About Parsley

This author has not yet filled in any details.
So far Parsley has created 125 blog entries.

Going Forward in This Grand Life

It looks like we’re not going to meet the Kickstarter goal, I guess I went into this without a big enough fan base. I’d still like to say a big THANK YOU to those of you who have shown support for the project.

I’m still going to finish This Grand Life, but with a different timeline and priorities. I’ll be ditching the scenarios, which would have required the most custom art assets that the Kickstarter was to partially fund. Instead, my efforts will go towards adding features to the custom game mode that require a minimum amount of new art. As an example, one of these new features I’m currently working on is an auction system and the ability to invest in real estate.

Once I’ve updated the current tutorial and made the custom game playable from start to finish, I’ll be entering Alpha development. The game will then be purchasable from Itch.io. Alpha will be about adding more content, features and improving the core game. More in-game music will also be added if we get enough funding during this stage.

So that’s the plan. I feel like I have something special here, and I hope you’ll join in the development journey with me! For regular updates, you can follow me on Twitter and for major updates, sign up to the newsletter.

Itch.io | Twitter | Website

By |April 26th, 2017|GameDev|0 Comments

Celebrity Concerts, Steam Sales And Other Special Events

Special events can occur each week depending on city locations, possessions you own and the scenario/custom game you are playing.

One special event is the Celebrity Concert, which has a small chance of happening at the Stadium each week. When a Celebrity Concert is happening, you can pay extortionate amounts of money to go see your favourite pop star. The benefit is that you get a massive increase in your Fun and Happiness needs.

One of a PC gamer’s most popular events is Valve’s Steam Sales – now you can participate in them virtually! If you own a PC computer, there is a chance each week of a Steam Sale occurring. Similar to the celebrity concert, you can greatly increase your Fun and Happiness needs by buying games at ridiculously low prices. However, one drawback is your Health will suffer slightly.

There are ‘negative’ events too, like your Aunt coming to visit and using up part of your weekly time before you’ve done anything useful. These things happen sometimes and you can’t control them, just like in real life.

Itch.io | Twitter | Website

By |April 10th, 2017|GameDev|0 Comments

Branching and Merging Career Paths

Careers are a part of the game that required lots of research and balancing to get right. On one hand, there are so many different occupations/career paths in the real world that there is an almost unlimited supply to put in the game. On the other hand, we don’t want to overwhelm the player and cause analysis paralysis, where there is too much choice (and all options seem very similar).

An example of a merging career path is Finance. You can enter this career through either the Loan Officer or Credit Analyst occupation. A Loan Officer requires lots of sales experience, whereas a Credit Analyst requires a Bachelor Of Finance degree but no experience.

They merge into the Financial Advisor occupation, which only requires Banking Experience (gained from both previous occupations).

As you get further down a career path, the competition for the job increases. This means there are fewer openings and you’ll have to apply more times to get the job. Economic conditions also affect job competition, with a poor economy meaning more competition for all jobs.

Of course, the better occupation also comes with higher pay. However it also comes with more stress, and so your Fun need goes down faster. You’ll find yourself spending less hours working (but earning more) and more hours on leisure activities trying to satisfy that Fun need.

Itch.io | Twitter | Website

By |April 2nd, 2017|Uncategorized|0 Comments

Character Creation – Traits And Privileges

Traits are one of the interesting aspects in This Grand Life’s character creation. Your character is given a starting number of privilege points, which can be spent on positive and negative traits. The number of privilege points you start with is determined by where you were born.

The Silver Spoon is our flagship trait, where your wealthy parents give you money each month to spend however you like. Good for beginners, the extra cash makes paying bills much easier.

One of the more interesting negative traits is Alcoholic. This trait adds an extra needs bar (in addition to Hunger, Fun, Hygiene, Health and Happiness) that you need to satisfy. Logically, you can satisfy the need by drinking alcohol. It adds an additional challenge to balancing your budget when you need to keep feeding your addiction.

It doesn’t need to be a lifelong addiction, but it won’t be easy to cure either. You can apply for the Alcoholics Anonymous course at the Town Hall, and if you successfully complete it the Alcoholic trait will be removed.

Itch.io | Twitter | Website

By |March 29th, 2017|GameDev|0 Comments

Kickstarter and Greenlight live

We’re going all out today and launching This Grand Life’s Kickstarter and Greenlight. Remember to tell your friends who might be interested in this kind of game.

Support the Kickstarter and you can have a custom portrait of yourself in the game, a custom profile with your biography and traits, or even a whole scenario dedicated to you!

You can try the demo which includes the current tutorial. Play as Max E. Mumm, a good for nothing son who needs to get a job and stop mooching off his poor mother. Help him learn how to live away from home and invest his money:

Download Demo from IndieDB

And finally vote for the game on Greenlight so we can get on Steam

Itch.io | Twitter | Website

By |March 28th, 2017|Uncategorized|0 Comments

New demo and trailer available, Kickstarter date set!

I am happy to announce that the Kickstarter and Greenlight launch date for This Grand Life has been set for 9pm 28th March UTC / 2pm 28th March PDT (in only a few days!). For this occasion there is now a trailer and a new pre-alpha demo!

Try the demo which includes the current tutorial. Play as Max E. Mumm, a good for nothing son who needs to get a job and stop mooching off his poor mother. Help him learn how to live away from home and invest his money. Get it from one of the following:

Download from IndieDB

Download From Itch.io

Download from MediaFire

If you want to be notified when the Kickstarter launches, you can sign up to our mailing list

Itch.io | Twitter | Website

By |March 25th, 2017|Uncategorized|0 Comments

Creating a realistic job market for This Grand Life

In this article I will talk about the research that went into creating a realistic job market for This Grand Life.

Just as in real life, there are different careers and occupations you can pursue. Some are harder to enter than others. As an example, to become a University Professor you need a PHD and years of experience, while a Janitor requires no experience. Of course, this difference in requirements is reflected in their respective salaries.

The first step – work out the career path from the entry level position all the way to the highest and most presitigious occupations. This was pretty straight forward, just visit careers websites and read some of their advice. For example, the education career path in the game goes something like this: Tutor -> Lecturer -> Research Scholar -> Professor. The next step was looking for the relative real life salaries of each occupation. I used websites like SalaryExpert which provide a nice overview of salaries in the US.

Based on these salaries, I could tweak the requirements and opportunities of each job to balance gameplay. For example, did you know a Janitor gets paid slightly more than a Kitchen Hand? I could bump up the experience requirements for a Janitor slightly to reflect this, or make the Kitchen Hand -> Chef career path more rewarding. I came across some pretty obscure sounding occupations during my research, like the Digestor Operator:

Some jobs even have multiple career paths. In the banking career path you can get an entry level position as a Credit Analyst with a Finance Degree. Or you could start as a Loan Officer if you don’t have a degree yet, but have lots of sales experience. Eventually you will need to get that qualification to progress to higher tier occupations, but in the meantime you could start off earning a higher wage while studying at the same time.

To further make things more interesting, your Fun need decreases at a faster rate the more stressful and higher paying your position. So if you still have a crappy TV but work as an Investment Banker, expect to spend a lot of time each week satisfying the Fun need. Consider buying an expensive VR headset to satisfy that Fun need, or go watch Sports Games at the Stadium more often. It’s OK, you can afford it!

You can download the free prototype from Itch.io, IndieDB or MediaFire and give it a try.

Itch.io | Twitter | Website

By |January 14th, 2017|GameDev|0 Comments

This Grand Life prototype now available!

You can now download the free prototype from Itch.io, IndieDB or MediaFire.

It includes three tutorials explaining the basic game mechanics, set in the town of Tutorialville, located in the great country of Tutorialstan! The prototype also includes a work-in-progress Custom Game mode. It currently has a limited number of locations and includes the Chef career path, as well as some more ordinary occupations like janitor and salesperson.

You can also select your avatar and select some traits. Your starting traits is one of the important themes I want to highlight in the game. I want your starting conditions to have an impact on how difficult life is for you as the player. So hopefully you find that it’s much harder to have spare time when you are an alcoholic and need to drink all the time. Or find it easier to pay the rent when your rich parents give you free money each month.

I’ve found it challenging coming up with a cover image that represents the game accurately. At first I thought using a real-life city as the game map was a really cool game feature, but no one seemed to care! I spent hours and hours getting it to work! So I decided to go with something cleaner. As part of the design process, I came up with four key words to describe the tone of the game – humourous, personal, financial, choice. Then I looked up other life simulation games to see how they designed their cover art. Eventually I settled on having three characters, each representing a different part of the game. I commissioned an artist to create it for me:

The woman with the shopping bags represents buying and owning possessions. The man with a bag of money represents accumulating wealth. The student with books represents gaining knowledge through learning. These are the three main objectives in the game, along with the fourth objective – lifetime happiness.

So remember to try the prototype, which should give you an idea of what this game is about. It’s still rough around the edges and there isn’t much content, but the core mechanics are there. If you find it interesting, you can join our mailing list to receive news.

Itch.io | Twitter | Website

By |January 2nd, 2017|GameDev|0 Comments

This Grand Life – New game announcement

It’s been a while since I’ve written an update, I had to take a break from writing after the roller coaster of releasing my last game on Steam. I’ve been busy working on the prototype for my next game in the meantime. At first I experimented with making a business simulation game. In this game you were a corporation. You would build businesses, purchase goods and try to sell them for a profit. It would be backed by a deep supply/demand and economic simulation. It was an interesting concept, but not immediately and obviously fun. I also realised the scope was too big for a solo dev, so put that project to the side.

20161201-businessgamecancelled

I was still interested in making some sort of economic simulation game, and was inspired by a game from my childhood, Jones in the Fast Lane. So I ended up with another prototype, this time with the player represented by a single person instead of a corporation. The player travels around a map based on a real life city, trying to satisfy their needs (hunger, fun, health, etc). At the same time, they must work in order to afford shelter, pay their bills and achieve their Life Goals.

Now this was a prototype I found interesting to play, and so This Grand Life was born.

header480x270

20161204-mapicons

This Grand Life is a tactical life simulator with a focus on personal finances and time management. Cruise your way through life with a silver spoon, or struggle endlessly to find employment as a convicted felon. You cannot control your past, but you can change your future.

20161205-avatarselect

Your life is divided into weeks. You try to accomplish as much as you can each week while economic conditions and special events create interesting choices to think about. Do I go to work this week, or take part in the Hot Dog Eating competition at the park? Should I spend time looking for a better job, or stick with my current job until economic conditions improve? There are lots of choices you can make that will determine your path in This Grand Life.

20161205-windows

I will be releasing the free prototype some time in the next few weeks. In the meantime, you can sign up for the mailing list to receive news!

20161205-bank

Itch.io | Twitter | Website

By |December 5th, 2016|GameDev|0 Comments

Tribe Of Pok Release 1.10

An update has been released with a new Soil Mound building and various other improvements. Here is an example of a way you can use the new Soil Mound to dam a river:

20160915-dam

Release 1.10:

  • Added checks against possible cause of idling Pokians stepping on fires
  • Added a Soil Mound building to raise height level of ground using Soil Chunks
  • Greatly reduced bacterial decay rate of Soil Chunk
  • Replaced “Grass” and “Dirt” groundtype with “Soil”
  • Changed carnivores from finding nearest carcass to finding quickest pathable carcass to eat
  • Changed Pokians from finding nearest fire to finding quickest pathable fire to boil water
  • Fixed animal kills statistic displaying wrong filtered value after 9 days
  • Removed animal preference to sleep under a tree instead of a bush
  • Fixed Pokian drinking water from waterskin not showing progress bar
  • Moved all hard-coded object names into data files
  • Moved some hard-coded tool-tips and titles into data files
  • Task material lines now refresh dynamically while task query panel is open
  • Fixed stoke fire task not removed properly when fire is extinguished
  • Make ability only display in query panel if greater than 0
  • Added note to Extract tutorial that it can also be used for obtaining non-plant based food

20160914-dynamictaskupdate

By |September 14th, 2016|GameDev|0 Comments