- Dev Diary #8 - Employee loyalty, traits and current state of development - 2 July 2026
Hi everyone, It's been a while since the last devlog - mostly because there hasn't been a lot of new visual stuff to show. Nevertheless, we have been working on the game more than ever, mostly on technical stuff of the new engine. I was also finally able to find two more competent C programmers for the team a few weeks ago and I got a part-time job to do besides university so I can continue financing the game's development. LoyaltyOne new thing I've got to show is the NPC loyalty system. Some may have already seen me mention this briefly in the past. In the old engine we had the mood level which was calculated from the different thoughts of the NPC. The issue with it was, that it could sometimes make you lose a long-time employee just because of a few temporary inconveniences. That's where the loyalty level comes in - it's like a long-term mood level. It is slowly raised during high moo…
- Dev Diary #7 - New material system, sugarcane and crates - 6 February 2026
Hi everyone,I hope you're all doing well. Over the holidays we've still been working a lot on the new engine but it's still taking longer than expected. In this post I'll show some more stuff that will be included in the 0.9.0 update.SugarcaneYou can find these in the wetland biome. They will spread over time, allowing you to also create large artificial sugarcane plantations. They will drop sugarcane stalks that can be used to either plant more sugarcane or for crafting sugarcane syrup. This sugarcane syrup can then be cooked together with slaked lime to make sugar. The sugar can currently only be used to make sugar biscuits which give workers a small mood boost & saturation but I have more mechanics in mind for the feature that also allow mixing drugs with some sugar products.Please ignore some of the debug highlighting boxes (they will not be visible in-game)New Material SystemMany i…
- 0.8.5.4 - Hotfix #13 - 21 December 2025
0.8.5.4 Changelog Fixed - Fixed item not being removed from NPC inventory when destroyed from melee combat - Fixed crash when clothing item that was not worn was removed from an NPCs inventory
- Dev Diary #6 - Other criminal organizations & territorial control - 25 November 2025
Hi everyone,This is the first post about the 0.11 update. Most of these things are still in the early design phase so expect that some of it may still change during implementation.The new engine is still not finished but we're still working hard on it. I've started also learning C programming myself to help out even though I did not intend on doing so initially. We also might already release the new engine version on the beta branch once all the functional parts are working (so there won't be any lighting, particles and some missing QoL & instructional stuff). Then, once it is in a polished state we'll officially replace the old engine version.Other criminal organizations (factions)In the past, there were only two factions - the police and you. With the 0.11 update we're also adding other criminal organizations. Each faction has a node as their headquarters (except police), which can mo…
- 0.8.5.3 - Hotfix #12 - 23 November 2025
Hi everyone, just a small bugfix update. Sorry for the silence the last two weeks on here - I've started to try helping out on the programming for the new engine. I'm probably going to release another dev diary tomorrow. 0.8.5.3 Changelog Fixed - Fixed crash when harvesting crop on deplowed land - Fixed crash sometimes occuring when trying to craft drug bricks
- Dev Diary #5 - Explosives & Fertilizer - 1 November 2025
Hi everyone,Hope you're all doing well. This dev diary is a bit more "technical" since it goes into a lot of new chemistry-related stuff getting added in 0.10. LimeA new rock formation of limestone can now be found on the map. It will drop limestone stones which can be burnt in the new lime kiln to get quicklime (a volume). You can then mix the quicklime with water to get slaked lime.In this update lime still has very limited use but in the future it's planned to become the key ingredient for a number of products.Ash & Caustic potashBurning wood with enough oxygen will now also leave ash as a byproduct. Slaked lime can be mixed with ash to make caustic potash. Mixing animal fats with caustic potash will yield glycerol, a precursor for nitroglycerin (a precursor to dynamite).Potassium nitrateAs mentioned in post Dev Diary #2 one of the stones of evaporites is potassium niter which can be…
- 0.8.5.2 - Hotfix #11 - 30 October 2025
0.8.5.2 Changelog Added - You can now right-click with a hoe on a plowed tile to remove the plant site Changed - You can now hold right-click on empty Fixed - Fixed not being able to take items out of beer keg - Fixed item quality sometimes exceeding maximum possible value during Harvest - Fixed crash when pouring out from a container that has items in it - Fixed trunk weight not being displayed correctly for volumes - Fixed a crash with graves
- Dev Diary 4# - Temperature & Wetlands - 25 October 2025
Hello everyone,I hope you're all doing well. This post will also be about 0.10 update content again. On the development side we're currently still finishing up the new biome map generator and crafting/chemistry system.TemperatureRoom temperatureThe temperature is mostly room-based. This means each closed room will have its own temperature. The outside temperature is determined by logic that can't be controlled by the player himself (i.e. time of day, weather). The temperature of rooms however is calculated based on multiple factors. On one hand it's affected by adjacent rooms (including outside) relative to the isolation & size of those (an open door will make the temperatures mix more quickly). On the other hand it's also affected by temperature emitters.Heat emittersSome game objects are temperature emitters, meaning that they produce heat or cold in a room. An example would be a burn…
- Dev Diary #3 - Butchering & Chickens - 18 October 2025
Hello everyone,This post is about the first features of the 0.10 update. As a small update on the state of things we're now scheduling the new engine for end of November to be released. However, instead of just being at the state of 0.9 it will be a bigger update in general that already has lots of new content along with it.ChickensWe‘re adding the first animal to the game; Chickens. They can be raised to produce different animal products such as eggs, fat, meat, bones (and feathers in a later update). The eggs and meat can be used as a food source for you and your workers. Female chickens can be fertilized by mating with male chickens. They also have a interval at which they lay eggs. When the egg laying is at 100% the egg is dropped as a fertilized egg if they chicken is fertilized. Unfertilized chickens will also lay unfertilized eggs but only the fertilized eggs can hatch. When a ch…
- Dev Diary #2 - Steppe biome & Wine - 11 October 2025
Hi everyone, This post is about all the new stuff that will be in the 0.9 update (the first with the new engine).SteppeIn the old code base you may have noticed me adding the Ephedra shrub. In the new engine you will no longer find this shrub in the jungle biome but instead in the new steppe biome. Besides the ephedra shrub, this biome has very little vegetation. In the 0.10 update however, you will be able find the new evaporite rocks which are the source of two new resources. One of them is potassium nitrate which can be used to manufacture a number of chemicals, fertilizer and even explosives while the other is iodine (new ingredient for methamphetamine). I won‘t give more info on these resources until in the coming dev diaries.Grapevine & WineWe‘re also finally readding the grapevines and with it wine. As some of you may know, these were briefly in the demo but had a lot of issues s…
- Dev Diary #1 - New engine, new inventory system and modding - 1 October 2025
Hi everyone, As promised I wanted to make some kind of preview for the upcoming updates. I thought doing this kind of dev diary format I know from Paradox would be most fitting for this. This post is about all the new changes that are coming with the new custom engine. The old engine we are currently using is GameMaker Studio 2 which is convenient for RPG/platformer type games but has become very restrictive for My Drug Cartel. This is why we decided to start developing a new custom engine for the game in C using the raylib library. As a scripting language we chose Lua which makes creating mods for the game more convenient.I know the initial estimate for the new engine was September but due to hiring issues with our low budget, heavy typhoon occuring in one dev's home and health issues of another dev we're now aiming to get it out by end of October. However, I'm already quite far with w…
- 0.8.5.1 - Hotfix #10 - 10 September 2025
0.8.5.1 Changelog Fixed - Fixed crash occuring when right-clicking stones
- Alpha Update 0.8.5 - Morphine syrette, methamphetamine - 8 September 2025
Hi everyone, It's been a few weeks since the last update since we're still mainly working on the new engine for the game. However, we're making good progress and are still aiming to release a first public build at the end of this month hopefully. For this update I added a morphine syrette that can be injected into worker NPCs to reduce pain and methamphetamine in an early form. You can get apatite ore by mining rocks and putting them into a jar or other type of item container - this will "crush" it into phosphorus. The ephedra shrub can be harvested by clicking on it with a container item (like a jar). To make methamphetamine you have to then add pseudoephedrine, ethanol (can be bought in shop) and phosphorus into a barrel and cook it over a heated oven. I haven't added any quests yet because I am still planning on changing some things for it in the new engine (like having the ephedra s…
- Alpha Update 0.8.4 - AP landmine, stamina & bricks - 15 July 2025
Changelog 0.8.4Added- Added cocaine, morphine and heroin brick- Added anti-personnel Landmine- Added seed bag which can be crafted from hemp fabric- Added stamina system (decreases when running and increases when not moving/sleeping)Changed- Increased cocaine, morphine and heroin prices- Decreased quantity of ammo of police- Made hire employee quest a bit clearer- Farmer's hat can now be crafted from hemp fabricFixed- Fixed a bug when switching magazines- Fixed eagle eye magazine maximum ammo being set to 8 instead of 30- Fixed keybindings not getting saved & loaded- Carton box can be picked up again when placed, items can also be taken out/ put in when placed- Fixed cooking process not starting when pouring volumes into container before putting it onto the stove
- Alpha Update 0.8.3 - Fixes, Steel helmet & 2025 Roadmap - 24 June 2025
Hi everyone, This is the changelog for the update I uploaded yesterday. I also have the roadmap for the updates planned in 2025. Until September our main priority will be developing the new game engine but I will still work on updating the old code base until then.Changelog 0.8.3Added- Ballistic steel helmet (can be crafted)Changed- Increased bleeding, lowered damage for bear traps- Input popups now get selected automatically when created- Hire new employee quest now also gets added when car is purchasedFixed- Fixed Research table being blocked forever if researching was interrupted- Fixed crash when ordering NPC to wear leg protection- Fixed not being able to sell morphine- Fixed crash when trying to enter "-" into input popup- Fixed morphine not being recognized when trying to add to trunk
- 0.8.2 - Hotfix #9 - 17 June 2025
Added - Added tactical leg protection (can be placed into Bottom vest apparel slot) Changed - Carton box from beer bottles can now be burned in oven Fixed - Fixed some loading bugs with strings & wires - Language selection dropdown menu is now shown over other buttons below it - Fixed not being able to select Ukrainian or Lithuanian in settings - Fixed a number of bugs with NPCs & smuggling system - Optimized NPC performance for init functions - Fixed NPCs eating the wheat while harvesting (lol) - Fixed NPCs getting stuck on baking bread sometimes
- 0.8.1.5 - Hotfix #8 - 11 June 2025
Changelog 0.8.1.5 Added Additional cheat console commands Changed Player and workers awakening when police raid starts Increased police wave interval to between 1 day and 5 days Fixes Fixed NPC not cutting threes while player not looking Fixed Movement speed at lower fps been very high Fixed 4k resolution Zone inspector UI hiding Fixed NPC friendly fire Fixed NPC shooting at the unconscious Targets Improved Police NPC Fixed multiple bugs with smuggling Fixed staying idle when starting the raid Fixed Node prices in some regions of the world Fixed When clicking at the item inspector buttons, no longer opening the zone inspector under it.
- 0.8.1.4 - Hotfix #7 - 8 June 2025
Changelog 0.8.1.4 Changed - Reduced wheat seeds price to $200/ 1500 ml - NPCs will now drop their vests & hats(including helmets) on death - Reduced NPCs often lumping together and friendly-fireing each other - Player will now wake up during raid Fixed - Fixed NPCs not cutting trees anymore - Hair type, hair Color & skin Color now get saved & loaded - Fixed crash when sleeping NPC got killed - Fixed mouse flickering at 4K Resolution - Fixed having to LMB select NPC first to heal them - Fixed a few bugs with NPCs sometimes staying idle after task complete/ after raid - Fixed Workers getting stuck during mining & sowing sometimes - Fixed NPCs getting stuck in bed - Fixed police sometimes not raiding when Player is sleeping - Saving time has been reduced by a lot
- 0.8.1.3 - Hotfix #6 - 6 June 2025
Whoops, I uploaded an update an hour ago that was supposed to fix sowing, but instead broke it even more. Now, it should be fixed all the way though! I also was finally able to reproduce the "stuck on harvesting bug" but it will still take me until tomorrow to fix that one (it's 3 AM in my local time right now). Changelog 0.8.1.3 Fixes - Fixed not being able to sow seeds behind a coca plant - Actually fixed NPCs not being able to sow anymore - Fixed a crash during NPC plowing
- 0.8.1.2 - Hotfix #5 - 5 June 2025
Changelog 0.8.1.2 Changed - Sleeping now accelerates time 12x instead of 8x - 30% chance of worker removal after respawn has been removed, instead the player will now just lose 50% of crops (as previously) and lose $500 - Reduced police attention gain from beer smuggling even more - Increased fuel value of logs - Rods & Planks can now also be used as fuel for stove - Reduced NPC melee damage to Player - Reduced restock time for cannabis seeds - Increased growth time for hops & coca Removed - Removed wishlist button Fixed - NPCs can now dry tobacco leaves if you add the production bill - NPCs can now farm all crops - Shotguns, SR-4C, Thompson1921 & magazines can now be sold & will cause 50% less police attention gain - Fixed a few UI bugs - Fixed NPCs not returning to work for a long time after raid was complete - Fixed NPCs picking up items for drying when all drying zones are already o…
