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Hi!

This thread was created to discuss any ideas you have for "major game features". A new product for example isn't a major feature - I'm looking for bigger than that.

Based on feedback made earlier, I have the following plans for the game:

Achievements System
You would get badges for reaching certain milestones, such as working X times and buying/selling X times on The Exchange. More achievement ideas are welcome!

Working system
We could implement energy drinks (work 1 more job per day) and sleeping pills (reduce "cooldown" by 8 hours).

However, it is also possible that we make working not limited at all, except that you could only work once per company per 24 hours.

One third option is to reset the work-limit at midnight, instead of after 24 hours.

What do you think would be the best idea?


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If you have any other ideas for the game, please share them with us so we can make MoneyGame an even better game! :-)

The Achievement System is cool because it will introduce a new way/sens of competition.

As for the Working System I believe the reset of the work-limit at midnight is the best because it increases the chances of players to control the time of the work/job in the game companies but in RL.

An option you might consider depending on how much you would like to develop the game:
I would suggest that you add some political life in the game which might affect the economic cycle of the country you are living in.

That's it for now.

I like the idea of a product/products being the way to increase your work limit. That will:
- Increase the income of new players
- Increase the productivity of companies
- Introduce demand for the products in question

I like this option!

Glad you've set out some ideas you're working on.

Maybe Sticky the post to make it a little more visible :)

Some thoughts about about the plans:

Achievements
Great idea, not only badges, but for some (early) achievements maybe consider a small cash benefit to help out new players.
Other milestones you could add:
Setting up X bussinesses
Reaching X equity
Producing X quanity of X product
Constructing X buildings
Many more could be added and they don't all have to be repeating in size.

Working
Currently the whole game relies on a lot on working, this section needs quite a lot of attention.

In addition to what Pangolinpaws mentioned;
The two items, energie drinks and sleeping pills, will pretty much solve both the second and third optiones.
- It will allow for 'unlimited amount of jobs' as long as energy drink price is lower than wage,
- It will allow you to reduce the time left on jobs in such a manner you would be able to play at whatever time you please during the day, rather than wait 24H.
- It will also reduce the wage battle as any job that has a wage higher than an energy drink will be competitive.

Though - this system is still not great as it relies heavily on players:
Few players: too few jobs being worked to progress.
Many players: Too many companies that won't get enough attention.

To rely less on the amount of players add some NPC workers to the mix, and to prevent NPC's to work at 'just' high or 'just' low paying jobs, have them work using some type of 'bell curve', where they work slightly more at high paying jobs, slightly less at low paying jobs, and barely if at all at extremely low paying jobs (if all wage levels would be considered as percentile of the avarage top 1-5% of wages). This requires some type of algoritm, but I'm sure you'll be able to figure that out (if not please say so).

Oversupply
With an improved work and wage system, we'll face some oversupply of certain, if not all, products (while neccesairy to allow a lot of players to progress it will put prices down).
While the government buying some food from some retail stores at variable prices - though not much - is alright, it doesn't benefit many players.
And the static prices the govt occasionally offers for products on the exchange only leads to wage competition (although partly solved with the new items).

My suggestion: add a couple products that don't depend on player demand, have govt buy them at dynamic rates (with limits)
This reduces focus on player products (while clearly still nessecairy) and adds some backbone to the economy.

With the new products in mind, add some uses for the current cement and electricity to increase player demand as well.
- Instead of start-up cash (the 30 USD you pay to the govt), require (the equivalent) in cement and electricity instead.
- Requiring a little (for example 10) electricity for each job you offer would also increase its usability.

Rethink land/ retail
The land and retail situation is still quite limiting as it's only somewhat usefull for a handfull of people, it also very heavily relies on the amount of players. Adding more land won't solve this because unpopulated cities are quite useless. Don't have a good idea for this right now, hopefully someone else has a couple ideas.

NPCs working jobs with a bell curve to take into acount waged every x mins sounds like a good solution to the 'top 5' problem and would allow even smaller companies to be profitable

Looking big picture, something that this game will have to deal with is that the economy is contracting. Cash coming in < cash flowing out of the macro-economy.

As I understand it there is a restricted flow of money into the global economy from two sources (1) new players joining the game and receiving ($10-$15) of 'free money' when they do so, and (2) government purchases from retail shops, the specifics of which are unknown to me.

Meanwhile, a lot of money is leaving the economy through (1) land taxes, (2) negative expected value gambling, (3) paying the government to create companies, and (4) advertising (among other things most likely.) To my understanding this money is just leaving the economy, vanishing into the ether, so to speak.

I think this contraction is among the causes of economic depression. One partial solution is a sort of monetary policy or a central bank that prints money and additionally offers a risk-less rate of return on capital invested there. Granted, sticking one's money in a bank is not the most interesting gameplay in the world, but most other economic activity is negative-sum at the moment.


On the subject of new products like the energy drink, I think they are fun and interesting, but ultimately, if my intuition is correct, the equilibrium state of serious wage competition will persist at the end of it. I suppose this new product will introduce an interesting variable, which is people's willingness to grind out working long hours just to make a few extra cents in-game. That said, due to general oversupply dynamics in the game, I suspect the price of an energy drink will quickly approach the price of a single job's wage.

Speaking of wages, I think razor-thin wage competition would be reduced by creating some friction between changing jobs. Furthermore, strongly consider incentivizing employers to keep the same laborers. Perhaps the longer a laborer works for a certain company / company type, the more product they produce per work day in that company type. In turn, said laborers can demand higher wages from their employers. Something like this would allow for fun gameplay dynamics in which companies are trying to poach each others' top producers and would generally create a richer labor market. It would also introduce experience-building gameplay which is fun for everyone. People could choose to be specialists or generalists in the type of jobs they take on, etc. This experience component would also make the energy drink dynamics richer and less predictable. The interplay between money earned, time, and experience would be good for the growth of the game in my opinion. If you're interested in this idea, I'd be happy to help develop some more detailed proposals.


I'm not that thrilled about the long-term success of projects like NPC labor, because even if they follow some random distribution, I think wage equilibria will arise fairly quickly, and we'll be back at square one. That said, I encourage the developers to add new things experimentally as they are able to and see how the markets and economy react. Who knows, perhaps fun gameplay will arise!

I'm enjoying the game quite a bit so far despite it's limitations. Keep up the good work.

I like james_yoder's suggestions regarding worker experience, specialism and development.

Completely agree, another (easy) partial solution would be more randomized govt. spending (not just retail) to increase cash flow into the economy.



I'm not fully agreeing with the price of the product reaching the price of a single job. As long as production of said energy drink is more than 1 per worker it'll be lower than wages.
If production 2 per worker:
With the new item it will be more profitable to balance the price around (energy drinkk + 1/5th food = less than wage)
While currently food is profitable at a price below 5 x wage.
That's why it should both increase demand for both products as well as reduce consumer prices, but we'll see if implemented :)




I really like this idea, it could also be combined with making new players the most desired workers (to both help spread the game and help out new players).
Would be awesome if you could decribe your idea more detailed :-)



That could be sort of 'fixed' with either:
- Seperate wages for NPC's and players
OR
- Make players more desirable (same wage but NPC's produce at only 80%)
- Set limits for the max amount of NPC's you want to work at your company

Though - the NPC workers should also use their wage to 'rent' and buy from shops to prevent more money flowing out of the game.

Hi folks,

I'm hoping to write up some thoughts on a labor system with more engaging gameplay next weekend or early next week. If you have any concrete input, send me a message or respond on here!