I just tested most of the new features with Beta 6, and I have to come give the devs their praise!
- The new vehicles look cool like always.
- The “New Game” options are cool, but it currently only works when you load the game fresh. If you play a game and hit “Main Menu” you cannot start another “New Game” without exiting.
- Custom mode is nice for experimenting and playing around without worrying about having to starting slowly or worry about happiness meters if you don’t want to.
- HR training is amazing. Don’t have to unschedule employees from their current store and manually hit training every 10%, etc. Fantastic for managing massive empires!
- Bizman auto-scheduler seems to work well from what I’ve experimented with so far. I like that if your store is open for too many hours, it will ensure that the day you have selected is filled, and the empty days are placed elsewhere.
- Overall, the game seems to run a lot smoother now - large saves used to overshoot the “sleeping” time by a couple hours, now it seems to stop exactly when it should. Plus, the huge lag spikes seem much smaller and more rare!
- The new Uncle Fred popups are cool - obviously the dialog is placeholder for now, but the new implementation makes it feel much more like a conversation, rather than a random UI that is often ignored.
- Music in the store is cool. I didn’t realize it would be something you buy at Ikea, but when I figured that out, it was fun! The 3D audio tracking also gives a nice bit of immersion.
- The flatbed at “IKEA” is quite useful, although it might be the buggiest new feature - I reported a handful of issues in-game, but overall, it’s already a lot nicer than only getting 4 items at a time.
- I like how the camera shows you the vehicle location after you buy it now, so you can see that something actually happened, and it lets you know to go outside and look for it.
- I don’t see driving upgrades listed in the fixes but driving feels more responsive. Might just be a result of other optimizations, but it felt better overall.
Aside from a few minor issues that I have reported, this update feels very smooth. The only thing I haven’t tested yet is the difficulty levels as that will take more time to see if it truly feels easier or harder.
Good job, dev team!
