First off Majid, yes it does become more and more complex with more party members.  That is for sure the case, but I am sure you can get there with time.

The job system I am using is similar to FF 11 online, except instead of picking the 1 sub job and getting the skills from that job at half ur main job level I want you to mix and pick any skills you want.  So a white mage could have a black mage skill, but he could also wear heavy armor if you train in warrior, or have a strong melee side etc.

I plan to make the game for PC at first, but a console edition is not off the table if the PC version goes well.  There is currently partial controller support in place in my prototype, but most menus require a mouse click atm.  To make menu's usable with controller you need to instead of using buttons use highlights so they can move through menus with the d-pad.  It is more work than just using buttons the player can click and why I was skipped at this stage, but I 100% plan to make the game controller friendly as I personally enjoy playing JRPG's with my controller or a combination of the two.

As for your own game, I think both turn based and action are solid options.  I played the new ff retrograde on PC and I really enjoyed it, however I personally prefer the older ff7 turn based style.  The remake instead of gradually building ATB and then using skills / spells / attacks on your turn, you are spamming basic attacks to build the ATB gauge and then using skills / spells when you fill the bar up, while also dodge rolling around like a maniac :)    It is fun and honestly I think both styles are super valid ways to play through an RPG, but for me personally I love turn based.

I feel you on the hardware my friend, I can not really run ue5 yet either.  I hope to change that in the future, but ya for now ue4 is perfect for me.

Tactics was very different to the normal ff style of play, it was a big battle field where you commanded a large force vs enemy forces.  Similar to the style of xcom if that is a better reference?

What I am taking from ff-tactics was there job system, which they did use in I believe ff4 or one of the early ff games, but it was expanded on in tactics.  

basically you start as a basic unit, then you can job change and level that new job.  As you get high enough you can retain learned skills from other jobs as you continue to unlock and change jobs.  Ie. you could learn how to use 2h from the knight job, then learn how to duel wield from the ninja job, and then become a barbarian who can use a 2h in just 1 hand, combing those different job skills allowing you to duel wield 2h weapons.  It is a really interesting way to add a lot of build potential and depth of choice.

In terms of combat I am going closer to other FF games, but without the ATB gauge.  You get to use your full team on your turn.  This means we can't use haste or slow type skills, but with controlling your full team it allows for combos and synergy to your builds.  You can buff with 1 guy, debuff with another, and then attack with your juiced up dmg deal who was buffed.  This allows for a lot of strategy in your team and battle turns, which will be very interesting when we have 1v1 pvp arenas.

Ah ya I assumed he had done that side, good point 40 thank you.  Plus the screen shot def makes it very clear :)

Yes you can select to download any version you want.  When your on the epic launcher, you can select what version you want to use.

I am using ue4 ver 27.3, which is the final ue4 build.  My previous game on steam was made in ver 25.3.  It began in ue4 ver 21.1, but I brought it up to 25 to make use of the new additions in that version.

However, since I can not use ray tracing and some other high end graphics I am not using ue5 yet.  If I update my hardware in the future, I will likely bring the game up to ue5 as it is a pretty smooth transition a long as you weren't using world partitioning, which I am not.

I would recommend ue4 v 25 - 27 range as it is the best version on unreal 4 in my opinion.

Ya it really is cool.  It is not the best paying job I ever had, but it is the most fun and rewarding thing I have done.

Ya that is the second feedback about the expedition center, I will make sure the bar has 3.5 buildings visible showing there is more to scroll over etc in the future.

I def rushed through a lot of stuff spelling wise, appreciate the feedback will take care of that shortly.  I hope you enjoy what is to come, thank you for checking it out.

I am using ue4, my PC is not really next gen enough to use ue5.  I might consider bringing it to ue5 in the future if I upgrade my specs.  

My name is Ryan Saunders, and I am a full-time solo indie game dev.  After finally releasing my previous game to steam, running a year of EA, and then 6 months of post launch updates.  I am ready to begin work on my next big game idea.  However, since I am solo, I cannot afford to work in silence for the next 2 years on a game that might be terrible.  So, I need you the players in the game as early as possible and at every stage of development.  Please take some time to check out this super early build and give me your feedback.  What is good, what is bad, what would you change, or what would you add.

This prototype does not contain any real vfx, sfx, animations, or textures.  Just enough place holders for me to create the complex core game systems and mechanics.

It should take most players 5 - 15 minutes to play through, and I would love for you to check it out and let me know your thoughts.  If you like what you see stay tuned as the game will continue to develop on itch for a long time as we move from prototype to technical demo and beyond.

You can find the game here:  https://hulgarth.itch.io/d43

I would also love for you to check out my latest release to steam called "Game Dev Masters", a modern tycoon game with a competitive twist.  You can find the store page here:  https://store.steampowered.com/app/1478350/Game_Dev_Masters/

I hope you enjoy my new game idea, and provide great feedback.  Thank you.

Ya I thought about doing it via camera only then yes the objects would of been static.  I just kind of liked the effect of the table flipping and using vinterps and relative locations to fake mob movement was something I had never done before.  I always like to pick a mechanic I have never tried to create when I jam so its always a win for me skill wise, plus interesting and fun.  I made the uproject public if you want the files feel free to check it out was a fun jam game.

Thanks, I would of loved to expand on the idea or add additional levels / towers / mob types but time constraints are tight and getting everything to move while also be attached to the flipping board without issues took longer to create than I would of liked :)

Geometry wars is my entry into the Epic Mega Jam 2022.  The theme was "As above so below".  

I decided to make a 2 sided turret defense where turret positions were shared across the 2 sides and blocked were used on one side versus the other.

I also went for the subcategories of One Man Army (work alone), Tiny but Mighty (Final build under 150 MB), and Use it Or Lose it (Use only one 4 channel texture for entire project including particles).

I think the end result is simple but fun, and I ended up with a bit of a crazy psychedelic visual style making use of my 1 noise texture made in GIMP.  

All assets were made in engine during the jam, and all sounds were made in audacity with my mouth during the jam.

You can find the game here:  https://hulgarth.itch.io/geo-wars

The project files are also publicly available for any dev who wants them.  The project is 100% blueprint driven and made in unreal 4.27.2.  All blueprints are commented, but I have included a design_doc.txt file in the root directory to give some information to the logic flow for any newer devs who may need the reference.

You can find those files here:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/12PHbCFOTxCYYAVqPbZFn5lNBS2UkEtLs/view?usp=shari...

If you need any help or information hit me up on my discord:  https://discord.gg/WfbXE4cDVA

If you enjoy what I have done in the last 5 days, please consider checking out what I have done with the last 2 years with my recent release to steam "Game Dev Masters", A modern competitive take on the tycoon genre.  https://store.steampowered.com/app/1478350/Game_Dev_Masters/

Ya I agree, given more time there is a lot I would do diff, like the diff resetting options ability to move placed pieces and of course more pieces more elaborate puzzles.  Thank you though for 48 hrs I was happy :)  Interesting idea with the roll on a wall though.

Thank you, I found a few myself as well for balance, but then seen a few diff solutions from others so there at least 4-5 ^^

Ya I totally agree, a system to remove pieces, or reset just the dice not the pieces would make this a better game.  It was due to the super tight time constraint that I did not manage that and just went with the reset all.  Given another day I would of done this as well as added a few more levels, but with such a short time frame I was kind of forced to complete something :)  

I was initially thinking about a score based on the number of pieces you used and the number of tries, that would make a much more dynamic puzzle with more repeatability, but as previously said that was just to much scope wise for this short 48 hrs.

Ya I had never considered that, I should of made it both wheel and A and D keys or something.  Sorry for that.

lol thank you, and I am glad you managed to beat it eventually ^^

Some cool stuff here with a cool idea based on theme.  Overall some great work for a 2day game, shooter guy is OP I suggest you suicide till you roll a 1 if you want to clear levels easy ^^  
 I really dig the music very cool vibes and it plays pretty solid.  There some obvious issues with AI but with 2 days that is expected.

That is awesome I am glad you enjoyed it.  I had a lot more ideas to mix in but the 1 week limit kinda made me scale back a lot for obvious reasons.  :)  

Oh thank you so much.  I struggled with bigfry's idea of make a bad game but in a fun way so I went little more abstract with the theme.  I think it landed pretty well outside of a fridge bug that I didnt know was there until I saw it played on stream :)

Very cool man, and I will.  I hope you have a lot of positive growth on your channel.  It's a tough thing to get into, but I am sure you can do it if you continue to produce quality content and positive vibes.

I watched your video, and commented on your channel.  I really enjoyed your play-through, although I wish you had the tutorial to make your game a little more successful I still enjoyed watching you enjoy the game and it's systems.  Thanks again for the coverage, and feedback.  Which will be used to push development forward.  I hope one day you give the later version a try as well, and see the improvements.

lol ya it is on both accounts hard to be a small indie, as well as hard without a tutorial.  The steam demo has all the tutorial you need though, if time permits and you wanna take a crack at that would love to get feedback.  Either way I am glad you checked it out and look forward to your next vid.  I have seen you cover some pretty cool games so far, glad to be on that list.

Right on Xander, I hope you had fun.  The steam demo launches tonight with improved visuals and what not.  It is a nicer feel, but the tech demo here on itch I am quite proud of.  I hope you were able to enjoy the game.  There are no tutorials here on itch tech demo either which can def hurt.  The steam demo also has those missing features like tutorials etc.  Either way I look forward to seeing your thoughts next mondays vid, keep up the great content.

it's just a 7zip file you can unzip it with whatever software you use.  I personally like 7z it's free and super easy to zip / unzip stuff.  Once you unzip the file you can run the .exe to play.  The steam demo will be up very soon though , if you rather just grab it from there. No zips, and a better experience.  Should be live within a day or 2 at this url:  https://store.steampowered.com/app/1478350/Game_Dev_Masters/

Thank you so much man, your support is very appreciated.  I got lots left to do, but I love what the game has already become.  I am very excited to continue development, and I hope 2021 will be a good year for you as well as for #GDM :P

Newest update is live which includes remakes..

There is no pressure to try it now or wait that is totally up to you, but if you do try if you have any feedback / suggestions don't be shy.  I will listen and if it can help improve the game then It will be added / changed.

That is really up to you.  I have made sure the game is very stable and as bug free as possible, but there are some missing stuff like tutorials that can make it more difficult.  I always mention on updates if I think old saves will continue to work, which generally they will.   I would wait 30 mins after this post as I am putting the new update as I type this, with 1 more feature update planned in a few days.  Outside of this next feature the game is super feature rich, I will be shifting into expanding on some of the systems that exists but are undeveloped Ie more milestones, more character models.  There all fully functional systems they just need more meat.  

After I get everything filled out I will be focused on "End Game"  which will be AAA games / console development / creating your own conventions and a ton of interesting interactions with other companies..  I have a ton of end game ideas many of which have been suggested by players, but I dont wanna get into specifics yet until I am sure I can create the mechanics before I promise them ^^  

However the early / mid game is super filled out and def worth trying in it's current state, but it will of course get better and better as I move towards eventually EA release, and I totally understand if players want to just wait for final versions.  I will be creating a more finalized DEMO for steam in the future as well which will give people a good taste of the game in a more finalized state, but that will take some time.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1478350/Game_Dev_Masters/  Demo will be available around Feb for steam hopefully, but the steam trailer shows some better environments I will be making use of soon.

ya I totally agree they are often refereed to as ports even when they are HD upgrades or remakes.  Even the recent halo master chief collection that came to steam people consider it a port to steam but it has had an HD treatment with new textures and what not.  Remake / HD release is currently being created and will be in next update later today or tomorrow pending issues.  This will allow any games from previous systems to be remade and launched as a title on current systems.  It is using sales / score of the original game as a boost to sales for the new release, provided the original scored well remakes will see quite good sales, and of course you can only remake a game once.  After remaking a game though you can port it to the other current gen systems as well as add DLC.  I am pleased you see where I am coming from with the ports, please feel free to give feedback / suggestion any time.  I really want to make a deep, complex, and super fun game dev simulation, and I am open to change / add anything that makes sense for the game.

they dont port old games to other consoles, they do remake and remasters.  I think remastering older games makes a lot of sense, but there no ps3 game that gets ported to ps5 its always a remake or HD release.  Even games like last of us on ps4 was an HD release for ps4 not a straight port.  I can't really think of any old games that just got ported to new hardware with there old engines / graphics.  This falls under the remake / remaster category.  Not to mention to coding issues that would arise from just trying to port an old game to a new engine, that's why they basically have to remake the game when its been that long.  It's worth noting that remakes is an intended feature as well, but it will have different needs that you will have to meet.  As opposed to just doing a bit of light code to a game to make it work on another platform you will need to add stuff and upgrade to a new engine and do more choices / work to create a remake, which I honestly think is realistic to reality.

Even in the past few weeks we have seen cyberpunk launch on old and new platforms and they are completely different games.  Cyber went the other way with it though they made the quality game then tried to downgrade it to work with xbox / ps4 and its having major issues.  Typically they go from the weaker hardware to the better but cyber was special case and it's really hurt them trying to do it that way.  Which they are only doing due to release timing, had it been another 6 month delay and no pre-orders they would likely just of made the ps5 / xbox X versions, but that's a different topic all together  :)

First off thank you for trying the game, and I am so glad to hear you had a positive experience overall..

- The main menu screen itself is super place holder.. those edge icons are only there so I could toy around with diff resolutions / aspect ratios to see how my formatting would work.  They aren't anchored to the same edge as the side ones and does look like they are off, but they are actually where they should be they just look like trash and will be replaced by a cool opening menu eventually.

- I am glad you liked the dancing I wasn't sure if that would come off as cheesy or funny, but a couple people have expressed they liked that, it like everything was just an initial idea, but based on feedback that will prob stay in full version. :) 

-Sadly you are far from the first person to get confused about how to play.  Aside from the itch landing page short how to, which no one ever reads.  I don't really have any good guidance yet and its very much needed.  The main issue lies int he fact that the UI is work in progress so if I made a tutorial pointing to this element than this other with guidance, once I change the hud the tutorial has to be re-done .  So I have been putting this off, but it has caused some issues, and I don't want people being confused and giving up.  My next build I have come up with a compromise.  I am going to just put a short video clip tutorial in that the player can watch.  Something quick clean and concise, that will give you the basics.  This way I can just replace this video at a later date without exhausting to much dev time creating it.

- I really like the idea of an "Auto" of sorts or maybe even just a que where you can select to train xxx 5 times etc.. that or a checkbox for auto repeat this training..  With some sort of click on them to end auto training, or you pick the number of training times.  I will have to consider some ideas before I nail down specifics, but this is a great idea and I will 100% add this feature.  Thank you for the suggestion..

-I currently have medium games / 2nd office which takes you to 3 total employee's.  You also have to manage your workers during the 3 stages of development by putting them in charge of specific sections of development, without going over 100% workload which will hurt quality of your game if you do.  Endurance comes into play here as well as it will reduce the affect of workload on your character making it easier to assign sliders etc..    I have some additions / fixes / changes coming for next update followed by adding large games / office 3 with additional complexity, and then eventually AAA which I plan to make you use multiple studios for maybe??  I also plan to add the ability to create your own consoles and some other cool end game stuff eventually :p

- Any form of support would be appreciated, I will be putting the steam store page up tonight.  I have had a heck of a time making all the store art / trailers as that side of development is my weakness I am a programmer at heart, but my first draft of the store is finally done.  Once store page is up wish-lists become the best type of support at-least for steam visibility.  I hope to hit EA release on Steam in June 2021, until then I will continue to work via itch so I can continue to get feedback from amazing people like you.

Once again thank you so much for taking the time to play the demo, and then even more so to write such a well thought out post giving great feedback / suggestions.  Your auto train idea is really cool.  My goal is to make a super deep tycoon experience jam packed with systems and player choice.  I want you to wonder about how you could of done your game better, and then I hope I make it fun enough that you are willing to try and do better.  Any great ideas I can add to the game only serve to help me reach that goal so thank you, and I hope you continue to check out the game as it grows.  Have a great day and stay safe and healthy out there, I don't really have to worry about that since I never leave my PC. :)

not at all hit me up at ryan_d_saunders@hotmail.com just make sure you put seb or itch or something in the subject so I don't confuse it with the ridic amount of scam mails we all get per day :)

A boost fans perk is a pretty solid idea.  I could see adding that as an additional choice.  I think having one perk be end game only is ok as well Ie the lower wages perk has no use at first but when you have 5+ workers at high lvl that reduction could be great.  Although if your making bank at that point it might not be worth I will have to try to get that in line somehow to feel worth.

As a big tycoon fan myself I totally agree about how stale the game can feel when you have mastered the loop.  I have a few ideas how we can tie the Ai companies in to a more real experience not just the background.  I have a few ideas on paper, but I am not 100% sure how they will feel when implemented.  I was thinking about stuff like if you release in the same month as a top company and your using the same genre if there game is better than yours you would lose sales and vice versa for them if you made the better scoring game.  One of the ways I already am tryign to tie the Ai into the experience is the dynamic trends / genres based on ai sales, but I want to bring more dynamic realism to the Ai / game I just have to be careful I don't go to far to make it feel like a hindrance.  This is why I haven't tried stuff like that yet, but I will.

My next update after the visual work I am currently doing will focus on fixing the cash and adding some of the stuff we have discussed followed by large and then AAA games / offices.  Once we reach "end game" then it will be a little easier to examine the math and try to balance perks and add some of the other ideas for Ai.  Still got a ways to go, but I am very happy with the current state of the game.  When I get some of the more end game ideas and Ai stuff in I very much look forward to getting your feedback / suggestions.

I didn't want to put this anywhere on the game page cause I don't want feedback for the wrong reason, but I plan to have a credits section in finished game where I give thanks to amazing contributors like you and a few others who have been in major conversations with me and have helped guide development in the right direction.

right on man and honestly any good tycoon game you want to be able to have that idea of how you could of done better for a replay, and I want it to be strong enough so that you are like ok lets do a replay.  If I can get people to enjoy the experience and want to replay to improve then I am doing something right.  Balance will def be shifting though as we continue to develop and test the game, and I truly appreciate your help.

BTW when I was watching "The amazing race" earlier while on a break I had the idea of how to fix the manager perks to be stronger choices in the early game.  I will just have separate rules for them based on game size.  Like for the cost reduction on small we can take 50% off making 14k go to 7k which could be a valid choice.   Then we reduce that to 40% 30% 20% etc etc  whatever math lines up to feel right.  Same for game sales we can set that to be different based on size.  I will run the numbers on what %s to get these at I guess selling anything more than 7k on a small would make it a better choice than the cost reduction however if you make a shit game it would be worse choice but with a good game its likely a better choice.  I don't know how it will end up, but I think this idea could help refine the skills to be more valid options.  Ideally I want someone to really struggle with this choice, that's why its locked in.  I would like it to feel like something you ponder.. "should I have taken more sales"..  "what if I could see these trends" etc etc 

At the end of the day I am aiming for an interesting amount of player choice that lends well to replay's, I am hoping that + leader-boards could really help me find a player base that stays interested.  If I can achieve that I would love to do all kinds of stuff to keep it fresh both with visuals / balance and fresh leader-boards.  Still a ways off from that state, but well get there.  Thank you again and I hope you get the urge to play more in the future, your insight has really been helpful.

It might currently be a little on the hard side.  I might up sales a bit to make it a little easier.  It was recently a bit to easy in ver 6 but I might of gone to far the other direction, but we can turn all kinds of knobs until the right balance is found.  That is a big part of why I have this open demo style of developing cause I need people like you to give me there feedback.  I am also collecting your data via leader-boards and on my end I have it ver sorted so I can examine peoples play through to help me decide where balance needs to shift. 

I totally agree about the lack of instruction moving to medium I totally get why you were like hmm its not working cause its not obvious to drag drop workers onto sliders unless you have played game dev tycoon which I based game-play around for small / med games.  My plan to solve this is to offer a tutorial when you buy the second office and make it a choice to view.  That way on subsequent plays you wont need to sit through it, but when needed I think a short guide explaining about drag dropping workers onto sliders and how they then take those workloads and how going over 100% workload on a worker will negatively impact your game, and also explain how endurance is the stat that directly affects how much workload you take from sliders.  Training endurance isn't needed for medium although it makes it easier to set workers to sliders without hitting >100% , but it will be necessary for large / AAA.

your save for the game is in your user/name/appdata/local/gdm/saved  eventually way down the line when the game is ready and I move to steam I will tap into steam cloud saves but for now your local save is there.  

First you will see the notification if a trend goes over 50% the issue is there are 160 topics so the Ai companies are increasing different ones each time and nothing crossed that 50% mark yet for you but they will..

I was thinking about what you said and I think your right about the end game vs early game.  I was thinking the dev costs - would be great late game when making multi million dollar AAA titles, but at that time it wont be as important as the right perk is early on.  I think I need to re-balance the perks to be more viable early game I think that's a really good point your making.  I will have to do some calculations, but I think I can tweak it so that they are better early game options and maybe reduce there power in late game etc  

If I didnt include RPG that is an oversight obviously RPG should be there I thought I had role playing but if I don't I will def add it.

did you have your 3 workers set on the sliders?  You can not begin design of a medium game without assigning a worker to each slider.  When it comes to naming a sequel I can't really check if the name is xxxx 2 and then make it xxxx 3 I am just adding a 2 to the end of it, but of course you can manually change the name.  I do agree this is weird but theirs a bit of a technical issue when it comes to sniffing through a string to find a number at the end I might be able to do something about this but not 100% sure I can.  I could maybe trach if you are making a sequel of a sequel and add a 3 / 4 etc but removing the 2 is tricky cause if you changed the name from xxxx 2 to xxxx and then I take the last entry to the name off it would chop your word.  I would need to verify its numeric etc which is kinda tricky.

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

I fixed that manager income bug right after talking to you.  I didn't want anyone else to experience the issue you had. I want you to be able to take your time or go fast to the medium office, and I def don't want your manager leveling to feel bad that should be a pure positive :)  

Here is a link to the minor update notes which include a mention to you for your bug detection https://hulgarth.itch.io/gdm/devlog/195750/gdm-minor-update-7b-fixes .

Really appreciate the help and understanding of the early stage issues and I hope you grab the new ver and check it out some more when you have the time.  I am currently working on some advanced visuals for the offices, after that I plan to re-work cash into just the bank like we discussed and I got a really good idea based off your idea.. 

Every year based on your company valuation (calculated at year end based on gross and currently used to set loan sizes)  I am going to give you a portion of money as a company fund type thing.  This is separate from your main money and comes in addition no cost to the player.  I am going to give you several office buff options that can be bought with that company funds, and you can decide how and when to buy these buffs, and because we are going to use your valuation I can have expensive buffs you wont be able to get until you are a larger company etc etc..  Still got lots to work out as to what the buffs will be but I am pretty excited about the idea it's yet another player option, and not found in any other tycoon style games like this.  Plus with the current stat system I have it should be np to create several diff buffs and then higher rank version of those and what not..  I think its a good idea and you def helped get me there.

Also I neglected to mention regarding skills..

To gain a skill you first research it in the character upgrades (which it sounds like you did) then click the worker and view stats, from here you select change skills and then drag and drop the skills into the slots you want (each guy gets 2 @ lvl 10).   Once equipped it will be available for you when you click on the worker with the skill based on what your guy is doing and when the skill can be used. For crunch that is available for use during stage 1 / 2 / 3 and game delays  you wont see it any other time but when used you will definitely feel the difference 100% bubble chance makes.

I really need to do a proper tutorial in game but its difficult when a lot of the HUD is still work in progress but I will have a very detailed in game guide at some point before steam early access.

first off great post man appreciate the feedback.

Ok so there is a big problem here...  you didn't hire new workers and your monthly cost in the first office was increasing as your guy leveled??  That is a new bug that must of came up in the latest Update 7 changes with workers.  That is a total mistake.  Your first guy (you) doesn't receive any pay why would he, the 2500 is your monthly rent and should never increase in the small office.  I want the small first office to feel like a safe place where you can take your time and it used to be that way, this bug must of slipped in as a result of recent changes and will be addressed tonight with minor patch to follow.  It's not my intention for the game to ramp up pressure until you move to medium office / 3 workers and medium games.  The new workers get paid more as they level but medium games make substantially more so the trade off is worth it imo.

Game sales progress by year as well as by number of fans within some clamped limits as to enforce you moving from small - medium - large - AAA games.  in simplest terms my sales algorithm goes something like this.  based on year I get a potential num of possible sales, then your game quality maps a range from 0 to that max of potential sales, then your fan sales are added (clamped at 12,500 for small i believe) then its modified by trends / hype to get total sales then its chopped into weekly % chunks.  A 9.0 in year 1 with no fans will sell less copies than a 9.0 in year 3 especially if you have 25k or > fans.  Hopefully with more data I can refine these amounts, as I do want some fluctuation similar to real life where gaming has grown in popularity every year, but at the same time I need you to want to move from small (cash cap of about 250~400k for a 10 in year 3) into medium (cash cap of about 2~4 million for a 10 in year 7) etc etc  however I need more testing and more tuning as well as player feedback to ensure these numbers all feel right.  I have had version where it was to easy as well maybe this current is to hard but we will find the Goldy lox zone one day :)

I dig your idea about the groceries, I had a similar kind of idea as well.  It's definitely being considered I just want to be careful not to add something people find tedious but I like the idea of buffs that could make it optional but worth it for the office to have a "feast" on the company etc all worker speed goes up etc  very interesting idea..

Hardware is actually an amazing buff to your worker training / researching speed.  The difference between maxed hardware and basic hardware for all 3 slots equates to massive time saved on training / researching, but its just time on those activities so maybe its not financially worth it to you?  That however is kind of the point, I want as many viable player options as possible to create a real sense of strategy and replay ability.  I have added a lot of features at this point I don't even know whats the best route to make the most money which is what I want for the game overall.  Meaningful player options and varied game-play.

I will of course debug the long term investment options to ensure that works, I been thinking about it since I read your post earlier and I kind of want to ditch the petty cash and just move to all bank or tweak that system in some way It feels weird having the 2 and I always have petty in the negative and just keep bank rolling.  This could be a good example of an unnecessary system for systems sake and will tighten that up.

Closing the game mid game development, and then finding the game canceled wasn't a bug as much as that's the way it was coded.  I was on the fence if I wanted to let you exit mid development as there so many timers running during game dev that it will be a nightmare to save / resume but possible.  Currently it doesn't save mid project just everything else.  I should either change that or at least put a warning in the menu.

I really appreciate the feedback and I will 100% make use of it and I truly hope you play more and give more feedback if the mood hits.  I am a solo dev but I am super passionate and dedicated.  It is hard though to catch every issue a lone as well as code main systems while also trying to keep some degree of polish on menus / systems.  So your feedback helps me a lot and I will 100% get to everything eventually.  The last few days I have been doing some mesh work for more finalized visuals.  All these aspects do take time but I work hard and I hope you will keep an eye and check back for updates and what not.  Regardless thank you so much for the post and have a great day.