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https://simmer.io/@Hydrocharged/unstable-economy

This a game about an unstable economy. Try to balance workers for as long as you can!!

I was inspired by Mini Metro, however instead of handling roads and cars, you handle the workers themselves! Upon start up, you'll have a small town full of random people with random stats. As it stands, your workers will quit as soon as they run out of food, water, and electricity, which is created/generated when they're at work. In addition, any workers who don't have a job will work as transporters, delivering food from farms to grocery stores (which workers will go and buy in their off time).

As with any Ludum Dare game, this is woefully incomplete and hasn't been balanced at all, so it's going to be very, very difficult. Also, there isn't any sound.

How To Play:

This is an endless simulation, therefore the goal is to keep the economy running for as long as you can.

Control the economy by having each worker either stay at their current job, switch to a different job, or quit their job altogether. There are 3 resources that are generated by each job: farms make food, power plants make electricity, and water purification plants produce water. Both electricity and water are automatically distributed to households while food must be purchased by making trips to the grocery store. People will automatically go to the store to purchase food once they run out at home. Anyone that doesn't have a job currently assigned will become a delivery driver, who takes a shipment from the farm and delivers it to the store. That means each person has one of 5 roles, and you must balance those roles to keep the economy as stable as you can!

Controls:

• WSAD - Camera Controls
• Mouse Wheel - Zoom In/Out
• Double Click Building - Bring up business/house menu
• Up/Down Arrow Keys - Increase/Decrease Game Speed

Notes:

• Businesses are color-coordinated, and workers' houses and cars will match their employed color.
• When quitting jobs, a worker's energy will immediately go to zero.
• When changing or finding a job, only a single click on the business is required.
• Each job prioritizes different stats, which has a bonus on production. It's worthwhile to allocate each worker to their best job to maximize a job's output!
  • Power plants like leaders.
  • Water Purifiers require a lot of concentration.
  • Farmers require a decent amount of dexterity.
  • Grocery stores need at least two workers, otherwise thieves will slowly steal all of the food!

Planned Additions (If I Had More Time):

• BALANCING!!
• Title screen
• Audio
• More maps
• Ability to create custom maps
• Ability to edit existing maps to add roads, businesses, and people (perhaps through tax money)
• Click on cars to see their driver's information
• Some way to directly see a person's information without going house->person or business->person
• Floating UI showing names and/or other at-a-glance info
• Actual art
• Overall better UI

Changes:

There were a few bugs that would cause people to get stuck in a cycle, and also a few cases that could cause a person to stop acting altogether, preventing them from registering a proper fail state and delaying the game indefinitely. These have been fixed, and I also added a display for the game timer and game speed so one can keep track of how long they've been playing.