itch.io

Ok first off with as much effort and game time that you have put in I would be more than happy to give you an alpha key when alpha launches regardless of hitting an 8.5 or higher.  The one game you made right but hit a low score that was a sequel and if you make a sequel within the same year you lose points and if its same engine you lose points.  You just made a sequel for that 8.4 to soon so it suffered double losses for same year same engine etc..  Had it been year 3 and new engine that sequel prob would of hit 9s a you get a boost to quality provided its new year + new engine for sequel.

There are 2 hidden factors that you need to hit that aren't shown.  They are the technical minimum on your engine and a minimum for tech + design that you must pass.  These values increase with years and the engine check is skipped until year 3.  That is why the contest was for year 3+ as that's when the full scope of checks comes into affect.  These values are 75 total bubbles per year Ie 225 in year 3 for small game.. and for tech its only 3 per year for small games so an engine with tech of 9 or more will pass that check.

You didn't show the dev of that final game in year 5 so I can not see your totals but for a year 5 medium game the requirements would be 1000 tech + design, and you were way over on the engine side so that check you def hit.  Did you let any workers go to 100% workload or more cause that's also a negative on quality every time a worker is over worked and assigned to a slider.

The features empower the creation of tech / design bubbles so for example if your guy naturally makes design bubbles of say 3 each time then you use a + 12 feature they will now create design bubbles of 15.  Note that during medium games the person assigned to that slider is making full powered bubbles where the other workers are only adding reduced bubbles when they aren't responsible for the section.  If you empower a section with big features then do a crunch skill on that worker during that section they will pump major bubbles out and you should reach minimums np.

I have personally made many perfect games and I have had a few tweets of 8.5 or higher so I know it can be done but it's def not easy.  There is also some RnG in the reviews that can lower or raise your score a bit just to make it a little dynamic.

The trash game bug you encountered is a total bug and I really appreciate you finding this for me.  I never really make use of the trash game and was not aware of the bug.  It is removing all widgets like the older system used to do but I have since change the rest of the game to not do that for most huds and did not fix the trash game.  Sadly I am only saving the game when you hit save and quit or you swap offices, I am not auto saving so when you had to reset sadly you lost your progression but I am currently fixing the trash game bug and new ver will be uploaded tonight.

Your feedback and videos have been super helpful and I would be more than happy to have you in the alpha when the time comes as your the kind of player I want to hear from.  Your input will def help me make the game the best it possibly can.  I hope you keep an eye on development as I have a lot of plans for the game and I would love to hear more from you.  You have already raised some great ideas and found bugs honestly I really appreciate your time and effort so thank you very much Vlad and I really hope your channel gets huge for you on YouTube, I think you deserve it.