The game is now out on Steam, GOG and Humble!

I hope you'll enjoy

Hi there! We're excited to announce that the game is coming out on May 7, in a few weeks!
Here's our new trailer for this special occasion, I hope you'll enjoy!




The game will be featured during LudoNarraCon starting April 23! More details here
www.ludonarracon.com

Stay sharp, traders!

That was really cool. Very creepy and fascinating. Atmosphere is top notch throughout the whole game   
The main issue I had was that the sounds and musics don't loop properly, and the transitions are hard which was quite a pain for the ears.

Other than that, very good work ! Following you on itch !

The demo has been updated and now has more content and features !
We've integrated a feedback form directly into the game so it's easier for you all to tell us what you think

Demo is down for now but shoot us a message, we have some Steam keys for the alpha to give away

Hi there !
We've attended Indie Arena Booth online this year together with Fellow Traveller, and it's a great time.
Today is the last day so go check it out here : https://online.indiearenabooth.com/

We did our first livestream for the occasion, talking about the game, development and Indie Arena Booth.

Check-out the replay here :

Welcome all !

Our latest demo is available on Steam for the duration of the Steam Summer Festival.
We're excited to show you our work !!
Click here to get the demo on Steam

We're at a critical point in development where we want to polish the structure and systems of the game before focusing on content production so we would love to know what you think about the demo

If you're interested and want to delve deeper into trading gameplay, we have a few Steam keys to give that'll let you access a longer work-in-progress version, so let us know here or in the playtest thread

Doom 2016 soundtrack + heavy vocals =

[The Invisible Hand]

A demo for The Invisible Hand is available for the Steam Summer Festival !

Click here to download the demo on Steam

Devlog

[The Invisible Hand]

Welcome all !

We released our latest demo of The Invisible Hand for the Steam Summer Festival.
It lasts 15-20min and is a polished look at our stock-market driven dystopia, blending narration and simulation.

Demo is down for now but shoot us a message, we have some Steam keys for the alpha to give away

We're at a critical point of development where feedback is very important, as we are finalizing the structure and systems of the game before moving on to mostly content production. We'd love to hear what you think !

If you're interested and want to delve deeper into trading gameplay, we have a few Steam keys to give that'll let you access a longer work-in-progress version, so let us know here or on social networks.

Check our devlog thread for in-depth info

[New people]

Hey there ! We have a new build out for anyone who wants to try it, and here are some updates

New people

Will O'Neil, an experimented narrative designer from Canada, as well as 2 professional musicians from https://www.echoshopmusic.com/ are now working with us on the game.
Thanks to these cool people and their expertise we are making great progress in making the game a compelling narrative experience.
Check out our new anxiety-ridden prologue here :
    

Prologue Gameplay Video

 

Color and font theme in Unity

Let's talk a bit about technique for once !

We worked on a theme management component for Unity, to allow us to easily experiment with colors and fonts for the whole UI, and give us the ability to change them in batch during gameplay.

It works by placing components on objects you want to modify, and assigning them a type that will be linked to a color or font stored in a manager object.

Code:

[ExecuteInEditMode]
public class ThemeTextItem : ThemeAbstractItem
{
    public Text text;
    public TextItemType textType;

    public Color Color
    {
        get { return text != null ? text.color : default; }
        set
        {
            if (text != null)
                text.color = value;
        }
    }

    public Font Font
    {
        get { return text?.font; }
        set
        {
            if (text != null)
                text.font = value;
        }
    }

    protected override void OnValidate()
    {
        text = GetComponent<Text>();
        base.OnValidate();
    }
}

public abstract class ThemeAbstractItem : MonoBehaviour
{
    protected virtual void OnValidate()
    {
        if (!Application.isPlaying )
                ThemeManager.Register(this);
    }
}

The ThemeManager component has a list of item types and their corresponding color and font values, displayed in the Editor

Code:

   #region Data declarations
    [Serializable]
    public class ThemeTypeDescriptor<TEnum, TContent>
    {
        public TEnum type;
        public TContent content;
        public void Copy(ThemeTypeDescriptor<TEnum, TContent> other)
        {
            type = other.type;
            content = other.content;
        }
    }

    [Serializable]
    public class ImageTypeColorDescriptor : ThemeTypeDescriptor<ImageItemType, Color> {}
    [Serializable]
    public class ButtonTypeColorDescriptor : ThemeTypeDescriptor<ButtonItemType, ButtonTypeDescriptorContent> { }
    [Serializable]
    public class TextTypeDescriptor : ThemeTypeDescriptor<TextItemType, TextTypeDescriptorContent> {}
    #endregion
    

    #region Editor storage
    public List<ImageTypeColorDescriptor> ImageColorDescriptors;
    public List<ButtonTypeColorDescriptor> ButtonColorDescriptors;
    public List<TextTypeDescriptor> TextColorDescriptors;
    #endregion

Add in some (not-so-clean-for-now) code to apply the manager's data to individual items, and the trick is done.  
If you have any interest in using something like this let me know and I can share more

See you next time ! We should have more news about integrating the narrative into the game in February.

[Steam page]

Hey there! As usual, it's been a while and a lot has happened.

Good news first, we now have a Steam page! You'll find our first teaser video and latest screenshots there. The first post has also been updated with these.
Wishlist it to stay updated and help us get more visibility.

Now for the bad news, development is slowed down right now due to financing issues (ironic I know), but we're still devoted to bringing our capitalist dystopia to your screens, you'll just have to wait for it for a little while longer.

Here's a sneak peek on what's done and what's in the schedule.

Coworkers


Don't they all look happy to be here?

Coworkers play an important part in the narrative and gameplay, and they now have more thoughts to share and dubious hint to dispense.
We use Adobe Fuse CC to create them, which makes importing and animating them in Unity relatively easy. We still have to use custom import scripts to install all our character modules, such as the Dialogue module which has been improved a lot lately.


 

Trading UI Rework

Fitting the stock market/player information/interactions we need on player screens in an ergonomic, functional and aesthetic way is one of our greatest challenges for the development of the game.
The market gameplay was subject to a lot of improvements and new features in the last months, and now that it’s in an almost final state we’re still polishing the UI to improve the user experience.

Stay tuned as we’ll have things to show in the coming months!

Player immersion

The other significant challenge we are facing is player immersion. We’ve had a lot of feedback where players didn’t feel they were making a difference in the game’s world through trading.
As of now, most of our narrative triggers for the player’s action are long term and subtle, and we are going to work on delivering real time narrative elements reacting to how you play the markets.

We already have some ideas, but that’s an area where feedback is very important, so as usual if you want to try the game in its current state or if you want to contribute let us know!

Hey everyone !

We're currently getting as much as possible done before July, at which point we will run out of budget and development will have to slow down. We want to take the time it needs to put all the cool stuff in so we're not planning release yet.

The game is changing really fast and we don't have much time to update the log as much as we'd like, but let us know if you want to try out latest features !

By the way, we changed the studio name. The old one was a weird joke with too much historical reappropriation, so here's what went for

Hope you like it comrades !

[Click here to listen to the track on SoundCloud]

Hey there!

I've been told quite a few times that the game lacked an introduction, so I've been working on this job interview thing !
You'll be briefed, asked some basic question about economy politics, and observed while you do it. Here's a sneak peek :

Answers will be used at various places in the game, so you'll have to pick carefully

I also made a track for the interview, to be looped while you answer the questions :

Click here to listen to the track on SoundCloud

I haven't played any tycoon games in a long time, but this one is making me want to ! Following.

I am hyped ! Keep up the good work 

I would love to try it ! And I will give feedback !

The Harvest Moon vibe with the art and music is really cool !
I'd love to know more about the main story though, to my knowledge there's not many farming games with a good story and that's a shame.

[Shop]

Hey there ! It's been ages since my last post, and a lot has happened !

First and foremost, we are now working with the awesome team at Surprise Attack Games, which are helping us set up some presence for the game. Thanks to them we were able to attend Gamescom and Paris Games Week these last month, which were amazing ! Seeing so much different type of players play the game helped tremendously with upgrading and polishing the core gameplay, which is now mostly done.

The game evolved a lot in terms of look and feel, which you can see as I updated the first post with recent screenshots.
Now let's go through some of those new mechanics :

Shop

There is now an upgrade system for work, to unlock access to new trading values and features, as well as a real estate and luxury shops. You can store luxury items in your properties, and organize parties in them !

Parties allow you to do some networking, and gain access to useful informations about the market.

Beverages Machine

The machine can either make coffee, which speeds up time, or tea, that slows down time. The player can use it to fit his playstyle, either by trading on safe bets, taking a coffee and let the money flow, or in a more instantaneous way, taking a tea to have a better reaction window.
It also serves as a media feed, so you can find discover informations while waiting for your brew.

Move Stuff Around
You can now take objects and move them around the office. Special objects can be unlocked through the luxury shop. It's a great way to personalize your desk, and also other things...

This looks so cool ! Following.

I'm so happy for you ! I loved the demo and I am excited to play the full game.
I wish you all the best for the hard part of the journey (making the game fantastic) :p