Software Inc.

The background

If you've followed development closely, you might know that we've been working on a campaign mode to help ease in new players and introduce the game's mechanics at a reasonable pace. My hope was that this would tie the game together for the 1.0 release. This work has been slow going, as I'm not an author, so writing good dialog has been pretty difficult, even though most of the campaign is playable at this point. We've spent downtime polishing the game and adding a couple of small auxiliary mechanics, as seen in the recent trash update.

I've paid particular attention to the fact that some of you are disappointed none of the recent patches have touched the software development/management part of the game. I had written this part of the game off as complete, while the campaign was being developed. I decided to look over our list of "wishes" for this aspect of the game and made a tentative plan to improve it. My conclusion is that it would take at least 6 months and be completely game breaking.

Based on the fact that I wrote "I have a great opportunity to make this game as good as I possibly can" on the Steam store page 10 years ago, and this is our last chance to introduce game breaking changes (so I don't mess up the campaign mode and final 1.0 release), we've decided to move forward with it.

The plan

The overhaul will touch marketing, servers, product "identity", subsidiaries and some smaller game breaking stuff that I've always wanted to add, but I didn't want to break saves.

Everything is subject to change of course and will probably not live up to your expectations, but the rough plan is:

• Completely overhaul pre-marketing and introduce a couple of new mechanics
  

• Add an extra mechanic to post-marketing, but keep the overall post-marketing process pretty much the same
  

• Integrate servers better with the core gameplay loop
  

• Add some very high-level customization to subsidiaries
  

• Add a couple of things to make software products feel more personal

As always, I will try to make sure the additions don't complicate the game too much. Most of the things we add can be completely ignored, without making the game tougher on easier difficulties.

The TL;DR

We're going on a financially dubious probably 6 month long hiatus to overhaul some core mechanics (marketing, servers and subsidiaries), because it seems like the right thing to do and I enjoy working on this game.

I will keep you updated as progress moves along and we have some actual stuff to show. The new server system is pretty close to done already and the pre-marketing overhaul is well underway.

Finally, I just wanted to give a quick happy 12th year anniversary to development of Software Inc!

Changes

• Cooks can now use trays outside of their assigned rooms
  

• Sort icon on columns is now separate from header, to avoid it being cut off
  

• "Night owl", "super focus", "born leader" and "just the flu" above employees heads will now change color depending on whether the effect is currently negative or positive
  

• Changed the wording of the team compatibility filter error when looking for new employees

Fixes

• Changed room aura calculation to avoid inconsistencies based on furniture placement order
  

• Fixed bug when new product is released using framework with no owner, mostly occuring in multiplayer
  

• Fixed leader multitasking specialization not applying to accounting work and incorrectly requiring 3 stars for support work

It's trash time, baby!

Summarized patch notes

Changes

• Introduced indoor air quality that propagates through rooms and shows up as a gas/dust cloud in the room. This mechanic also replaces the odour mechanic
  

• Employees now generate paper trash, which can be dealt with by using trash cans (can be auto-placed for old saves and blueprints)
  

• Employees and cooks now generate food spills to encourage office/canteen separation
  

• Pallets now auto-connect to conveyor belts, pickup and drop-off points will be refunded on load
  

• Some furniture can now be auto-placed by holding J (default binding) during placement
  

• Improved key binding UX because people still don't know you can rebind keys and use , and . to rotate furniture?!
  

• Overhauled pathfinding data structure for performance + better determination of outdoor walking speed
  

• You can now build in front of elevators due to pathfinding overhaul
  

• Added support for modding doors and windows due to pathfinding overhaul
  

• "Old sole" trait is out, but "Immaculate" and "Claustrophobic" is in + new "Paranoid" personality trait
  

• Added support for networking and html-like UI creation for code mods
  

• Add-ons are now filtered based on whether their parent product is archived
  

• Added confirmation when cancelling active support deals (they can be cancelled without repurcussion if work hasn't begun)
  

• Tables with stuff on it can now be eaten at, assuming the stuff on it can be free placed (e.g. not big objects like computers and servers)
  

• Increased how far elevators can be off center and still be connected to 8cm (Does not fix existing saves)
  

• Employees will now prioritize tasks based on whether they are a secondary task and/or secondary role individually instead of as a whole
  

• Rooms that are otherwise off limits will now be treated as neutral if they have food trays, since people forget to mark them as canteens
  

• Dirty room warnings now only pop up for offices and reception areas
  

• Improved flickering light from lamps that are about to break and added sound effects + option to disable
  

• Added notification when another company uses player's framework
  

• Made clocks colorable
  

• Added conveyor speed info to build menu

Fixes

• Old saves will now be cleaned of duplicated doors, which could heavily impact performance
  

• Fixed memory leak on some Linux distros by forcing memory cleanup once an in-game year
  

• Fixed cleaners being a lot slower while fast forwarding
  

• Fixed prints shipped with helicopter not being registered in the stat window
  

• Dirt is no longer removed when inaccessible, however cleaners have gained telekinetic abilities
  

• Renamed "Hypochondriac" trait to "Patient zero", to make the negative synergy with "Just the flu" clearer
  

• Fixed trees flickering at 8 days per month with > 200 fps
  

• Fixed room curve tool taking walls on other floors into account when calculating nearness
  

• Fixed some areas becoming unpathable in Windows builds making furniture unavailable despite not being obstructed
  

• Fixed bug in multiplayer when releasing new version of digital distribution platform
  

• Fixed task priorities not being loaded in correctly when loading a save game, making it so teams with max task limits would work on the wrong task, until task order was changed
  

• Fixed cooks not playing opening fridge animation correctly
  

• Fixed game breaking if setting color blind mode to Custom first time from drop down instead of using button

Patch notes for Beta 1.8.40

Changes

• Doors and garage ports now push dirty air outside

Fixes

• Fixed accidentally removing elevator load balancing from game
  

• A ton of small fixes