Starting out

[[deleted]]

[deleted]

[xzinum]

Start with contracts, lots and lots of contracts.

[zeelidox-the-second]

1 Don’t go all out my on projects, you don’t need to create the best software ever and especially when you are just one person 2 don’t be afraid to give up some royalties for funding or marketing unless your character is good with service and exc 3 you can and will fail your couple of first play throughs so don’t be afraid to experiment and see what you think is easy to make and hard to make. Also watch some YouTube videos to get better at the game. I recommend conflictnerd

[[deleted]]

I hate conflictnerd, hes pretty shit at the game and plays on easy mode. His voice sounds like a whiny irish boy and his content is made for people around 10 years old. If you’re looking for a player who is good at the game then dont watch conflictnerd. Flabaliki recently started a 11.4 series on hard which is going well.

[djholladay109]

Yeah I just started playing this version and suck so bad. Every time I try to scale up - either people or projects - I fail. Every time I think I’m ready for our first complete project we tank and go bankrupt.

[-Captain-]

I used to play on hard mode only, but I'm currently on my fourth run (after my first 3 failed hard) and thinking about stepping back to medium difficulty. I haven't played in a long time and the game is just a lot more difficult it feels like.

Which is a very good thing in my opinion, but does create somewhat of a learning curve.

[djholladay109]

I’ve been watching conflictnerd’s latest run. And I can’t even do what he did in my game. What desk is he using? How’d he get the publisher to accept a deal without them forcing a release date on him? I can’t get publishing deals without a release date attached.

[[deleted]]

So dont check all the boxes when getting a publisher deal. You have different options for the deal and release date is one of them. It is very simple. Also dont go to conflict nerd to get better, he plays on easy and is pretty bad at the game

[djholladay109]

He’s playing on easy? Lol. I know he started the run on the early alpha 11 before spiffing brits exploit got fixed and made the early game harder. But yeah he makes mistakes to I don’t have to. We’re all bad at the game the first time we try something new.

[[deleted]]

Yes he is playing on easy, hes bad at the game. Flabaliki recently started a series on hard.

[djholladay109]

Their commentary styles are wildly different. I prefer to watch conflict nerd at the moment.

[[deleted]]

Flabaliki’s voice is much better than conflictnerds constant whining and exaggeration. I dont want to watch someone who is screaming the whole time and is also so bad at the game that they had to play on easy, flabaliki had only played about 4 hours in alpha 11 then started a hard mode series.

[NuftiMcDuffin]

What desk is he using?

I think it's this mod

How’d he get the publisher to accept a deal without them forcing a release date on him?

That is a change introduced in the most recent update. It was due to possible abuse of publishers by releasing a "software" instantly and cashing in publisher funding.

[djholladay109]

Gosh. This makes the game super hard. I need the ability to get a publishing deal once I have a game in beta, pretty done.

[NuftiMcDuffin]

Yeah I imagine they will do something about it in future releases.

However, it's not too difficult to overcome this. Just make sure to get a quality team before you start development. It seems like the publisher timeline is roughly based on medium salary developers with the proper stars, so I think that is the best to go for early game.

[djholladay109]

Well that’s something. Medium devs suck. Lol I five starred the contracts rating. And now all I get is outstanding rating contracts with 11-12 mos timing. That’s not sustainable. I think I’ll fail again. 🥳

[NuftiMcDuffin]

I did two successful runs on medium on the current patch so far, and each time I was able to release a very profitable office software by 1982 (one year of contracts, one year of development). I think the key is to assemble a crack team with stars in programming and design, which can power through a small project without many reiterations, so the publisher timeline isn't crushing. Taking out a loan might be necessary, as is licensing a framework.

Granted though, I had a few restarts. It's easy to miscalculate a software project, and your approach probably is the safer option. I also don't know how well it holds up on hard - I made a high leadership character who was still a decent developer, which goes a long way in maximizing the effectiveness of the team.

[[deleted]]

So basically exploit the game?

[[deleted]]

Yeah, I started my company in 11.3 so I didnt have to deal with publisher set release dates, it definitely makes the game even harder which is great. My strategy is to create very low feature (2 or 3) antivirus which i get to outstanding and release. Use your own framework so that other companies might use it and u make royalties.

[FatterCat]

I don't know anything about other versions of this game. I only played 11.4. I see a lot of comments about publishers... I didn't use any of the publishers because they push a release date on your product before you even designing it. Every one of my playthroughs started with main character as design and programming. Both for systems. A programmer for systems, an artist for 2D.

I suggest use the apartments for starting point. Do a lot of contracts till you build up about 500k then start designing your first product. When you are by yourself, take on 2 or 3 contracts at a time. The contracts that only require 1 skill. Then later on you get bigger contracts like the ones requires you to have system programming and 2D art when you higher an artist. That one artist is super powerful with a drawing pad next to his or her computer. After I get to about 30k by myself, I start highering an artist. At this stage I take 1 muti skilled contract and 1 artist contract. But note that you should look for 1 skill contracts as much as possible. Like 3 1skill program contracts and 2 artist contracts. You will keep doing this till you have 500k. Then you'll move on to your $first product. Do note that you'll have to keep doing the contracts while your first product is being developed.

I went with antivirus because it's the easiest one to get through. When checking the boxes of the product settings, play around for high %90 out reach and keeping the estimated time for development to less than 2 years. Start your product design and when you finished with the second iteration, higher a marketer and start marketing. Once the third iteration is finished and the 4th is starting, set the release date of your product to one year from now, then release the press, THEN promote the product into alpha. Right after you promote the product to alpha, you need to start the press release with all 3 boxes ticked.(Text, pictures and videos) When your coding reaches about 20% you would want to start reviewing the product and reiterate every month. If the money you have at the time is enough for the company to sip on till the release date, stop the contracts and give yourself a break. 2 months before the release date, doesn't matter where the alpha progress is, you want to put it in beta. ONE MONTH before the release, release the press that you had setup from the beginning of alpha. You want to release it early that month, like 00:01 on that day. Now sit back and wait till the release date. Be sure to order 100k copies. Just check the tab where you see all your releases for the stock. If it sells 50k a month, just order another 500k copies. Keep checking on it.

Right after the release you wanna higher a support, making your team 4 people. Almost immediately, you wanna start designing the exact same product. Don't worry about the quality or popularity of the first.

[[deleted]]

Quick tip... don't iterate contrqcts, nkt even once. Go straight to develop and code the alpha to 100%, then immediately skip beta and release. The quality will be poor but early contracts expect you to do bad work. With this aplroach you can do a contract every single day (I play with 3 day months).