Newspaper and propaganda system (update 1.13.x)

Hey 👋

The new update (1.13.x) is live! 🎉 This one focuses on overhauling the newspaper and propaganda system.

Previously

Before diving into the new features, let’s recap the old system.

The newspaper and propaganda mechanic is one of the game’s oldest — coded back in the early stages. At that time, with less than 4 hours of content, it worked fine. But now, with over 80 hours of gameplay, it feels outdated. The content stayed repetitive, effects were easily countered by spamming propaganda or building a police station every 2–3 newspapers. Players could even ignore the newspaper without consequences.

That’s why I decided to revamp the system to make it more scalable and strategic.

New system

Like before, each newspaper features 3 events tied to your current progress and some random factors. For example, if you lose a war, an event might say, “We have lost a battle.” If you build many factories, you could see “Industry Boom.”

The game now includes over 40 unique events (compared to 6 previously), each affecting your city differently — from increasing food consumption to reducing production or boosting trade rates.

For every event, you can use propaganda to influence its effects. Each event has 3 levels:

• Unbiased — original event, no propaganda
• Biased — light propaganda to soften effects
• Propaganda — heavy propaganda to turn the event in your favor

You can no longer spam propaganda like before. Now, you need to manage three key metrics:

• Trust — how much citizens trust you (gained only by avoiding propaganda)
• Fatigue to Propaganda — builds up each time you use propaganda (recover 6 points per newspaper)
• Influence — points to spend to alter event effects (20 points gained per newspaper)

Why three metrics? To add strategy. They affect short, mid, and long-term gameplay:

• Influence limits how often you can use heavy propaganda before running out of points (short term).
• Fatigue recovers slowly, so propaganda effects linger for several newspapers (mid term).
• Trust recovers only by avoiding propaganda over time (long term).

These metrics also provide bonuses or penalties based on their levels, making balance crucial. Your choices now affect the mid and long term—exactly what the previous newspaper and propaganda system was missing.

One more thing — newspaper effects now scale with difficulty:

• Challenging — 100% effect strength, +2 negative events in the pool
• Relax — 80% effect strength, +1 negative event in the pool
• Idle — 60% effect strength

Full changelog

• Added over 30 new unique events to the newspaper.

• Newspaper can now influence more elements, including trade rates, production, and more.

• Tutorial added for the newspaper.

• Newspaper propaganda system revamped: your choices now affect the city in the short, mid, and long term.

• Newspaper effects are now displayed wherever they’re relevant.

• The newspaper validation button is now reachable on all screens.

• Fixed game freeze when viewing the incident screen with many protective buildings active simultaneously.

• Buildings saved from an incident can be affected again if the incident gets out of control.

• Fix some default display on some screens

• Incidents cleared with gems no longer appear in the newspaper.

• A widget now reminds you when the newspaper is available.

• Offline progression is now limited to 1 day.

• Local save optimized for better memory usage and reliability.

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🎁 Bonus: 3 Days Ad-Free

Use the code itch-1.13.x inside the mobile app to enjoy 2 days without ads. Just open the app, enter the code, and enjoy the full experience without any ads!

This promo code is limited to 50 uses. Any previous promo code on itch have been disabled. Do not hesitate to subscribe if you don’t want to miss the next promo code 🧑‍💻

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Thanks again for your continued support and feedback — you’re helping shape the future of the game.

You can download the mobile game on Google Play Store or on App Store

Best regards,
Alexdb