Alpha 1.2 and Subscription Services

Alpha 1.2 of This Grand Life has been released. There are two new major features. The first is Collectibles, which was shown in the previous video. The second is Subscription Services, which is demonstrated in the video attached to this post.

Subscriptions provide useful information and services that help you achieve your life goals. For example, the Lively Livin' sub gives you a weekly tip on how to play the game. On the other end of the scale is the Grand Groceries sub, which delivers fresh groceries to your door every 4 weeks. It's more expensive than buying from the Shopping Mall, but it means you won't have to travel there every month to buy your own. There are currently 5 subscriptions in total and I'm still working on a few more.

Each subscription costs money, and the price increases with inflation. So you have to think about whether keeping a subscription is worth it. The Collector's Corner subscription is useless if you're not interested in buying collectibles, or have completed all your collections.

I've also updated the weekly summary panel, and now you can click on each goal to see a breakdown of your progress towards achieving that goal.

Here's the full list of changes:

New Features

• Implemented auction house at Town Hall
• Added 5 different collectibles
• Added Social Services Manager occupation to Town Hall
• Added second gameplay track and implemented song switching
• Added 50% off clothing coupon
• Added Subscriptions to Weekly Summary
• Added Lively Livin', Grand Groceries, Collector's Corner, Ester's Estates, TV PlusPlus subscriptions

Gameplay Changes

• Auction now only starts once player submits starting bid
• Real estate prices now change with economic growth, rent prices change with inflation
• Reduced Groundskeeper hygiene decay by half
• Removed spending time required to go to real estate auction
• Increased health recovery from exercising
• Increased fun from watching sports game
• Significantly increased base time taken for education courses
• Major readjustment of experience requirements for some jobs
• Lots of rebalanced health and hygiene actions
• Becoming tutor now requires a bachelor of science

Fixes/Improvements

• Removed Fine Jewellery from Shopping Mall
• Added sound effects for auction
• Added experience provided by each occupation to tooltip
• Changed tutorial Shopping Mall to MallWart
• Updated logo
• Fixed missing Security Uniform from Clothing Store
• Hide extra space on business panel when tip not being shown
• Clicking on profile buttons while window already open now closes it
• Reworked weekly summary to include breakdown of each goal
• Updated second tutorial with new weekly summary details
• Doubled speed of location text
• Trait needs now editable from xml
• Fixed graduating from shopaholic and alcoholic courses not removing needs effect
• Fixed life goal sticking when going to start scenario and then going to start custom game straight after
• Added short description for cities on city select screen
• Made InfoNet searching case-insensitive
• Cleaned up InfoNet navigation
• Added Education courses provided by locations to InfoNet and search
• Fixed missing Diploma Of Security Mgmt from Trade School
• Decreased main menu/resuming loading time by ~66%
• Fixed study action not disappearing straight away when completing education
• Fixed property taxes amount charged in cents
• Removed jobs with no openings from Apply For Job page
• Added button to location panel to view all possible jobs