly
• Fixed number formatting for Chinese players
• Fixed traditional publishing not computing income and expenses correctly
• Fixed studios not being sorted by name
• Fixed failed contracts being counted as income instead of expenses in the annual report
• Fixed failed games being counted as income instead of expenses in the annual report
• Fixed the exit menu in dark mode where some labels were difficult to read
• Refactored the sprite loader to prevent rare random crashes at start-up

Hey everyone! A long week has just wrapped up and I've been hard at work on City Game Studio! I've been working on the interface and pushing a few fixes, all of this is on Steam's unstable branch, so if you want to test it, you know what to do!

This Week's Recap

I'm currently working on a new trailer for City Game Studio. Nothing too dramatic, but I felt the old one was a bit cluttered and hard to follow. The new one is aimed at a broader audience discovering the game for the first time. That said, based on your feedback, I'm keeping the old trailer right next to the new one for now, you seem to prefer it by a pretty wide margin. Now let's talk changes. On the interface side, I reworked the bottom menu. There was a button sitting there that had become completely useless, since machines can no longer break down, there's no need for a repair button anymore. So I took the opportunity to rearrange the buttons based on how often they're actually used. I hope you'll like it. Either way, I think it's cleaner than before. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31019566/ec030489c15f3c13bae416ed056f3e4342859670.png I also added a button to sort studios from that same bottom menu, giving you even more freedom. And since we're on the topic of freedom, I also added a new wall type for customizing your studios. It's not a huge change, but more customization options are always welcome, right? On the publishing offers side, I fixed a few things too. Some information wasn't displaying correctly when a game was pulled from the shelves. So I took the opportunity to review and reorganize that whole panel properly, no more display errors. Well, unless I missed one, obviously. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31019566/0e878cbd76715b7e90c2b8b2f46c58b44cb3fd50.png There were also quite a few other fixes, mostly around the annual financial report. But I also dug up a piece of code that I think dates back to 2017, which could cause the game to crash when loading a save. The kind of thing that would immediately put off new players if it happened to them. Anyway, this release is more about polish than new features, since I've also been reworking the game's trailer. Something I've wanted to do for a long time. Let me know what you think in the comments, you can see both trailers side by side, so feel free to tell me which one you prefer.

What's Coming Next

I know I keep repeating myself here, but I can't help it: I haven't made progress on studio directors. I do need to get them working on game sequels and I will. But I also want to revisit a few interfaces and improve the banker. On top of that, these latest changes gave me an idea related to the digital store. I think it's going to be the main focus of v1.28, with a partial (maybe complete) redesign to add more constraints to it. Because a well-managed digital store generates a lot of money, I think it needs a dedicated support team to manage it properly. I'll tell you more about that this summer. That's it from me, this post ran a little longer than usual, but that's because I had a lot to cover. See you next week, take care of yourselves in the meantime, 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.

Changelog - rc7

Interface

• Reworked the bottom menu for better clarity and usability
• Reworked the discontinue game panel to display more figures, organized from income to expenses
• Release panel: adjusted the tooltip to correctly show trade publishing information when working with a publisher
• Reworked the studio customization panel
• Studio decoration: added a new wall type

Bugfix

• Fixed failed contracts being counted as income instead of expenses in the annual report
• Fixed failed games being counted as income instead of expenses in the annual report
• Fixed the exit menu in dark mode where some labels were difficult to read
• Refactored the sprite loader to prevent rare random crashes at start-up

Previous changes

Feature

• Added a new server item to furnish your studio
• Added the ability to change the studio assigned to an update
• Added the ability to change the studio assigned to a DLC

Interface

• Added the hype value of announced games directly to the in-dev game panel
• Improved the server panel readability
• The yearly report now displays data by year instead of by month
• Fixed the yearly report not computing all values correctly
• Fixed the yearly report not taking dark mode into account
• Added a button to sort the studio list from the main view

Publishing Offers

• Reworked publishing offers to make them more interesting: theme/genre and genre/platform matches now give a proper boost
• Capped simultaneous publishing offers at 24, as generating more is resource intensive
• Fixed the platform panel not updating when viewing a publishing offer
• Fixed currency formatting in publishing offers

Localization

• Months are now translated
• Scientific units are now translated

Cheat Codes

• Added the ability to set the custom platform score
• Added a 'man' command that lists all existing cheat codes
• Added a cheat code to instantly complete a DLC or an update
• Added a cheat code to set the number of points produced for a game: `game set-produced-point game_id 99999 99999 99999`

Balancing

• Set the maximum number of units sold for custom platforms to 1.25 billion
• Servers from 2007 are no longer available after 2020
• The number of generated contracts depends on the difficulty.
• Based on the total number of contract to generate, it won't generate more contracts per month than the total number of contracts to generate. It might take up to 3 months to generate the total number of contracts

Studio director

• When porting a game, select the platform's market share (minimum)

Mod

• Add a new attribute to the difficulty mod to balance the number of contract to generate.

Hack Mini-game

• Added a button to pay $1,000,000 to skip the hacking mini-game permanently

Misc

• Reworked the number formatting algorithm to be more efficient and to support localization

Bugfix

• Fixed a bug in the studio view preventing the computer upgrade panel from showing on the desk itself
• Fixed a bug when manually upgrading a server
• Fixed a save game corruption caused by a 6th difficulty slot becoming selectable after starting and canceling a new game. Selecting it worked once, but the dynamic difficulty data was never loaded, corrupting the save on subsequent loads
• When firing a Studio director it doesn't cancel it's project (game, update or gameport).
• Contract: When no studio were available, there was no tooltip shown on the Start button
• Contract: When unlocking a platform, the start button was not refreshed accordingly
• Fixed number formatting for Chinese players
• Fixed traditional publishing not computing income and expenses correctly
• Fixed studios not being sorted by name

Hey everyone!! Hope you're all doing well, the weather outside has been gorgeous and I took a bit of advantage of it! But true to form, on the gamedev side I didn't stick to the plan. Let me tell you all about it!

This Week's Recap

The last release candidate introduced a few bugs in the annual report. Some pretty nasty ones actually. So I gave it a proper fix-up. It now works correctly in dark theme mode, and the color of the numbers adapts depending on whether you're making a profit or not. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31019566/319347314d385dc724974bcf7eeb53615d8f5b7c.png I also made a few small interface changes. When you have multiple studios, the studio list now lets you sort them by name or by activity. You can choose to show inactive studios first, or mix everything together. One more bit of freedom for you! On top of that, a few small fixes, including one for publisher offers. When you were working with a competitor to publish a game, the expense and revenue info wasn't being stored correctly in the save. To be clear, the actual revenue figures were fine, it was the financial metadata that wasn't being saved properly. That's now fixed. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31019566/68ece972ff19555096062322293478af7f23400d.gif I also got an interesting piece of feedback that I took the time to implement. You can now assign studios while you're in the middle of developing an update or a DLC for a game. It wasn't straightforward to handle, since it touches quite a few things under the hood, but it gives you a lot more flexibility. So that's a straight-up win for everyone!

What's Coming Next

I still have plans to work on the studio director, you know, so it keeps building on a specific IP rather than constantly spinning up new ones. Honestly it's not easy to pull off, because I don't want IP selection to tank the game's performance. And above all, I want you to be able to tell the studio director exactly which IP to focus on. Yeah... just that. Anyway, that's it from me, see you next week. Take care of yourselves in the meantime, 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.

Changelog - rc6

Interface

• Fixed the yearly report not computing all values correctly
• Fixed the yearly report not taking dark mode into account
• Added a button to sort the studio list from the main view

Feature

• Added the ability to change the studio assigned to an update
• Added the ability to change the studio assigned to a DLC

Bugfix

• Fixed traditional publishing not computing income and expenses correctly
• Fixed studios not being sorted by name

Previous changes

Feature

• Added a new server item to furnish your studio

Interface

• Added the hype value of announced games directly to the in-dev game panel
• Improved the server panel readability
• The yearly report now displays data by year instead of by month

Publishing Offers

• Reworked publishing offers to make them more interesting: theme/genre and genre/platform matches now give a proper boost
• Capped simultaneous publishing offers at 24, as generating more is resource intensive
• Fixed the platform panel not updating when viewing a publishing offer
• Fixed currency formatting in publishing offers

Localization

• Months are now translated
• Scientific units are now translated

Cheat Codes

• Added the ability to set the custom platform score
• Added a 'man' command that lists all existing cheat codes
• Added a cheat code to instantly complete a DLC or an update
• Added a cheat code to set the number of points produced for a game: `game set-produced-point game_id 99999 99999 99999`

Balancing

• Set the maximum number of units sold for custom platforms to 1.25 billion
• Servers from 2007 are no longer available after 2020
• The number of generated contracts depends on the difficulty.
• Based on the total number of contract to generate, it won't generate more contracts per month than the total number of contracts to generate. It might take up to 3 months to generate the total number of contracts

Studio director

• When porting a game, select the platform's market share (minimum)

Mod

• Add a new attribute to the difficulty mod to balance the number of contract to generate.

Hack Mini-game

• Added a button to pay $1,000,000 to skip the hacking mini-game permanently

Misc

• Reworked the number formatting algorithm to be more efficient and to support localization

Bugfix

• Fixed a bug in the studio view preventing the computer upgrade panel from showing on the desk itself
• Fixed a bug when manually upgrading a server
• Fixed a save game corruption caused by a 6th difficulty slot becoming selectable after starting and canceling a new game. Selecting it worked once, but the dynamic difficulty data was never loaded, corrupting the save on subsequent loads
• When firing a Studio director it doesn't cancel it's project (game, update or gameport).
• Contract: When no studio were available, there was no tooltip shown on the Start button
• Contract: When unlocking a platform, the start button was not refreshed accordingly
• Fixed number formatting for Chinese players

Another sale? City Game Studio is 40% off from April 18th to 24th! Not bad, especially for a game with such a long lifespan. On average it clocks in at 11 hours of playtime across a sample of nearly 100,000 players. That means for less than $10 you can easily spend a solid ten hours building your own game company right from your PC! And with regular updates dropping all the time, you'll probably end up with way more than 10 hours in. Because even though City Game Studio launched back in 2021, it has received over 26 major updates and a 27th one is already in the pipeline! Now if you're not into management games I totally get it, but if you're on the fence, honestly? Just grab it. Thanks for reading my nonsense Cheers Xavier aka Binogure

Hey everyone! Really happy to be back, v1.27.0 is coming along really well! I've made a lot of progress on the features that were originally planned, and I'm happy to say I'm not behind on the delivery date!

This Week's Recap

A player made a somewhat unusual request: being able to change the number of produced points for a given game. So without overthinking it, I added the command, it clearly meant a lot to them. Now, with the command game set-produced-point game-id design development polish, you can set exactly how many points have been produced for any given game. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31019566/4e82a01db07637e8e34ca92fb7dd45360eb96dc0.png I'd been working on this one for two weeks, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. The annual financial report. The title says it all. It's a notification that arrives once a year, at the end of the first week of a new in-game year. Inside, you'll find your full annual financial summary, along with your employee and studio count. I put together a little layout that I hope you'll like. It covers summarized info such as the revenue from the past year, expenses, income generated by games, game engines, and contracts. But also the costs from studio directors, rent, salaries... I realized while building it that this was something the game was genuinely missing. Thanks to your feedback, City Game Studio is a little more complete! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31019566/8d52f6058b1590693e5b2ad7ee8b40d600943f25.png I also pushed a small fix for number formatting for Chinese players. There was a scale issue with how large numbers were displayed. That's now corrected, sorry for the delay on that one!

What's Coming Next

This week I managed to finish the annual financial report. But I didn't have time to rework the studio director. I made some progress on it, but there's still a big chunk left to finish. I'm hoping to wrap it up this week, but I can't promise anything. Either way, I have other small things to improve in the game, mostly interface stuff, so very visual. I think you're going to like what's coming. There is one thing I'll admit though: this update doesn't really have a theme. I've added a whole bunch of useful things, balanced quite a bit, and added depth to a lot of features, but there's no single big new feature that completely changes the gameplay. It's more of a meaningful update that shifts the game across the board, without adding a ton of new content. That said, the goal of this update is to extend the game beyond 2025. And I think with the changes already made, plus what's still coming, that goal will be met. A new server has been added, consoles have been rebalanced, and I'm planning to add new PCs, a new event arriving in 2020, and a new feature for the digital store. We'll see how it goes. I keep reading your posts and implementing your feedback, but that's it for this week. Thanks for reading, see you next week, take care of yourselves in the meantime. 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.

Changelog - rc5

Cheat Codes

• Added a cheat code to set the number of points produced for a game: `game set-produced-point game_id 99999 99999 99999`

Interface

• The yearly report now displays data by year instead of by month

Bugfix

• Fixed number formatting for Chinese players

Previous changes

Feature

• Added a new server item to furnish your studio

Interface

• Added the hype value of announced games directly to the in-dev game panel
• Improved the server panel readability

Publishing Offers

• Reworked publishing offers to make them more interesting: theme/genre and genre/platform matches now give a proper boost
• Capped simultaneous publishing offers at 24, as generating more is resource intensive
• Fixed the platform panel not updating when viewing a publishing offer
• Fixed currency formatting in publishing offers

Localization

• Months are now translated
• Scientific units are now translated

Cheat Codes

• Added the ability to set the custom platform score
• Added a 'man' command that lists all existing cheat codes
• Added a cheat code to instantly complete a DLC or an update

Balancing

• Set the maximum number of units sold for custom platforms to 1.25 billion
• Servers from 2007 are no longer available after 2020
• The number of generated contracts depends on the difficulty.
• Based on the total number of contract to generate, it won't generate more contracts per month than the total number of contracts to generate. It might take up to 3 months to generate the total number of contracts

Studio director

• When porting a game, select the platform's market share (minimum)

Mod

• Add a new attribute to the difficulty mod to balance the number of contract to generate.

Hack Mini-game

• Added a button to pay $1,000,000 to skip the hacking mini-game permanently

Misc

• Reworked the number formatting algorithm to be more efficient and to support localization

Bugfix

• Fixed a bug in the studio view preventing the computer upgrade panel from showing on the desk itself
• Fixed a bug when manually upgrading a server
• Fixed a save game corruption caused by a 6th difficulty slot becoming selectable after starting and canceling a new game. Selecting it worked once, but the dynamic difficulty data was never loaded, corrupting the save on subsequent loads
• When firing a Studio director it doesn't cancel it's project (game, update or gameport).
• Contract: When no studio were available, there was no tooltip shown on the Start button
• Contract: When unlocking a platform, the start button was not refreshed accordingly

Hey everyone! Summer is already here in the northern hemisphere, at least where I live! I'd love to take a few days off, but I also want to keep making you happy. So this week I worked hard to fix as many things as possible while folding in your suggestions.

This Week's Recap

First up: contracts. It turns out contracts are basically an inexhaustible money fountain. So I reworked things a bit. Contracts won't be harder to complete, don't worry about that. A contract will still earn you just as much money as before. But there will be fewer of them, and the count will scale with difficulty. The higher the difficulty, the fewer contracts you'll get. The total number of contracts that can be generated has also been reduced. Previously, the game could keep spinning up an infinite number of contracts as long as you kept completing them. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31019566/326826f087c6fcb35349123a99a1898fbf09a6cf.png From now on, between 1 and 5 contracts will be generated per month. So it'll take roughly 3 months to accumulate 15. And of course, the number generated per month also depends on your difficulty setting. That covers contracts. Actually, one of you sent me a detailed email laying out exactly what was wrong and how to fix it. I just followed your lead. Thanks again for the help! Now let's talk studio directors. First, a missing fix. When you fired a studio director, it wasn't stopping the development of their current project. Annoying, right? You could always stop it manually, but that was a bit of a hassle. That problem is now fixed. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31019566/8f4d8cd605c4e3b26294c4edbef3ee51043679d6.png And since I was already in there, I gave them a bit more responsibility. You can now tell a studio director to only port games to consoles that have a certain market share threshold. Handy for making sure you're squeezing out maximum profit from every port.

What's Coming Next

I know I said I'd work on getting studio directors to produce quality games even in CEO mode. I'm still on it, but it's not straightforward. I've found an approach, but it'll be more trial and error at first. The annual report was supposed to land this week, but it's been pushed to next week. I'll do my best to get it in. On top of that, there are a few more nice things coming too: more cheat codes, a rework of the conventions interface to make it more practical, among other things. Alright, that's a wrap on this devlog, thanks for reading. See you next week in the meantime. Take care of yourselves, Xavier aka Binogure