Age of Photography Update
Jun 12, 2024
| News Tower

Age of Photography Update

Good day Newsbearers!


The cameras are flashing, the ink is drying, and today the ‘Age of Photography’ update enhances your 1930s newsroom experience in News Tower!
With this update, your newsroom gets an exciting makeover, adding depth and new challenges that breathe fresh life into your journalistic empire.

Here’s why you should jump back in:

  • Exciting new roles: Bring on board photographers, cartographers, and illustrators to give your newspaper a visual edge. These roles open up new strategies and opportunities to boost your paper’s appeal and profitability.
    Reader’s Perception system: Shape your newspaper’s identity! Will you be a sensational tabloid or a reputable source of in-depth news? Your choices now impact subscriber loyalty and your paper’s long-term success.
    New year, new stories: Experience the events of 1933 with an enriched narrative that includes both historical and fictional news, making each edition more compelling than ever.

To fully appreciate these updates, we highly recommend starting a new game with the tutorials enabled. They’ll guide you through the new features step-by-step, ensuring you make the most of these exciting additions!

Important information regarding your saves

The game should clearly state that your previous saves are incompatible with this new update due to the numerous additions and changes we had to implement.
However, here is what you need to know about this topic, just in case!

You will:
Have to create a new game and new save with this update.

You will not be able to:

  • Continue playing with your old saves – that means both the saves from the previous build on the main branch AND the saves from the Community Test Build.

However, we are creating a legacy branch that you can switch to if you want to finish the game you had going on in the previous build.

It will be accessible to everyone at the same time as this update goes live, and you can use it to continue your ongoing games. This branch will not be updated in the future – it is only here so you can finish your current games 🙂

KEY ADDITIONS

IMAGE PRODUCTION CHAIN

Your newspaper is getting a massive upgrade!

Photographer – Can add a picture to news item (Gold tag)

  • Photographer desk – This is where the photographer sits when it’s not assigned to a news item. Similar to how reporter desks work.
  • Darkroom – Unique to photographs. When the photographer comes back from a news item, he/she develops the negatives into a “real” photograph. The darkroom can not be under a regular light. There is a red development light available as a buff item.
  • Repro Camera – “Scans” the photo into a format that can be used by the engraver for creating the printable image.
  • Engraver – Makes a printable “mold” of the image. After this step the graphic is ready to be assembled.
  • Assembler – As with any item that can be placed in the newspaper, the final step is the assembler.

Cartographer – Can add a map to news item (Silver tag)

  • Cartographer desk – This is where the cartographer sits when it’s not assigned to a news item. Similar to how reporter desks work.
  • The cartographer chain is similar to the photo chain, except that it does need to go into the darkroom.

Illustrator – Can add an illustration to ads (extra money)

  • Illustrator desk – This is where the illustrator sits when it’s not assigned to a news item. Similar to how reporter desks work.
  • The illustrator chain is similar to the photo chain, except that it does need to go into the darkroom.

Here is a quick look of an image production chain in our news tower!!

NEW (BUFF) OBJECTS:

  • Photographer desk: Camera Cabinet, Camera Cleaning Kit, Camera Tripod
  • Darkroom Technician: Chemicals Cabinet, Development Light, Dry Mount Press, Blackout Curtains
  • Repro Camera / Photoprocessor: Sharpness Chart, Wet Plate Rack, Blackout Curtains
  • Engraver: Drying Oven, Engraving Equipment, White Coat Rack
  • Illustrator: Desk Pencils, Paint Can Cabinet, Painting Easel
  • Cartographer: Drafting Triangles, Map Cabinet, Telescope, World Map
  • Sweeping: Sweeping Tools, Big Trash Can (already existed but now buffs sweeping)
  • Editor: Dictionary Books, File Cabinet, Issue Board, Paper Cutter

READERS’ PERCEPTION

We are introducing a new mechanic called “Perception”. It’s about how your readers perceive your newspaper. You can be a “Sensational” newspaper, focusing more on fast, tabloid style news. Or an “Informational” newspaper, with more in depth coverage. The middle ground is also possible and it’s called “Moderate”.

We are laying a foundation to build upon in future updates, where perception will play a big role in long term planning, rivaling newspapers and other interesting mechanics.
With this update, its main focus is gathering subscribers.

Some of the tags that you will encounter have a “Perception side” associated with them. For example, the “Gossip” tag, skews your perception towards Sensational.

When you assemble your newspaper, the total perception value gets summed for the articles, and that determines the character of your newspaper.

Every week, the public perception gets nudged towards the character of your latest print. This moves rather slowly, simulating the real world where public perception doesn’t change overnight.

A big change that comes with this new mechanic is that the subscribers you gather from completing districts are no longer subscribers directly. Instead, they become “Potential” subscribers. They have gotten to know your newspaper based on the character of your latest edition. In order for them to subscribe, you have to be consistent in your newspaper’s character. The potential subscribers remember the character of your newspaper, and if you stay consistent, they will become subscribers after a couple of weeks.

Every perception “side” (Sensational, Moderate, Informational) has a distinct set of negative tags associated with them. For example, if the perception of your newspaper is Sensational, readers may find certain stories boring. With this update, you will probably not notice this as the content that utilizes this is still a work in progress.

Reader’s Perception gets introduced and unlocked after you’ve completed 12 districts on the N.Y.C. map. Before it is unlocked, the subscriber system works the same as before.

Again, this update is laying the foundation of this mechanic. Expect more in-depth and interesting mechanics using the perception system in future updates.

1933

For the Community Test version, the content of this news is still placeholder content.
For the full release, the news will utilize a mix of events that truly happened in 1933 and some fake events we created to give additional content.
The new content also uses the new graphic chain items like photographs, illustrations and maps.

What about scores then?

Scores that were made with an older version of News Tower aren’t valid anymore. We’ve added so much new content that it doesn’t make sense to compare old scores with the new ones.

SMALLER ADDITIONS

AD BOYCOTT

You’ve printed something controversial and the ad companies aren’t too happy with that.
You will be punished and get only partial, or no ad deals at all!

AD QUALITY SYSTEM

With the addition of the illustrator, you can now make higher quality ads that contain illustrations. An illustrated ad is unlocked if you hit the top tier (8) in a given category.

AREA MAP LEGEND

Visible from january 1930, the area map legend helps you navigate the map. It shows you where all of the upgrades in a given category can be found.

IMPROVEMENTS & CHANGES

EDITOR

  • Text (copy) editor and graphic editor remove all pre-production nags.
    • The editor was undercooked in previous versions. With this update, the editor removes all negative tags from an item. (Except for sloppy production and old news, because this can happen after the editor by for example a sloppy typesetter).
    • Negative tags now have a larger sales penalty, so in most cases it makes sense to edit those negative tags out. This is of course at the cost of longer production times…
    • You have to manually enable the editor in the reporting menu itself. It will appear as a checkbox beneath the story file.
    • Enabling the editor later is also possible via the right drawer. Click on the small diamond that represents the editor to toggle it on and off. Note that once the item has passed the editing stage, it is not possible to toggle it anymore.
    • Editor can be enabled directly on the story file (if applicable). Default is OFF for now.

MISCELLANEOUS

  • Added numerous new sound effects and ambience sounds.
  • Newspaper x3 and x2 slots instead of only the above the fold
  • Toggle all notifications at once can be done with N by default

BUG FIXES

  • Fixed tower score recording ad revenue and newspaper sales profit a week behind
  • Fixed employees picking an occupied side at the coffee machine
  • Chain bubble log overhauled where it’s now a separate root like Rush Mode brains and no longer interferes with employee logs
  • Various minor fixes

MEET OTHER NEWSBEARERS!

Join the community to talk with the dev team, other players, and share your feedback anytime you want! We care about your opinion and will take the time to answer to each and everyone of you! ❤

→ Come to our Discord

→ Follow us on Twitter

See you very soon in the Tower! Take care!

The News Tower Team

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