Hi everyone!
Just wanted to start a thread for you to share your initial thoughts and experiences with the very first alpha.
Remember, bugs have to go through GitHub: Issues · hovgaardgames/bigambitions-public · GitHub
Looking forward to hearing from you! 
Best,
Jonas
Really amazing
I’ve hit a roadblock… I’m a Mac user.
Trying to work round that so I can get stuck into the game 
I would like to provide feedback to the alpha, but I can’t access it. The link provided in the Big Ambitions Alpha Access e-mail takes me to some Humble account login, not to Steam as suggested by the e-mail. So the rest of the instructions are useless to me. I suppose I have a Humble account set up when I made the purchase. It even has my e-mail address, but the password I setup with the account doesn’t work and when I try to reset the password, I get a message saying that they hope to respond to me in two business days, which is totally unacceptable.
@brightte Do you still have the original e-mail from Humble that was sent when you made the purchase?
In that e-mail there should be a link like https://www.humblebundle.com/?key=...some key...
In case you made a purchase without creating an account (which is possible, happened to me as well) you can get the key right away through that link without logging in.
Damn 
Mac support isn’t planned until the Beta in December. We might change priority if demand increases.
Hello and congrats on the public alpha! I’m excited to be joining the community here, and testing the new game!
I really like the base concept and am excited to see how “big the ambitions can get” for the character. My initial thoughts are that this seems to capture the aspects I like about other sandbox Sim games with careers/business (GTA 5, Sims 4), but focuses on actually running the business and more of the tactical side of business, which is greatly missing from those games. I already feel how decisions will have a huge impact on how each business operates.
I do hope we are able to do a lot more assigning employees to tasks. Currently there is a known bug where you cannot assign two employees to two different shifts at the same business, but I also can’t seem to get the cleaning employee to start working at all.
I am excited to see what kind of management control we can get in the future, though - can one employee be assigned to clean multiple businesses, since it doesn’t take that long to clean? Can another employee be assigned to restock shelves of multiple businesses?
Overall, I am really excited to finally be playing this alpha (been following this since you finished Startup Company) and to see where it goes!
Loving it so far. I’ve submitted a few feedbacks in the game. I also saw the “If you see this message, let me know in the forums” message… not sure where to put that.
I like the game so far. looks as if it will be a fun ride. Right now I’m a bit confused. People mentioned there was an update after build 132. I don’t think it was made available on Steam though. Please let me know if Steam gets updated so I can be sure to grab the new alpha releases. Right now I’m still on build 132. I played a bit further past the message i got that said wait. Do I need a new save or will steam be updated a bit later. I blame steam if Jonas isn’t able to push updates. I don’t know if steam only allows updates at certain times.
Pretty sure the update was rolled back due to some bugs.
i found that post. thanks. im little new to this forum layout Im used to steam. its a bit different to me.
Hi Dave! It sounds like you completely grasp my vision for the game. Time management and management in general is overall what the game is about. There will be so much more coming in the future. Thanks for the long time support! 
Got them all, thanks! Nice, I was curious how many actually read these messages. Good to see most do
I know the feeling, we’re also just learning the flow of everything. Moving forward you can always find the latest status of builds in the announcement section.
Since the latest update, I have found the beginning of the game to be a bit slow.
In the last version, one day of work and you could go to the bank. I felt that was too short.
Now, it is a little long. I will be starting another game and will post more feedback (probably in the suggestion topic.
The milestone is based on your bank balance, so maybe you spent money on something? I haven’t changed anything in that regard, so hopefully that’s it
It has become more difficult due to some price adjustments.
| Start | $4000 |
| Apartment deposit | $1914 |
| Rent day 1 | $64 |
| — | |
| Start day 2 | $2022 |
| StandardFridge | $1800 |
| Food | $8.8 |
| Rent day 2 | $64 |
| — | |
| Start day 3 | $150 |
Now the task is to make $1400.
Every day you earn $200 from work, minus $64 rent, minus at least $8.8 food (sometimes you might need two food items for a day), so it’s a plus of $127.2 per day.
Without shortcut you’ll need at least 10 days to finish your task.
In the past, the fridge used to cost $1400 only. Rent was $50. Food was $10 at first, later $11.
With that calculation:
| Start | $4000 |
| Apartment deposit | $1914 |
| Rent day 1 | $50 |
| — | |
| Start day 2 | $2036 |
| StandardFridge | $1400 |
| Food | $11 |
| Rent day 2 | $50 |
| — | |
| Start day 3 | $575 |
Now you had $200 - $11 - $50 = $139 income every day. $1400 would be reached after 6 days.
I actually had the feeling that it was possible in 2-3 days, but maybe I just always went to the bank before finishing the task.
Generally for new players who follow the tutorial, I think it should be much quicker to go on. 10 days working in the supermarket with nothing else to do is a bit boring, even 6 days feels quite long.
@Jonas and @Gerwanese ,
This is a bit strange. I am pretty sure I bought the refrigerator each time. However, there is no way I could have worked one day and qualified for the loan if I had bought it.
So either:
A) I didn’t by the refrigerator
or
B) I somehow didn’t get charged for the refrigerator.
(A) seems most reasonable but I remember being surprised at another post indicating the actually buying the refrigerator might be optional so I didn’t 'knowingly ’ avoid buying it.
(B) sounds a little preposterous but as it was my first run through, something strange might have happened from my end. I have started a new game and tried to replicate it but have not been able to. I thought maybe I had somehow stolen the refrigerator. Oh well.
The only other thing I can think of is that (as it was my first playthrough) I rented the apartment and then immediately terminated the rental because I was not sure I had done the right thing. (I was confused by the graphic that made it look like a shop rather than an apartment). I also tried that again but could not find any reason for me to have that kind of money left over.
The only other thing I can think of is if you changed the price of the refrigerator in the ‘balance’ changes in the update.
I will continue to watch and will file a bug report if I can find a way to replicate the issue.
Thanks!
You can actually get the loan anytime after starting the game (without finishing the previous tutorial steps). That’s the shortcut, the loan will automatically fulfill the $1400 requirement.
i think 3 to 5 days works for me better than ? 10? days. But 1 day before getting loan seems too short. It seems working at supermarket kind of helps the player get his feet wet. It is really a tutorial. but seems getting that first loan is all that we need to learn that part of game. I don’t know if Jonas wants this game to be harder or easier. Making game too hard or too easy can sometimes be a deal breaker. Adequate seems to fit the bill. I personally go with what you guys decide. Almost seems having that first few days go quickly might be better for the game experience. I dunno if Jonas wants to put the option in to skip straight to the loan.
I might try getting loan first day if that works