Game Dev Tycoon

Pre-emptively fixed an issue that could have caused the share code feature to break in the near future.

Fixed: Error when engine does not have a name set.

Fixed: Platform/genre and platform/audience weighting on custom console wasn't always correct.

New: Show a permanently dismissable banner on the main menu for new games from us.

Fixed start script for Linux: Instead of setting the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable it gets appended.

We've released a small bug fix where the staff welcome training was not available after importing from a mobile save game.

We've released a small update which fixes subscribing to our newsletter from within the game.

💚

We've released a small update fixing a few minor cross-platform bugs, as well as aiming to restore game knowledge (and some save slots) that were sometimes lost for some players when upgrading to 1.8.x

This update also introduces a workaround for a known issue where modders on Windows are unable to update their workshop mods. We've described the issue and a new workaround for it (https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/discussions/18446744073709551615/2980782118458366779/?appid=239820).

We expect this will be the last update for a while. Hopefully things will run smoothly now.

💚

PS: Consider following our developer page.

We have just reverted all Windows users to the old version of node-webkit (the underlying tech making the game run on PC). Sadly our latest upgrade to a newer version caused game hints and achievements to not load (nor save correctly).

The good news is that hints and achievements previously gained should now load again so there should not be any data loss.

Unfortunately a proper fix is anything but simple as the issue seems outside our control for now but we will investigate any possible fixes. Other than the fact that we are now again running on an older version and thus miss out on the nicer text rendering, there is no loss of features in this version on Windows. It still comes with all the new features like save-sharing.

We have left the Mac version on the newer version as the old version has significant performance and display-compatibility issues.

Hopefully we'll have another update to address this soon.

Bugfix: Migrating save files with custom consoles from mobile version did throw the error "InvalidStateError: Failed to execute 'drawImage'".

Bugfix: Deleting a savegame threw a "TypeError: Bad arguments".

We've just released v1.8.0 to Windows and Mac users.

This release should hopefully fix a bunch of odd issues we've recently seen Mac users report and should also have much better performance on Mac.

For Windows users the main change is that text-rendering is vastly improved and performance overall should be a bit better too.

We haven't updated Linux in this release, as it would not have made any significant changes.

If there are any issues, please get in touch with us at support@greenheartgames.com, by responding to this announcement, or by posting on the Steam forums.

Technical details and background information

Game Dev Tycoon was one of the first games on Steam to use node-webkit to run a HTML5 game on Desktops and because of that, we were using an ancient version of node-webkit by today's standards. We often considered upgrading but every time we did, we experienced numerous new issues and had very little confidence that the overall player experience would be better than before. Newer versions of node-webkit (now known as nw.js) are also significantly larger in size and we didn't want to inflate download and install sizes for little gain.

Unfortunately, once Apple release Mac OS Catalina, it seemed that, while after a lot of work, we managed to get our version of node-webkit to work, the performance significantly degraded (for all versions of Mac OS) and when we released v1.7.0 we suddenly got all sorts of odd bug reports on Mac, none of which can be attributed to our own game code. Our only choice is to upgrade to a newer version of nw.js and hope that Mac OS supports this better.

This is a drastic change for the project hence the bump to version 1.8.0 - You'll notice that the game is now larger in size but the improved performance, Mac support and the vastly improved text-rendering on Windows should make up for it.

With this update, we are making it something of a tradition that every time we release Game Dev Tycoon on a new platform, we update all existing platforms with some new features.

Two years ago we released the game on mobile and brought a big update to Steam including lots of UI improvements, as well as the ultra-difficult "pirate mode".

Cross-platform save sharing

This time, to celebrate yet another platform release (hint: something something Ninvento Swap), we are bringing a brand new feature to Steam: cross-platform save support.

With cross-platform save support you can take your save file to wherever you want to play, regardless of which platform (PC, mobile, Switch etc.) you play on.

To use this new feature, wait for Steam to update your game installation to v1.7.0. After that, you can access this feature in the loading screen, simply click on the little cog icon next to the slot you want to upload, acknowledge the usage policy, click upload and a few seconds later you will have a short code that you can then use to download that same save somewhere else.

Here's a quick demonstration.

Play Game Dev Tycoon with us!

This is not only useful if you want to continue your game session on a different device, but can also be used to share your save file with friends, or even play collaboratively. On our Discord server we made great use of this feature yesterday, where players take turns running a single company and hopefully completing a run-through together.

If you want to join, check out our Discord server and take a look in the #gdt-discord-plays channel.

Other changes

The update contains some other smaller fixes and changes, Farming and RPG is no longer a terrible combination (fair enough Stardew Valley), and we've fixed a particular spiffy exploit were you could gain lots of money by clicking on the side bar notifications repeatedly. Hey, if you want to cheat, just install cheat mod, okay?

Some of you might also have spotted another small addition: you can now delete a save slot... finally. It only took us eight years to add that 🤣 seriously though, there's reasons we didn't touch it for so long. It was surprisingly difficult and tricky to do right.

Known Issues

We are working on a fix for an issue where performance on the Mac version is significantly slower than it should be. It seems to be a Catalina/Notarization-related problem (but happens on all Mac OS versions). We are actively working on a fix but don't have an ETA yet.

Behind-the-scenes

This feature was actually implemented in our upcoming game Tavern Keeper first and the team just found it so super useful that we wanted to back port it to Game Dev Tycoon too. Oh, I wish we had this feature years ago, when we debugged all these different save states!

Anyway, we thought it would be an easy undertaking but wow, we were wrong. First, the mobile and PC versions of Game Dev Tycoon used a different save structure so we had to spend quite some time to sort out all the differences and then we ran into so much trouble implementing this for the PC version. Who would have thought that uploading and downloading a file would be so difficult in an HTML5 game.

Anyway, I hope you like this little update. As always, if you want to stay up to date with news and our upcoming game, make sure you follow our developer page and sign up to our newsletter.

Patrick 💚

We've been quietly working on our second game (Tavern Keeper) in the past years but to celebrate the mobile release of Game Dev Tycoon (it came out on (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/game-dev-tycoon/id1162580001?ls=1&mt=8) and Google Play), we've decided to take a break from designing taverns and worked to bring a FREE content update to our amazing Game Dev Tycoon community. Here are the goodies:

Pirate Mode

Try your luck surviving the harsh realities of piracy in this new ultra-hard game mode in which you have to invent DRM and sell company shares to survive.

You can find the pirate mode under the advanced options when starting a new game.

We've also added two new achievements:

New Review Screen

Inspired by the mobile UI, we've revamped the review screen with now 100% more star-power.

Disclaimer: Sudden rushes of anger from receiving a bad score from All Games is unchanged but the feeling of elation from receiving amazing scores is increased by several measurable units of excitement!

New side bar messages

Messages and events can now appear in a new sidebar instead of opening automatically and interrupting gameplay.

Messages can stack. You can click on them to read the message (or right-click to dismiss them). They will gently pulse and disappear if you ignore them too long.

We've tuned the default settings to be ideal for first-time players but experienced players can control which type of messages should auto-popup and which should appear in the sidebar in the new "Messages" settings tab:

New Topics, Icons & Drag to Scroll

We felt that the un-modded game lacked a few core topics that prevented players from re-making their favorite game in Game Dev Tycoon. This release adds 15 new topics to the game to enable more game combinations and, while we were at it, we completely redesigned the topic picker with shiny new icons.

Adding topic icons made the topic list a bit bigger, so we took this as an opportunity to add kinetic scrolling to lots of scrollable elements in the game. If you want to quickly browse the topic list now just click, drag, and flick it!

👩🏽‍💻 Women in Tech 🏆

We were made aware of a pretty sad bug where the 'women in tech' event in the game did not alter the gender balance of job applicants. We have now fixed this and also added a lot more famous women game developers to the game.

In related news, the default character when starting a new game is now randomized and there is a random character button for you to press too.

Swap and late-game PC

Turns out that Ninvento can't stop innovating! We have added the Ninvento Swap to the platform list, including a corresponding news story telling you all about bitter cartridges. We have also added a new late-game PC image to the game.

Modders 🛠

Existing mods should continue to function as they have before but we have added a few new features which modders can make use of:

• Mods can now add an (optional) icon to their topics by specifying an iconUrl ((https://github.com/greenheartgames/gdt-modAPI/wiki/Adding-Topics)).

• Mods can now add their own settings UI to the game's settings-panel via a call to GDT.addSettingsTab(title, content); ((https://github.com/greenheartgames/gdt-modAPI/wiki/GDT)).

• Mods can spawn messages in the new sidebar. ((https://github.com/greenheartgames/gdt-modAPI/wiki/Notification)).

• The game now ships the Greensock GSAP animation library which modders can use to its full potential ((https://github.com/greenheartgames/gdt-modAPI/wiki/GSAP-animations)).

Thanks for playing! 💚

Hope you all enjoy this free update. We will now head back into fantasy land and focus on our second game. We hope we can talk more about it soon. If you haven't done so yet, please sign up to our newsletter on tavernkeeper.com.

Full changelog

v1.6.11

• New: super-difficult 'pirate' game mode including new piracy, DRM and company ownership game mechanics.

• New: Added Ninvento Swap console and 100% more mentioning of denatonium benzoate in the game.

• New: Added new modern PC image.

• New: UI panels have now a kinetic drag behaviour.

• New: Updated review screen with new star animations.

• New: Added 15 new topics.

• New: Nicer topic and genre picker with all new topic and genre icons.

• New: Added icons to context menu.

• New: New message sidebar where messages can appear without interrupting gameplay.

• New: New 'Messages' settings allow you to set which in-game messages should auto-popup and which should open in the new sidebar.

• New: Character can now be randomized when starting a company.

• New: Settings, achievements and highscore panels are now draggable.

• New (modding): Mods can now add their own settings panel via GDT.addSettingsTab(title,jqueryContent);

• New (modding): Custom topics can now specify a iconUrl to show a custom icon (otherwise generic fallback is used).

• New: Modders can now make use of greensocks GSAP animation library: https://greensock.com/gsap

• Improved: Added more famous women to the game.

• Added: Translations of new content.

• Improved: Removed UI selection outline from slider handle.

• Improved: Added visual clue when there are not enough research points to start a research project.

• Improved: Small story window is now slightly wider.

• Improved: Sponsoring the women in tech event now causes more women to apply for jobs.

• Improved: Combobox in new game window is now larger.

• Improved: The default character when starting a new company is now randomized.

• Changed: Progression hint messages are now categorized as company milestones and will auto-open by default.

• Fixed: Randomize character button in company creation screen has missing icon.

• Fixed: Animation sounds would sometimes continue playing when starting a new game.

• Fixed: Typewriting animation would sometimes speed up on the intro screen when starting a new game.

• Fixed: Several buttons do not play a sound when clicked.

• Fixed: It was possible to have a game that never went off the market if a company had lost all fans and then released another bad game.

• Fixed: The splashscreen is no longer draggable.

• Fixed: When stories picked team members, often the first staff got picked.