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[mishe-]

Welcome to the underworld.

Money, Power, Glory, Women. These alone move the wheels of history. Writing history is the last thing on your mind right now though. A lowly criminal doing everything to get by... your pockets are empty, your stomach makes a large noise at night, but all that doesn't matter. Money, Power, Glory, Women... you know what you are capable of. Money, power, glory, women... these are never given, only taken. Fearless man with a gun and a big ambition can get it all... question is, do you have what it takes?
Make your own character
Choose your nationality, playstyle and way to get to the top. Over 250 encounters where you will choose your own destiny, and the destiny of your syndicate. Became a politician, or a cunning master ready to deceive and backstab at all times, turn enemies against one another, be so brutal and organized that no one can win a war against you, or make your business squeeze every dime from the customers. But there is always time for some dollface to charm, or maybe gamble. Play your own fantasy.
Relationships
Money is good, but power is above that. In this world, it's important what you have, but it's more important who you know. Maybe help out the mayor when he has a bad rating, so you can always use him to put someone you have good relationship with in a high position? Maybe force him to put a new police chief, because the old one is connected with your enemies. Having good relationship with the police chief always comes in handy, whether to get someone out of jail, or to put someone in there, depending on your needs. An ally has a strong case against them? Having the judges in your pocket will turn allies into friends in need.
Different systems colliding
In this world, everyone wants a piece of the action. Money, power, whatever you can give to them. Politicians, judges, media. But that's not so bad. You can use them all to your advantage. Some faction decided to get in war with you? No problem, use the media to bring heat and for the public to want justice. They have good relationship with the police chief? No problem, just kill him, and maybe bring someone you have good relationships with? How about bribing the media so they will always defend you action? You can always try sending the police to raid an enemy of yours so you cut their supply and attack them just at the right time, when they are the weakest. The world is your oyster.

Check out the steam page at: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2573030/DOUGH_A_Crime_Strategy_RPG/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2573030/DOUGH_A_Crime_Strategy_RPG/

[mishe-]

One of the issues I encountered in the game, at least in the current state, was the game's fun factor in its initial stage. As this is the beginning of the game, and the game needs to immediately entertain the player this was one of the most important tasks.
The player has options but will they be understood by the player when they initially turn on the game?


While the game featured a couple of interesting mechanics later on, in its middle and towards the end of a game scenario, mechanics like taking over buildings, getting good relationships with politicians, destroying other gangs by force or wit, improving your illegal businesses, assassinating key members of other gangs, the early game sees the player starting from the bottom and as such limited options are available when you're at the bottom. The moment you're just starting out as the criminal, your only options are to either improve yourself while doing criminal jobs, so you can do better criminal jobs or more lucrative paying jobs, do criminal jobs for small amount of money, produce alcohol or other illegal goods, and sell this illegal goods to interested parties. While these mechanics are all interesting, they weren't as interesting as the later game mechanics. There was also the issue of the player starting with all these initial mechanics available to them from the start of the game, without any easing in, without much info about them, so they had the chance to overwhelmed the player.
There is always money in the distillery *ck* *ck*

While the solution might seem obvious to some of you, my approach to creating games was always to put things in what greatly benefit the game, rather than adding features to list on your product page on Steam. Now, of course, I didn't always succeed in that approach, as ideas differ when you put them on something concrete. My solution was simple for this problem was simple, introduce a character that will act both as an advisor and as a real character, further rooting you in the place, period and in your character life. Inspired by books, movies and other media relating to crime and criminals, I named this character "Uncle", and I think this decision was a very good one. The "Uncle" character would be able to provide tips to the user, ease them in when they're starting out, provide additional tangible rewards to the player, and guide them to the mechanics that might be a bit harder to understand when you're starting out. Below you can see this uncle character in action

Get a tooltip regarding the current task


Your uncle guiding you in to the family business

Your uncle guiding you in to the family business

[mishe-]

Just to inform everyone, Dough will be part of the upcoming Steam Next Fest. You can follow the game on https://store.steampowered.com/app/2573030/DOUGH_A_Crime_Strategy_RPG/ to get informed when that happens.

Have a nice day everyone!

[mishe-]

Hello everyone,

How is it going in this new year??

I just wanted to quickly inform you that the demo is now available for download at https://store.steampowered.com/app/2573030/DOUGH_A_Crime_Strategy_RPG/

Feel free to provide feedback to me, I would really appreciate it.

Thank you.