In january I decided to completely remake the entire game from scratch. That meant deleting everything from the game and starting from zero. I did it because I was not happy with certain features and mechanics. I wanted things to be one way, but the old versions code and how everything was build made it impossible to implement the way I wanted it to be. So, a complete rework it was.
Now I am pretty happy with the state of the game, enough to call it a fully release instead of an early version. This does not mean that I am done. More updates will come.
Important: The new version will start a new save file. This will not affect your old save. You can still play your old save if you want in the old version of the game. Further bellow I will explain how, but basically you can switch between the old version and the new one if you wish to do so. Both saves are separate.
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What is new/changed?
I won't list every single detail, but only the major things.
1) You now have 8 regions and in those regions you have separate dealers, thugs, lawyers and enemies.
In the old version all of those were just numbers. You hire more dealers to sell more. Now you have 8 dealers, for each drug one. Each one has his own upgrades and will sell only 1 type of drug.
Total of 64 dealers, 8 lawyers, 8 thugs and 8 enemys.
The regions alone have more than 2000 upgrade levels for the base game. Combined with the dlc and production maybe around 3000.
DLC stuff is relevant only at late game, by that time you could have maybe hundrets(?) of hours into it before it gets relevant. And even then, it's not game changing.
DLC only locks the last 5 levels of upgrades, nothing more. All game features are free. The free version has everything in it.
I know I said I wanted the game to be very realistic, but realism is a thing you either do 100% right or not at all. Some things like drug prices are still realistic, but most things are meant to just be fun and fair.
2) When you unlock a region you get the lawyer, thug, enemy and police department unlocked.
The lawyer is now only 1 per region and generates stability. The thug does jobs and gives you 10% of what they make. The enemy is on cooldown and can be attacked.
Police and gang heat have been removed and replaced with stability instead. The old system was bad, because, when a gang war started, it paused the game. Police and gang wars either made you lose too much or at late game not enough. Now the game is TRUE idle. It will run without a pause wehter you do something or not. Features of you losing stuff is removed. Instead, there are new money sinks and balance to the drugs. Everything is now about timers and time.
You cannot upgrade drug prices anymore. This was a mistake to add in the first place and completely unrealistic. Making 10g of weed sell for $5000 or something was just... yeah.
Making money is hard. Drugs barely give any profit. Progress is slow. As it should be.
The lawyer generates stability, the dealer decreases it. Stability affects the timers only and nothing more. If it falls to 0%, then your dealers sell a bit slower. It's not a harsh system and can be ignored if you wish to.
Police is on a very long cooldown and will raid you and set the stability to 0%. Nothing bad or more. You can then build it back up with the lawyer.
Thugs generate money and can be upgraded.
When you attack the enemy you fight with your upgraded thugs. It's the old combat system.
If you win, you get a random lootcrate. If you lose, nothing happens. The timer resets.
3) Lootcrates. I think lootcrates are fun. The only reason anyone hates them is because in almost all games that have them, they cost real money. Not here, it's just fun.
The game does not have microtransactions and never will. The only thing you can buy with real money is the dlc. You get a few lootcrates with the dlc but it's not much, and you do not get the legendary one. There is no real money involved with them. Just have fun and collect the items.
I had a ton of fun making those and the entire system.
4) Items.
You can collect 9 items. Each gives a pretty decent bonus. There are 4 tier of them, each to the corresponding lootbox. And they are pretty hard to get. This is the late game money sink. Legendary lootboxes can be obtained only trough the epic as a drop. And then you have a 3% chance per roll to get that legendary item. Good luck!
Why so hard? Because its that much more rewarding when you actually get it.
5) Growing weed.
You can grow weed and upgrade it. Has 3 stages, each one upgradable. Costs no money, just time. This is the replacement for meth and labs. Growing weed is more realistic than producing meth.
I will focus again on drug production at a later stage. Already planned ;)
6) Each button now has a tooltip. I think this should make the game easier for new players. Everything is over explained in each tooltip. You can see dynamic prices and stuff there too.
There is also a faster button to make your employees work faster.
Buildings have been removed. You don't hire anyone anymore, just unlock stuff. There is no cap on drugs that you have. Order as much as you want.
7) Ordering drugs. Now places an order. 10g, 100g or 1kg. After 30 or 60 seconds you get the product. Placing the order deducts the money instantly.
You can also set it to autobuy and it will if you have the money.
Other than that. Dealers sell way slower and way less. The timer is like, 1 day, it's unrealistic for a dealer, even with max upgrades to sell, like, 1kg per day. Get more regions to sell more. Upgrade them and their timers to sell faster. The dealers start at 110-130 seconds. With max upgrades and items it can go down to 20-40 seconds.
That's the general stuff. The rest you can figure out as you play. You will start with $120 in west downtown. Order some weed to get you started, or upgrade your thugs, they will generate you money anyway, but it wont be much.
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What's next?
First off, wait for feedback if anything is broken. I've tested everything... but it's so much stuff going on
in the game that I can't be certain.
Then I want to update some minor things, like some visuals here and there and add some sound effects to the lootcrates. Maybe balance changes.
After that, steam achievements.
Then, when I am certain that I have a stable and balanced game, think about translations and ports to mobile maybe.
Then, or maybe before, another DLC that focuses on production in another region, as big as the base game. Producing coke and other drugs in mexico, smuggling, cartels and that stuff.
Either work on the dlc or on a new game. Already have an idea for a management type game(not idle) and I think that it will be awesome. Haven't seen anything like it before, or at least not the way I want to do it.
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Here is how you change the versions:
Change to none if you want the new version again.
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Lastly I want to thank all of you for your patience and support. The community has been nothing but awesome! :)
Have fun!
- Lord
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