Hey everyone!

This week marks the start of our new official devlog series!

As some of you know, I’ve wanted to start a proper devlog for a while now, especially as we enter this more refined stage of our Early Access journey. During the big rework phase, most of the updates were shared in our Discord dev-diary channel, the Community Gazette, and through patch notes, but not always in a consistent, diary-like format. Things were evolving quickly, and it wasn’t always easy to keep up with everything in one place.

Now that the major rework is mostly behind us and development is entering a steadier rhythm, it feels like the perfect time to introduce a proper dev-diary!

These devlogs are now being shared in three places:

It’s a great way to keep everyone in the loop, and honestly, it also helps me stay organized and track our progress more effectively. Plus, having a consistent running log will make putting together future Community Gazettes and patch notes much easier.

So with that said, let’s dive into the latest changelog! But first, a big thank you to everyone who’s been following along, testing, and sending in feedback. Your reports have directly shaped many parts of this update!

🛠️ Major Fixes & Improvements

🚍 Transportation & Garage Maintenance

  • Fixed UI scroll render glitch for “pending” and “in maintenance” vehicles.

  • Solved issue where scroll background icons displayed above UI elements in taxi, bus, and subway menus.

  • Garage vehicle buttons now also display the “No Driver” error box alongside maintenance warnings.

  • Vehicles now correctly resume operations after being maintained.

  • Mechanics now auto-start vehicle maintenance tasks properly.

  • Mechanic skill level now reduces maintenance time as expected.

  • Garage vehicles now consume fuel and correctly spend gas money.

  • Driver skill now affects maintenance interval durations.

  • Vehicles in maintenance now load correctly at game start.

  • Fixed vehicle maintenance slider issue in the UI.

  • Garage vehicles now contribute to transport capacity calculations.

  • Subway menu now shows total train fuel cost accurately.

  • Removed outdated ticket price display from the subway menu.

  • Taxi and bus capacity now correctly affects transportation stats.

  • Subway usage stats now appear correctly in the end-of-day menu.

  • Walkway usage now displays accurate hourly and daily data.

📊 Financial System & Graphs

  • Major overhaul of the financial graph and data recording system.

  • Graphs now update live and include current-day data.

  • Resolved issue where 0-value transactions (e.g., “0 casino payback”) cluttered the system and skewed totals.

  • Removed phantom zero values at the start of a new game session.

  • Fixed incorrect highlighting on graph filter buttons.

  • Icons and headers now match their corresponding transaction types.

  • Sub-graphs and main financial graphs are now independently selectable.

  • Fixed issue where null icons caused totals to display -100 million.

  • ⚠️ This patch resets old financial logs for compatibility.

🏨 Hotel Booking & Customer Behavior

  • Customers now explore and use vending machines if other options are unavailable.

  • Customers now wait in line for an employee if no one is currently available to provide service.

  • Reduced negative impact of “visit cut short” moodlets by 50%.

  • Fixed issue where customers booked non-researched hotel rooms and immediately left.

  • Customers are now less likely to want services you don’t have, even if researched.

  • Casino Cage moodlets now correctly apply to customer mood.

  • Office moodlets now properly affect employee mood.

  • Fixed bug where customers would keep queueing at empty vending machines.

  • Guests no longer leave immediately if there’s no available hotel room or casino cashier.

📈 Reports, UI & Stats

  • Taxi and bus guests now show up in the end-of-day report.

  • Visited employee count is now displayed accurately.

  • End-of-day menu now correctly includes walkway-only transportation capacity.

  • Transport capacity is now calculated across all schedules—not just morning.

  • Traffic data reset for accurate recalibration.

  • Fixed a UI bug where certain rating graph subs were shown incorrectly.

  • Rating graph redesign with cleaner display and live updates.

⚖️ Balance Adjustments

  • Customers now arrive in greater numbers during peak hours (17:00–23:00).

    This will play a much bigger role in the gameplay moving forward, especially with the upcoming Nightlife Update’s Calendar System and the Seasons Update, which introduces seasonal mechanics. You’ll start to feel a more noticeable difference between evening and morning traffic, particularly as we begin balancing things further this week.

  • Increased daily service capacity contributions:

    • Hospitality: +25%

    • Cuisine: +50%

    • Leisure: +50%

    • Entertainment: +60%

  • Base walkway capacity per level increased.

  • Upgrade costs for walkways lowered (base cost & growth factor).

I’m hoping to focus more on balance and polish later this week, once a few more fixes are out of the way. steamhappy

🎨 Art & Visuals

8 new wallpapers from the upcoming Nightlife Update added early thanks to Nil’s extra time this week.

Thank you all again for playing, reporting, and sticking with the game! Can’t wait to share more soon. This little game truly becoming something unique

Cheers!

Storage Shelf Stacking

Another issue I noticed was storage shelf sprawl. As we add more inventory items (and I have no plans to stop doing that 😄), space becomes a problem. So I’ve added two new research options that let you upgrade your placed storage item capacity to 2x and 3x. Space saved!

🛠️Bug Fixes

  • Fixed a bug causing incoming people to become stuck in broken vehicles waiting for maintenance.

  • Resolved a rare crash where AI script tried to access floor data before floors were initialized.

  • Fixed an issue where humans synced colliders while hover data was null.

  • Hotel payments are now made after usage, instead of during the booking.

  • Fixed a bug where escalator info boxes would return null during loading.

  • Customers now correctly leave after using the mini bar in hotel rooms.

  • Garage runner no longer keeps vehicle data between sessions after a reload.

  • Fixed a bug where current settings would become null if the save file used for loading was deleted.

  • Bus stops now properly sync after a bus completes maintenance.

  • Resolved visual glitch with escalator electricity error graphics.

  • Bridge connector removal now also removes the connected bridge (merged logic).

  • Fixed electricity line surplus calculation errors after loading a game with placed switchboards.

  • Fixed “Buy Taxi” button showing incorrect tooltip for bus purchases.

  • Waste collector icons no longer appear incorrectly as police icons.

  • Annoying employee stranded notifications have been improved.

  • Toilet papers now get consumed properly as intended. (Might need some balance though)

  • Fixed an issue where customers from older save files would remain idle.

  • Elevator electricity errors now correctly trigger info boxes.

  • Resolved bug causing customers to get stuck in the “use restaurant” state.

  • Fixed switchboards not connecting items properly after rooms are merged.

  • Fixed bug causing garage vehicle sale list to grow infinitely.

  • Reduced loading time for item data.

  • Achievements menu no longer updates while closed.

  • Fixed issue where previously earned achievements would reappear after loading.

  • Walkways menu now shows the correct stamp and dont start a survay again after authorizing construction.

  • Fixed an issue where people were waiting for garage vehicles even if they were broken or in maintenance.

  • Resolved the bug causing the taxi rank to display “no taxi” error even when a taxi was present in the garage.

  • Walkways menu button now properly displays “Not enough money” error.

  • Removed unnecessary, repetitive pathfinding calculations during game loading.

  • Fixed missing moodlets for: Executive Office, Yoga Studio, Smoothie Bar, Asian Fusion Restaurant, Cyber Cafe, Steakhouse, and several other rooms.

  • Customers from older save files no longer encounter null bus stop issues.

  • Room data now resets correctly when reloading a save from the escape menu.

  • Fixed issue where negotiation willingness slider text didn’t reflect the slider value.

  • Fixed an issue where CCTV modules scaled excessively on hover while in demolish mode.

  • Fixed an issue where some buttons wouldn’t play their animations while the game is paused.

  • Fixed an issue where the original room turning into a hall after placing a cloned room.

  • Resolved an issue where police officers incorrectly displayed stranded waste collector info in their popup info bar.

⚖️Some balance tweaks and improvements:

  • Hotel base prices have been increased.

  • Public transport waiting logic improved: customers will now only wait if a scheduled vehicle is arriving within 2 hours (was 3).

  • Manager Mode starting money increased to $500K and No Sweat Mode starting money increased to $5M.

  • Storage shelf capacity can now be increased through the new Stackin’ researchs.

  • Burglar Alarm security increased from 8 → 15.

  • Safety Box security increased from 7 → 15.

  • Balance adjustments made to employee offer acceptance calculations.

  • Added modifier info boxes to the employee hiring window.

  • Employee hiring willingness is now correctly calculated between 0–100 instead of 0–10.

I really feel like things have already started moving faster thanks to all the work we’ve done, yay! 😊

After some more fixes and improvements, we’ll start wrapping everything up with the more fun and visible stuff like the new townsfolk UI and quest system, the rest of the audio effects and mixing, more balancing passes, the updated tutorial, and finally the new achievements. I believe we’ll be able to release this before the end of the month, but we’ll see how things go.

Huge thanks to everyone for the reports, suggestions, and all the support.

See you in the next one!

Cheers!