Alpha 1.9 has been released with the new supervisor role for your freelance business and 3 new business types.

Your Business Supervisor

Now you can promote one of your employees to supervisor. A supervisor auto-assigns jobs to workers, improves productivity by motivating others and alerts you of any issues.

You need to take care in deciding who becomes supervisor. Firstly, they will demand a higher wage for the added responsibilities. Secondly, if you promote someone with low diligence, they will have a negative effect on the productivity of other workers. You have to decide whether it’s worth the monetary savings to run a cut-price establishment with a dodgy supervisor.

You still have to decide which jobs to take and when to buy materials, the supervisor will not take on those responsibilities. However if you don’t have enough materials to complete current jobs or you have idle workers, the supervisor will inform you.

More Business Types

There are three new business types in this update – Gardening Services, Private Security and Law Firm. Each type of business has different characteristics that affect how they are run.

The Gardening Business has low entry requirements, but doesn’t pay much and the work is dirty (affects hygiene). The low pay means you will probably do most of the work yourself and have a hard time affording employees.

The Security Business has boring work, which reduces your fun a lot when doing jobs. In this case you might want to hire employees to do the hard work instead of doing it yourself.

The Law Firm has urgent jobs, so you will have less time to complete them than usual. The pay is great, but have some employees on standby and don’t take on more than you can handle.

Other Changes

There are some other smaller changes like guerrilla marketing, “phoenix” corporations and balance adjustments. You can find the full list below (or leave it as a surprise).

Also, someone made a good point about the Real Estate Index being too smooth compared to the actual changes in home prices. The index was actually showing the underlying growth rate, not including the effect of current economic conditions. Now I’ve included the economic growth impact so you can see how overall home prices are really changing.

What’s next?

I will be working on improvements to the education system to make it easier to start a diploma or degree. There is also one more location I want to add before I consider the “default” map with 20 unique locations complete. Once that is done, I can start work on a new city map.

Changelog

Here is the full list of changes from 1.84 to 1.9:

• Added supervisor role in Freelance Business
• Implemented supervisor productivity effect on other workers
• Implemented supervisor reporting of missing materials and lack of jobs
• Added supervisor refusal to be demoted
• Implemented supervisor assigning workers to jobs
• Lowered payout from the best Design and Plumbing jobs
• Added Groundskeeper job to Park, University, Trade School
• Added Gardening Business and related products
• Added Law Firm Business and related products
• Added Security Business and related products
• Implemented guerilla marketing marketing tactic
• Added guerilla marketing to Graphic Design
• Implemented discount promotion marketing tactic
• Added discount promotion to Gardening and Plumbing businesses
• Removed check for employee brand when hiring workers
• Increased chance of Serve Dinner Party for Catering Business
• Starting plumbing business now requires Plumber’s Toolkit
• Fixed freelance business recommended capital not showing inflation-adjusted price
• Reduced maximum number of employees per brand from 5 to 4
• Freelance hide take and reject job buttons when no job
• Recategorised Employees as Business Expense in personal income statement
• Amount of moping around is proportional to level of happiness
• Added corporations coming back to life eventually after bankruptcy (phoenix corporations)
• Changed some tooltip displays
• Changed health expense to vary depending on severity of health need
• Slightly lowered fun loss from Kitchen Hand and Fast Food Cook
• Lowered base price of buying a home
• Added variable leverage amounts for mortgage based on economic conditions
• Added economic growth impact to real estate index
• Drinking alcohol in public increases fun slightly
• Added Quit Smoking course at Town Hall
• Added Movie Marathon to TV
• Removed first debt payment when renting new place and consider initial payment as prepayment
• Added stock market index to economic indices chart
• Suppressed earnings of larger corporations to prevent trillion dollar companies
• Reduced chance of corporation going bankrupt

I wasn’t planning on releasing an update, but I’ve discovered a potential issue and it’s better to fix it now rather than later when the game is live on Steam. The problem was multiple currency/language support. NOTE this means saved games from version 1.68 won’t be compatible with this new version. If you have preview access on Steam and wish to continue with your current saved game, I’ve created a separate branch alpha_1_68 that you can switch to.

The Stock Market is partially implemented in 1.7 but hasn’t been test enough so is currently disabled. Having said that, 1.7 has two notable features.

One of the things I’ve been thinking about is late game repetitiveness. You’re making 6 figures, run your own business and have reached your Wealth goal – why are you feeding yourself like a peasant? My solution to this conundrum – Home Services. These are services offered in the higher tier homes, such as a Personal Trainer or a Personal Chef. They help automate fulfilling your needs at the start of each week, but they’re expensive. The question you have to ask yourself – is my time worth the cost? Could I make enough money at my high-paying job that would offset the cost of these services?

The second change is an overhaul of the events spawning system. Previously, events were completely random and you could end up with back-to-back Steam Sales and the like. With this new system, I can now set different parameters for event spawning. For example, I can say the minimum number of weeks between Celebrity Concerts is 6 weeks, and they only start from week 26 onwards. It also allows regular events like New Year Celebrations to happen at the same time each year. In the future I’ll be able to add location-specific events based on holidays in that city (Thanksgiving in New York, Ocktoberfest in Munich, etc).

My apologies for the lack of video this update, but I thought it was important to fix the language support issue now rather than later.

Here’s a full list of changes from 1.68 to 1.7:

• Added support for unicode characters
• Put coins in correct order in coin display
• Slightly reduced random weekend event frequency
• Overhauled location- and possession-based events manager
• Added New Year Celebrations at Town Hall
• Added Celebrity Book Signing at Library
• Added Travelling Circus at Large Park
• Income Statements now have same theme as their parent
• Added new Exchange colour theme
• Added Services functionality to home
• Added 4 different home services
• Implement cancelling home services if moving house
• Replaced Mansion and Penthouse default actions with luxurious versions
• Adjusted Mansion and Penthouse rental rates
• Reduced impact of low fun when net worth very high
• Slightly increased threshold for low needs events
• Reduced maximum work performance gain doing part time work
• Changed lose game progression to nervous breakdown
• Added number of hours deficient when placed on work probation

I’ve been focusing on retesting every existing feature and fixing issues over the past week. With the Steam Early Access 3 weeks away, I’ll be sending out press builds soon and want the game to be as stable as possible. This means the Stock Market feature won’t be ready until after the Steam version is live. Having said that, Alpha 1.6 is now live and there’s a few new things in addition to those mentioned in the last post.

You can now buy Lottery Tickets from the Mall. This probably sounds strange in a game about smart financial decision-making. The lottery is drawn at the end of each week. If you lose, nothing happens except you wasted your money, but if you win your happiness increases. On average you will lose money just like in real life, so playing the lottery is only useful as a way to increase happiness.

Next, I found some flaws with the way I was calculating repayment rates for home mortgages. I was using the same formula that was used for personal loans, but this made the monthly mortgage repayments very unaffordable. I’ve changed it so now when you take out a mortgage, it will always be paid back in 30 years (unless you pay off the principle early). This makes the loans much more affordable and realistic.

Improvements have been made to the personal loan and mortgage screens as well. They will indicate the current monthly repayments so you can work out whether you can afford the loan. You can compare the repayments with current rent prices to see if it’s cheaper to rent or buy a house.

One thing to remember is that all loans are variable rates. This means if interest rates increase, then your repayments will increase as well. This is yet another reason to keep an eye on the Economic Charts I introduced in the last blog post. If you see interest rates are on the rise and economic growth is falling, be careful you don’t borrow more than you can afford to repay.

Finally, you can now paint your Collectible containers! Just buy Cans Of Paint at the Mall like you would for your house, and then a Paint Container button will appear under the collection display.

Here’s a list of all the changes 1.6:

New Features

• Added super cool loading screen at start
• Added image for losing game
• Added economic indicator charts
• Added life goal history tracking and charts
• Added shortcut key configuration to Options
• Added details view for real estate in Possessions
• Added Financial Dimes subscription
• Added lottery ticket possessions
• Added painting Collectible containers

Gameplay Changes

• Reduced impact of some needs-based events
• Modified economic growth update rates
• Added capital gains tax for sold real estate
• Added separate Real Estate index and history tracking
• Decoupled house price index from economic growth index
• Changed mortgage repayments to 30-year terms

Bugfixes/Improvements

• Edge scrolling only happens when window in focus
• Made banking popups and alerts more consistent
• Fixed able to apply for home without home selected
• Removed Real Estate label from Possessions panel unless we have real estate
• Overhauled Statements display
• Lots of minor UI tweaks
• Fixed missing Coin Collecting Album from Collector’s Store
• Split tax return into more specific income/expense categories
• Added estimated monthly repayments on mortgage and personal loan
• Fixed missing Bachelor Of Arts and Philosophy from university
• Fixed withholding tax not taking into account inflation
• Fixed yearly tax calculation not taking into account inflation
• Fixed medical bills not taking into account inflation
• Fixed missing sound effect for ‘free’ actions
• Fixed possessions not appearing in Possessions panel when hidden objects purchased
• Fixed repayments too high on mortgages
• Fixed loan principle increasing faster than repayments
• Fixed real estate investment interest being treated as tax offset instead of tax deduction
• Fixed Interest income going into tax payable instead of income column on tax return
• Fixed deadlock when processing transaction history causing game to hang

Lots to talk about! Firstly, the Steam page for This Grand Life is up and there’s a new trailer to go along with it. I’ll be launching on Steam Early Access on 23rd October and aim for a full launch in the first half of next year. If you purchased on Itch.io, you will get a Steam key.

Alpha 1.5 includes the new theme feature and Comic Book collectibles discussed in the last article, new career paths, education courses, traits, random events, balance changes and more.

When adding new content, I try to keep things varied by using existing game mechanics in different ways. Two examples are the Law and Accounting careers.

For the Law career path, you start out as a Paralegal after you get your Law degree. When you have gained enough Law Experience, you get access to two further occupations. You can become a Legal Officer, which pays more. Or you can become a Community Lawyer, which has the unique mechanic of increasing your Happiness every time you work. The next tier up is the Corporate Lawyer, which requires the player to take the Bar Exam as a prerequisite. It pays a lot more money than either the Legal Officer or Community Lawyer.

The Accountant career path is different. In this career, you can start gaining Accounting Experience as a Payroll Clerk before you even get your degree. Once you have your degree, you can then become an Accountant. After that you take the CPA Exam to become a Certified Accountant, then finally complete a Diploma in Management course to become a Comptroller. So lots of courses to complete to reach the top of this career, but it pays extremely well.

In this update we’ll also have more random events. Some examples are stepping on chewing gum and having an old friend call you, which changes your needs slightly each week.

Next we have more traits. Here’s a short list of some of the new ones:

• Deal-hunter – You’re always looking for a great bargain. All Subscriptions cost 25% less.
• Optimistic – Your Happiness recovers faster when it drops below 50%.
• Lazy – It’s hard to get out of bed. Lose 7 hours each week.
• Short Legs – Travelling between locations takes 20% more time.

I’ve also made some slight adjustments to the Happiness need. One of the aims of the Happiness need is to kill off the player if they haven’t been managing their money properly. For example, if you can’t afford food then your Hunger need goes down the zero and then your Happiness need starts decreasing. However, this could also happen if the player wasn’t paying enough attention to the needs bar (even if they had plenty of money).

I didn’t want to punish the player too much for inattention. So I’ve significantly slowed down the rate of Happiness decrease when this happens. In practice, this means you will be less likely to go into a spiral of depression and ‘moping around’ by accident. It also means if you have run out of money, your journey to insanity will take slightly longer.

Finally, last time I mentioned the Commodities/Stock Market feature was in second place in our online poll. Well now it seems to have taken the lead by a large margin!

Here’s the full list of changes for Alpha 1.5:

New Features

• Added traits Marketeer, Coupon Clipper, Deal-hunter, Lazy, Short Legs, Speed Walker, Optimistic and Pessimistic
• Added Paint Home and Business functionality
• Added Fast food coupon – Buy one get one free
• Added Jesse’s Jokes and Generous Giving subscriptions
• Added 10 new random events
• Added Law career path, Bachelor Of Law, Bar Exam and 4 related jobs
• Added Accountant career path, Bachelor Of Accounting, CPA Exam and 4 related jobs
• Added Office Clerk job
• Added Skyscraper and Collectors Store locations
• Added Comic Collectibles and Storage Box
• Added location color themes
• Added ‘Light Reader’ and ‘Hoarder’ ambitions
• Added Can Of Paint possession at Mall
• Added two music tracks
• Added border around game map
• Added Investment Manager to top of Finance career

Gameplay Changes

• Refactored events system so only one random city event per week
• Reduced rate of Happiness decrease when another need is at zero by 50%
• Moved all collectibles from Mall to Collectors Store
• Allow maximum 4 educations on character creation
• Removed Work Experience requirements from Culinary career path
• Added Bachelor Of Finance requirement to most jobs in Banking career path
• Reduced fun and job openings from Social Services Manager and Licensing Examiner jobs
• Reduced Cooking Exp requirement for Sous Chef and removed Cooking Exp requirement for Restaurant Cook
• Increased experience requirements of Security career path

Bugfixes/Improvements

• Slightly adjusted existing map dimensions
• Added commas to all currency displays
• Added tooltip when hovering over time and needs bars
• Fixed some low-quality avatars
• Now storing historical economic indicator data for each game
• Added auction caller sound effects
• Cleaned up in-game InfoNet
• Renamed ‘Ancient Rome’ collectibles to ‘Roman’
• Enabled random city-based events in scenarios
• Added player businesses to bankruptcy proceedings
• Add needs translated string to InfoNet Search
• Added jobs at each location to InfoNet search and display
• Fixed bug with time being used on nothing at start of new week sometimes
• Fixed annoying bouncing location panels when travelling between places sometimes
• Fixed crash when going bankrupt at end of week with a Business Brand window open

Alpha 1.4 is out and contains the new freelance/contractor business feature. I gave an introduction to this feature in the previous post here. Today, I’ll talk about some other changes surrounding this new feature.

The most recent transactions are now listed when you click on your main account balance. This is useful if you have multiple businesses and they start generating income/deducting expenses from your account. You can see where the money is going, whether it’s paying for wages or materials, etc.

Your own businesses can also be assigned a hotkey now, so you can quickly access it. Just click “Pin” on the business you want to hotkey, and select a number from the list. This is helpful if you want to check up on your business, accept any available jobs and assign workers to jobs. Then once you’re done, press the hotkey again to close the business window and get back to your life.

There’s a new subscription, the Businezz Biweekly which provides you with advanced tips on running a business.

Since you’re running a business, you also get tax deductions. For those that are unfamiliar with how it works, a tax deduction is a reduction in your taxable income mainly from expenses you incur from running the business. Any business expense is a tax deduction, so for example if you made $10000 from the business and spent $7000 on marketing, materials, etc then you would only be taxed on your $3000 profit. You can see your total business income and expenses on the income statement of each business.

You can also sell a business if you have had enough of being an entrepreneur. The final sale price is influenced by recent business profits, brand reputation and awareness, and a few other factors. Your business is considered a sole proprietorship, which means its profits or losses are added to your personal tax return each financial year (and you are taxed at your personal tax rate, not a business tax rate).

As mentioned last time, the base price for This Grand Life will be increasing after this weekend. So if you want it at the lower price, head over to Itch.io before Monday!

Remember you can still vote in the online poll for what you want to see next. More content is currently in the lead so I’ll be working on that for the next update.

Here’s the full list of changes for Alpha 1.4:

New Features

• Added Plumbing business and Plumber’s Toolkit possession
• Added Graphic Design business and Calibrated Monitor possession
• Added Catering business and Commercial Kitchen possession
• Added different rarities for different freelance jobs
• Added job openings taking into account owned possessions and not just worn clothing
• Added brand reputation, awareness and marketing for freelance jobs
• Added reputation hit when freelance work not completed on time
• Implemented economy effect on freelance jobs available
• Added Business button to profile dashboard
• Added auto-cancelling marketing and quitting workers if you can’t afford them
• Added existing names pool as potential employees names
• Added business startup fees
• Added Income Statements for each freelance business
• Added materials requirements for each business
• Added variation to employee wage negotiation skill
• Added hotkeys assignable for Freelance Business
• Added recent transactions to receivables/payables summary
• Added Businezz Biweekly subscription
• Added selling business functionality

Gameplay Changes

• Renamed Beer to Carton Of Beer
• Doubled happiness penalty from being fired from regular job
• Added Diploma requirement for Library Assistant and Work Experience requirement for Librarian
• Implemented business tax deductions
• Wealth calculation includes business value

Bugfixes/Improvements

• Reduced size of save files
• Implemented click to zoom for freelance jobs
• Moved Hours Spent button from profile dashboard into Statements
• Fixed Tickets To CatCon not expiring after a month
• Added Warranty to tooltip when purchasing breakable goods
• Disable hiding work button
• Reworked Tax Statement to include more income and deduction details
• Added windowed full screen to option
• Fixed Subscriptions adding money instead of taking it away
• Changed actions on business panel arrangement from alphabetical to data order
• Switching from main menu to game now instantaneous
• Clicking on Home or Job on dashboard now travels there instead of camera zooming
• Fixed crash when pressing load game button with no saved games