- Above the Fold v 1.0 is HERE! - 29 May 2022
After 4 years in development and almost as long in Early Access, the full release of Above the Fold is finally here, in the form of its biggest update yet! This update covers everything, from some much needed stability and bug fixes to loads of new content to unlock and play through in the game, including a long, chained series of events that has multiple possible endings that can give you very different experiences playing through the game. There are 10 new achievements too, of the more exotic variety. In an homage to the game being set in the 90s, you can now unlock achieves that are special nods to the popular culture of its time, whether its Seinfeld, Friends, or Spice Girls. Note that the new achievements and some other features, are not backwards compatible. You will need to start a new game to get these, and to post your game score on the brand new Full Release Leaderboard! There…
- Fixes and Tweaks - 1 December 2021
Writing continues on the next major updates, but in the meantime here is a minor update with a few balance changes and bug fixes. Changed: Increased the overall chances that personality traits trigger a new event Changed: Reporter personality traits have much greater influence on the score of an issue than previously Changed: Greater chance that Kellum Ded will murder a celebrity in chapter 5 of the game, after you feature that celeb Changed: Unlocked desk element data is no longer part of the save file. Available desks are calculated based on progress. Fixed: Stories taking more than a day to write, were not registering properly. Fixed: Keyboard shortcuts for changing the map scroll speed were not updating the meter on-screen. Fixed: New desk surfaces now unlock properly when you level up, and can be used to customize your Editor's Desk. Fixed: Backwards compatibility issue with older…
- Beta 10.0.2 : Celebrity Hot Fix Update - 4 September 2021
This minor update fixes a crash, which happened in certain instances, where an in-game celebrity was associated with a random event. Once again, thank you to everyone who takes time to report bugs. You are helping to make the game better for everyone! ːfh4crownː
- Beta 10 : The Strategy Update - 20 August 2021
The features added in this update are the last major additions to the game play before Above the Fold's full release. Zooming The number one requested feature for a long time was being able to zoom in and out on the city map. That’s in the game now, and it adds a whole new layer to your strategy: spend less time looking for matching stories, and more time finding better ones. Tip: Some players prefer to assign any story of a preferred type early on, and look for higher value replacements once every reporter has an assignment. Auto-Sorting The second huge feature is the addition of auto-sorting your stories when building the front page. Previously, stories were always sorted by straight point value. Often that may not be your top priority however, so now you can sort by politics and age groups as well. Auto-sorting gives you better insight into how each story affects your overall issue,…
- Beta 9 : The Flavor Update - 7 July 2021
This is a major update to Above the Fold. It comes with 5 new storylines to unlock, more than 3 dozen new events and visual updates from improved buttons and notifications to complete redesigns of several menus and screens. There are quality of life improvements, balance adjustments and lots of bug fixes. Check the highlights below, read on for a detailed breakdown of the main changes, or check the full, itemized list at the end. TL;DR Bullet Points You now win the game, if you last all 4 years 37 new in-game events (5 storylines) 126 new elements for random headline silliness Improved graphics, buttons and notifications A dash of 90s flavor! Because this update adds more meat and richness to the game, we're calling it The Flavor Update. Events and Storylines Reputation Based Events Your newspaper's reputation in the Commercial Bias category, may now trigger new storylines. With each da…
- Above the Fold - Player Survey! - 18 June 2021
As Above the Fold gets ever closer to leaving Early Access, the last couple of beta releases is where your feedback will be key to deciding what to prioritize and expand on. It also gives a good indication of what parts of the game needs improvement - but it all comes down to getting that feedback in the first place. If you would like to have your opinion heard, please take a moment to fill out the Player Survey. Thank you in advance - and thanks again to everyone who has taken time to send feedback and suggestions along the way. As a solo dev, my ideas aren't always the best ones, and I appreciate those who take time to share their thoughts. You rock! 🤘
- Beta 8.2.2 : Win Condition Change + Bug Fixes - 8 June 2021
This is a relatively small update, but nevertheless features an important change to the game. Specifically, the strategic goals victory condition has been cut in half. If you complete 25 strategic goals, you win the game - where before you had to complete 50 goals. Strategic goals are given to you periodically throughout the game, by the mysterious Owner. On the backend, this patch also marks an update in the game engine. Several bugs popped up after the update, and were promptly eliminated before the update. However, if you find one I missed, please do not hesitate to report it. With the win condition change, you are that much closer to unlocking the achievement. Good luck! Changes in 8.2.2 Changed: You now need to complete 25 strategic goals to win the game (down from 50) Changed: Upgraded the game engine, which led to several new bugs, all of which were hopefully caught Fixed: Crash…
- Beta 8.2 : A Little Story, A Lot of Action - 24 May 2021
There is some new content in this update, but first, this patch continues where the last one left off, with more stability and bug fixes. Thanks to the added debug tools and a few dedicated fans of the game, some tricky bugs were finally tracked down and eradicated. Breaking News Storylines More exciting than bug fixes is new content! This update comes with 2 new storylines (10 events total) that may trigger based on your reputation in the "Breaking News" category, depending on whether you're scoring high or low. As always, each story line has 3 possible endings and outcomes depending on your choices and the type of paper you're running. Fixes and Tweaks An area that needed a little love was surges. Any topic can surge in interest among Goodburians, and when that happens these type of stories will score higher and attract more subscribers. Previously, only specific events in the game wo…
- Beta 8.1 : Stability Patch - 16 May 2021
This mini update includes some important bug fixes, including causes for some reported crashes, and some new ones discovered while fixing the aforementioned ones. In other words, your game will be more stable after this patch. Huge thanks goes out to those who have submitted log files, save games and helped hunt down some of these issues. Here are all the changes in 8.1.2 Added: Logging of in-game events for debug and curious people. In the Office screen, use F3 to toggle on/off Added: A few safety measures were implemented to catch minor save game corruption and prevent crashes Fixed: Bug preventing new strategic goals from appearing if you had tutorials turned off Fixed: Crash caused by events that included reporters that no longer work at the newspaper Fixed: Bug preventing positive effects AND achievement triggering from Morale Events Fixed: Prevent crash, caused by minor corruption…
- Beta 8 : The Achievement Update - 28 April 2021
The 21 new achievements added in this update range from the very easy to very challenging. Alongside these, we have another 6 new story lines to trigger, and a nice, new office background. In other words, Beta 8 adds more content and fleshes out the game. Story lines There are hundreds of events in the game. Some are completely random, some are based on Reporter personality traits, some historical with set dates - and then there are story lines. These are chains of typically 5 linked events with 3 different conclusions and rewards, depending on your choices. Story lines always trigger under specific circumstances, and in this update we are adding a bunch of new ones. For the first time, we have story lines that trigger based on your Credibility scores. If your Sensationalism or Sources score high, they may trigger story lines. Likewise scoring low in these same categories, as well as Fa…
- Beta 7: Friends, Reputation and Consequence - 22 February 2021
There is a lot of new content and other changes to cover in this update, so let us start with a Beta 7 introduces the concept of friends and rivals among your reporter staff, along with a number of new in-game events, both repeatable events, and 2 new 5-event storylines. It is strongly recommended that you start a new game, if your save is from before Beta 6.1. Rather than simply deleting older games, load it one last time and "finish" by retiring (from the Office Management screen). Doing so will calculate a final score and save it to your high score list. Friend and Rivals Returning to the friends and rivals concept, here is how it works. If two of your reporters share interest in the same topic and aren't political opposites (as in, one is Very Liberal and the other is Very Conservative), they might become friends. On the other hand, if they share an interest but ARE political opposi…
- Beta 6.1 - Tool Tips and Toggles - 27 January 2021
Small(ish) update, longish post. Scroll to the bottom of you want the TL;DR version. The last couple of updates were focused on making the game more stable, easier to learn and user friendly. Huge improvements were made but there were more, little things that didn’t make it into the last update but probably should have. Things like tool tips and toggles for features, you otherwise only knew about, if you knew the keyboard shortcut. Besides the things mentioned, this update fixes a few more bugs, but doesn’t offer any new in-game events or storylines. However, it would be a shame for these improvements to sit and wait for the next major content patch to be done, when everyone who enjoys the game, could use this right away. So here we are. One major bug fixed in this update, had storylines repeating themselves under certain circumstances, when they weren't supposed to. If you're continuin…
- Beta 6 adds Stability, Bug Fixes and Content - 19 January 2021
Beta 6 of Above the Fold focuses on quality of life, starting with squashing a several bugs reported by all those amazing people, who took the time to let me know. I apologize for the fact that this release took longer than expected - some of those bugs proved quite tricky to solve, and I also wanted to include some fresh content. But first, a big change in the importance of politics. The biggest balance adjustment in Beta 6 is that advertisements you display in the paper, now also affect the political lean of each issue. Ad-cards display the political association of the advertiser when you pick them up, and if you have a lot of ads from one side of the political isle, it will slightly tip the appeal of the issue in the same direction. Personality traits have been part of the game for a while. Each comes with its own bonuses, penalties and associated events in the game, but now your rep…
- Out Now: Beginner Tips and More Content in Beta 5! - 29 October 2020
Welcome, Editors, to the 5th Beta update of Above the Fold! This update has a huge improvement for new players - we have Beginner Tips! It's not a traditional tutorial that holds your hand, but 18 contextual tips to point and guide you - every decision is still yours to make, though. Even if you have been playing for a while, these tips may answer some of your lingering questions. You can toggle the Beginner Tips on/off when starting a new game, or at any time via the options menu (Esc key), or using the F2 shortcut. Speaking of decisions, this update also comes with 4 new story lines (20 new in-game events). Story lines are linked events, where your decisions carry over and result in 1 of 3 possible endings. This brings us to 20 story lines, and 100 story events added so far, with more coming in every update. Besides these additions, we have some quality of life improvements. A new gre…
- Beta 4 : Autumn Content Update - 24 September 2020
A total of 20 new in-game events, spread over 4 new story lines, make up the bulk of this content update. It also contains a few balance adjustments and quality of life fixes. Chief among the quality fixes is the addition of a "Saving" icon, to indicate when the game is auto-saving. I added this after learning that some people's save games had corrupt data after leaving the game mid-save. Hopefully this simple addition should fix this problem. Of the 4 new story lines added, 3 of them may trigger after publishing a Climate, Business or Art & Culture themed issue. The events are not guaranteed to trigger on the first try, but the chance increases with every themed issue. The 4th story line may be triggered by publishing a Sports-themed issue, but only after purchasing the "Professional Sports" upgrade. As usual, each story line has 3 endings. Each ending has its own consequences and rewa…
- Beta 3 : Celebrity Power and Easier Winning - 9 June 2020
More meat on the bones! That is the shortest way to describe this update to Above the Fold. Continuing the trend from the previous two betas, there are 4 brand new story lines - more than 20 new events total - each with 3 different endings and consequences for your newspaper. Celebrities have gotten a boost. Some in-game stories are tied to specific celebs, each with their own opinion of the paper. Based on your actions, their opinions may (d)evolve until the celeb mobilizes their fans, either to support your newspaper or to combat it. Easier to Win One very important change, is that victory conditions have been modified, so that you now need to meet either of the conditions listed below. 25 Awards (was 50) 50 Completed goals (was 100) 1,000,000 subscribers (unchanged) Also worth mentioning, the new Theme-indicator on the city map is a Quality-of-Life feature that several have been aski…
- Beta 2: Is That a Pager on Your Desk? - 26 May 2020
In this second Beta update, more content is added across several parts of the game. 5 new story lines, each with 3 different endings, make up the bulk of the content, but wait - there's more! The Editor's Desk screen is still a work-in-progress, but in this update it has gotten some bug fixes and 2 new items. In true 90s style, you can now choose to display a couple of floppy disks, or a neat pager! If there are any other items, you'd like to see in the game - let's hear it! A new music track was added to the Strategic Goal screen, to emphasize that something different is happening in the game. There are more musical tweaks like this to come in future updates as well. Full Changelist Added: 5-event story line triggered some time after researching Interns Added: 5-event story line that may be triggered with a Sports-themed issue Added: 5-event story line that may be triggered with a Off-…
- First Beta Update: It's Story Time! - 19 April 2020
Important: Beta 1 is not fully compatible with Alpha save games. It is highly recommended that you Retire any existing games and start fresh with this update. The first beta took much longer to put together than I wanted, and for that I apologize, but here it finally is! Many of the additions and changes are content related, but you may notice a couple of visual changes as well, such as the brand new icons for different story types and available advertisements. These were done by Dutch artist Kay Lousberg, who also designed the city map of Goodbury. You may also notice, that the background color within the game has changed to a cooler tone. TIP: Hit G when on the map to toggle the map key on/off. Because this is the first Beta, the leaderboards have also gotten a wipe! This means that you have a brand new opportunity to put your newspaper at the top of the list, and earn worldwide bragg…
- Plan Your Retirement (from Alpha) - 29 January 2020
The first beta is a few days away at this point (provided no new game breaking bugs appear!) so I thought, I would share some details about what is to come, and why your save game won't be compatible after the new patch. Storylines In its simplest form, a story is a series of linked events that each present you with a decision to make. Each choice has an immediate effect, like with the random or procedural events already in the game, but what makes stories unique is that they each have 3 different endings. The ending you get, depends on the choices you made. The exact effect on your newspaper depends on the story, and the kind of newspaper you're running. To get this feature to work requires some additions to the save game data, that simple is not there in old save games. Adding backwards compatibility in this case, is not a feasible task and so, a strategic decision was made ... But wa…
- Feature Deep Dive : Reporters - 28 October 2019
Reporters are crucial to the direction and specialization of your newspaper. Each reporter has a number of attributes that can influence your paper, from the obvious numeric Skill and Level, to personality traits of all sorts. Some have kids, some don’t. Some are very political, others not so much. But how does all of this come together in the game? That’s what we will cover in this post. Let’s start with the numbers. While Skill represents a Reporter’s basic talent, it doesn’t change much during the course of a game. Level, however, represents a year of experience and will go up by 1 point on that Reporter’s anniversary. Skill and Level contribute to the score of every story written. All of this won’t matter much, however, if your Reporter is in a foul mood. The mood score is a percentage. If it drops too low, the Reporter May quit. But it also affects every story they write. When a st…
