Some minor optimizations in this update. Also, to get an idea of what kind of city players want next I’ve created a poll. You can vote at the link below:

Which city would you like to see in This Grand Life?

Alpha 2.44 Changelog

• Slight modifications to camera gliding
• Optimized some UI things
• Clicking on stock market asset with chart open auto-switches chart
• Fixed price changer for non-dollar currencies not displaying correct amount
• Fixed death spiral warnings not always appearing

Relationship Progress

Work continues on this feature. I have the first two stages (Seek and Date) prototyped and working.

For the dating portion, each week you can select to “date” them which opens up a separate window with date details like location, time taken, cost and relationship effect. These parameters vary randomly each week, and some dates are better than others. You can choose to accept the date or wait until next week to see if you can get better date parameters. If you accept, the date will be automatically processed to minimize micromanagement.

Also you will be able to gift collectibles or spend time calling to raise the relationship, but not as frequently as dating.

I’m making some changes to the way education works to make it a more rewarding experience. Hopefully it will feel less like you are grinding towards a distant goal that’s still years away (like in real life). Here’s a summary video:

Courses at the Town Hall (Alcoholics Anonymous, First Aid, etc) will no longer contribute towards your Knowledge goal. I thought it didn’t really make sense to have someone who attends an Alcoholics recovery program gaining Knowledge, since someone without the Alcoholic trait would have no reason to attend.

Instead, there is now a new Library location. Here you can study interesting courses such as ‘Elf Spotting 101’, ‘Identifying Llama Droppings’ and more. They aren’t useful for your career, but they are cheaper and shorter to complete than a degree or diploma while still giving you Knowledge. If you only need a small amount of Knowledge to complete your Life Goal, these are a better alternative to the more serious courses.

Previously you only received Knowledge when you completed the entire course. Now it will be gained gradually while you study. There will still be a large boost to your Knowledge when you finish the course, but it won’t be as dramatic as before.

I’ve also added an Eat From Canteen action to the University and Trade School. Now you can eat while studying at the same place. However this change would have discouraged the player from attending the Burger Joint and Restaurant. To counteract this, eating from those places now also increases your Fun.

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

This update is quite substantial, lots of changes/additions made to make things clearer for new players. Also included is better task prioritisation, more balanced biomes and re-balanced animal combat statistics. Once again, this update is compatible with all saved games from Alpha 18 onwards.

It was quite interesting watching videos of people playing and interacting with the game in ways I never expected. One fairly common example was players assigning lots of tasks, way too many for the size of the tribe, and then wanting to cancel them. So I’ve added a button that cancels all unassigned tasks to make this easier.

Here’s the full list of changes in Beta 21:

Features

• Added height to hex query box
• Added water table height info to world generation page
• Added short biome description to world generation page
• Added female dying sound
• Added separate scavenger event if entire tribe wiped out
• Enable camera movement even with management panel open
• Added legend for task priorities in task panel
• Added tooltip descriptions for animals
• Display stockpiles full message when trying to store objects in influence area with no space
• Made query panel actions change image when on/off for better context
• Added “Delete All Unassigned Tasks” button to task panel

Gameplay

• Rebalanced tundra biome for more water puddles
• Increased beach biome temperatures in winter
• Increased semi-arid biome torrential rain effect in spring
• Rebalanced animal combat statistics
• Crafting panel no longer displays materials in area if material is in use

Bug fixes

• Made more scrolling buttons responsive to click
• Fixed rainfall pattern not taking day modifier into account
• Fixed rainfall pattern not taking decimal numbers into account
• Set rain drop amount and global vapour increase to be the same for all biomes
• Removed redundant tribe button in diplomacy panel
• Fixed up Pokian Died notification formatting
• Added “select target” title text when choosing animal to attack
• Fixed being able to reset trap for buildings that are not traps
• If fire building destroyed/removed, then actual fire is also removed
• Fixed up “Need Tool” notification to be more descriptive
• Fixed potential crash when removing lots of tasks quickly
• Fixed tooltip showing up for map designations even when management panel open
• Fixed being able to designate small building on top of designated oversized building
• Improved performance when lots of tasks requiring materials assigned at the same time
• Ignored crafting/construction tasks priority setting when not all materials are available
• Improved labelling of task panel reasons for tasks not being done
• Fixed game freezing sometimes due to task arrows multi-threading lockup