Fantastic post as always and some good ideas as well..
I do agree that it does start to become difficult to hit bubble minimums in later years with just the 1 worker. I do want to encourage you to move to office 2, but I don't want it to feel forced. I think I might make the min look at the number of workers you have and dynamically set the requirement you need to hit. Of course what you can produce wildly changes with engine features / workers skills / higher tech / design stats.. I also like the idea of showing the user what kind of minimums they need to cross to make a perfect game I can def add that in. I always find myself doing the quick math as well would make sense to just show it clearly I dig transparency.
You probably didn't cross this at year 3 but when a topic / trend hits > 50% there is a breaking news notification like.. "after company xx latest release people are going nuts for more games with the genre xxxx" I used to have them making trends go up to quickly so its a lil slower now so it may not occur until later years. Theirs also a notification if something crosses 100% and begins to over-saturate the market and the trend is going down. I don't want to make trend visualizer to strong or it will feel like the only choice of manager perks on new game.
The idea of giving you decent matches on your first 3 topics isn't bad but that would require me to kind of tweak there match to your favorite (starting genre) and maybe set them up if they are terrible / bad level. Every topic has 3-4 GREAT matches including the 3 topics you start with, as to what genre they match with that's random. I might just check for terrible matches and move them up I don't know ill ponder / consider this.
The contract glitch is new and I checked on my end as well there def a sneaky glitch here like you said, but this can be easily fixed I just wont turn the buttons on to start more work until your paid. Great catch on this one I never tried to start next that fast before. Also contract bubbles are based off of your research stat for the size of them and chance to make them is focus. Confusing how its research right? Ya I def need that to be told to players via tutorial cause its a lil wierd, but I didn't want it to be based off tech / design stats.
The drag and drop of skills can be confusing I will likely switch it to a just right click to slot the skill or something you aren't the first person to mention this so clearly it can be an issue for some and needs addressing.
Your right about marketing not adding to budget of game I never thought of that but honestly makes total sense. This will be added in next update for sure. Same for long term bank bug, I already have that fixed in my current development version and will be in next update soon.
RnG can and will fuck you over. Some balances are harder to reach than others, but overall I think RnG creates a good experience. For myself if I hit a genre that I find is tricky to hit balance for while respecting sliders I just research diff genres but I do get what your saying. I have some ideas how to refine my procedural weighting system to be a little smarter when it comes to design balance. Try to avoid having very high on all the wrong sliders you want etc.
Thank you so much for the feedback and I will def get to work on these issues as well as others. I am currently doing some advanced visuals / art for the game but will be working on re-doing the bank system and some fixes followed then by large office / large games soon