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Yes, it is really happening. No, it will not look anything like this. In fact, Empire Business 2 at its release will be the biggest project I've ever made. I am withholding any screenshots or demoes of the game because I want the final experience to feel completely fresh. But at the same time, I want to talk about it. So let's do that.

What is Empire Business 2?

EB2 is fundamentally similar to its predecessor, in that the player attempts to make as much money as possible by collecting coins and through other means. More coins and features open up to you as you continue to make money, helping you to complete your goal. The game essentially ends when you have no more upgrades to collect, and when you've made the most amount of money possible (due to Flash limitations). Replayability is still being explored in EB2; one possibility is some kind of "prestige" system where the game will reset, but other previously blocked upgrades become accessible. There are other methods being worked on to help encourage more than one playthrough, but you'll have to wait and see.

Who exactly is working on this game?

It's me and only me. The coding, the lousy artwork, essentially everything but the music has been done by me. Various Newgrounds composers will be credited with the soundtrack once the game releases.

How big is the game?

I did a speedrun of one of the older builds and played it for about an hour, before I had to leave for work. So I didn't even get to finish it. And keep in mind, this build only including about 25% of the total game content.

But after that long, wouldn't the game begin to feel pretty stale?

One of the key components of the original EB was that its upgrades were rather unpredictable; you never knew what you would find. It's essential to always reserve some element of surprise for the player.

What exactly is different this time around?

So let's talk about the game. First of all, it runs 100% better than its predecessor. In the original, there was a memory leak that caused the game to slow down after extended playing. This was lazy on my part for never bothering to fix the issue, but in EB2, no such issue exists. The one exception to this rule is that there can at times be some slowdown due to the amount of objects on-screen. To fix this, I've placed a limit on the amount of coins that can exist at once, although this limit should never be noticeable as long as you keep playing.

What else? Well, for starters, you can now save the game at any time you like instead of waiting until you buy an upgrade. The user interface has been completely redesigned, and upgrades have been sorted and organized according to the category they fall under. You will also be notified any time an upgrade becomes available, which will reduce the hassle of having to continually flip through the menus trying to see what you can buy.

Two main features of the original return: the cash box, and the bank. For the cash box, you'll be happy to know that more effort has been spent on its artwork this time around, and I'm not an artist by any means, but I hope the effort shows once you see it for yourself. The bank is much more reminiscent of an actual bank this time around, with the ability for players to withdraw or deposit at their leisure. The interest rate is fixed and behaves correctly, meaning you can't make any money from a $0 deposit (duh). Aside from the obvious changes, the bank is completely fleshed out and contains a wealth of features and upgrades, some of which I think you will find pleasantly surprising.

One new feature is something I like to call the "timer coin." I call it this because you have only a few seconds to take advantage of it before it disappears. Simply put, clicking the timer coin will give you some money and also raise the amount of money that the coin gives to you. So the more you click it, the more money you earn. If you're quick enough, you can definitely haul in a considerable amount of cash from this feature. Right now there are a number of other clicking-type coins I have planned, but I haven't implemented them yet.

As you can clearly tell, the game is a little more involved than just moving your mouse around to collect coins, although that does remain the prime focus. There's so much more I have yet to talk about, but I'll let you discover for yourself when the game releases.

What does the name mean?

Watch this.

Give me a straight answer: how many upgrades are there?

Here's a straight answer: I have no idea. At this point, I'd say 95% of the content has been planned out, and the game is about 70% complete. To give you some perspective, each coin type will have no less than sixteen upgrades attached to it, and there around nine coin types I have planned (I may add more). This alone comes to a total of 144 upgrades, and this is assuming every coin type only has sixteen upgrades; the more valuable coins will almost certainly have more. Also, this does not take into account any of the game's other features like the bank and timer coin. I can say with much confidence that the game, at the very least, will hit well over 200 upgrades, which does not include any prestige-linked upgrades which I hope to add. The original game, in comparison, only had 40 upgrades.

When will you release the game?

I will only release the game after I have completed it to a point that I feel satisfied with it. I have aimed for certain release dates in the past, but at this point I can only say that I hope to release it by the end of summer. It's not a plan, only a guess, that I can get it out by then. In the meantime, you won't hear me talking much more about the game until after I finish it. When I do release it, it will be going on Newgrounds and most likely Kongregate, and we'll see what happens from there.

What will you do after Empire Business 2?

Finish Epic Upgrade? Empire Business 3? Something completely different? All of these are possible, with the latter being the most likely. I'd like to lay off the whole upgrade emphasis for a little bit and just focus on something else, but literally anything is up in the air.

See you in a couple months.

I know I said before that I would refrain from posting any screenshots before I release the game, but I figured it's been too long since I've said anything. No, the game is not dead. There is still quite a lot of work to do before I get it to a point where I'm satisfied enough to release it. As I said before, nearly all of the content is already planned out, but there's a lot of content, so it's going to take some time to implement all of it.

To give you sort of a sneak peek, here's a picture of the main screen without any coins or anything.



The main feature I want to talk about is the Evolution system. Now, you don't have to evolve, but if you do, two things will happen. First, the lowest denominator of coin (and all its upgrades) will be dropped. Second, you will earn one Evolution Point, which is the only currency that can be spent in the Evolution Store. All upgrades in the Empire Store only cost one point, and the upgrades themselves evolve as your empire does as well. The earlier you buy these upgrades, the more powerful they become in the end game. Most of the upgrades are fairly straightforward; however, I've purposely planned it so that one of them will have some unforeseen consequences. Be cautious and pick your upgrades carefully; you won't be able to buy all of them.

I am also considering linking some aesthetic changes to the Evolution system, maybe a background change or something like that.

Like I said, evolving is completely optional and will work independently of your main game progress. If you want to keep the lower-value coins even in the end game where they hardly matter, then by all means, keep them. The choice is yours.

I might give an update again some time in the future. We'll see. In the meantime, I have a lot of work to do.

Edit: Here's a nice little photo I just put together, demonstrating how the UI has changed across development. By the way, none of the buttons work in the left screen.

I'm just going to leave this here.

http://www.kongregate.com/games/Blablob ... ess-2-beta

Gosh, this game is freaking addicting and fun! Of course you spent a lot of time when doing this.

The Timer Coins, though, get boring and annoying after some time, because you have to waste your time clicking it multiple times while a lot of coins appear in the background.

Keep this amazing work. (yeah, i'm going to spend an entire day to beat this game )

inb43dgraphics

FrozenFire wrote:The Timer Coins, though, get boring and annoying after some time, because you have to waste your time clicking it multiple times while a lot of coins appear in the background.

Yeah, this is one of the reasons I added the Timer Coin toggle to settings, in case the player didn't want to button-mash all the time. I'm still updating the game with bug fixes and general changes (I will not be adding any more upgrades), and in the next update I'm going to look into a toggle that allows the player to disable the various target coins.

Probably the only upgrade I had left to acquire. Maybe lower the cost a bit? Or lower the gem currency for the EGems?

Also, good game. Takes more than 120 minutes to beat.

Question: What else are you going to add? If it's a surprise, cool.