Difficulty Setting: Community Test

GREEETINGS NEWSBEARERS!

Dear Newsbearers,

With News Tower now officially in 1.0 for some months now, we wanted to take a moment to talk about what comes next.

A full release is a huge milestone, but for us it was never meant to be the final stop. Since launch, we’ve kept working on updates, improvements, and extra content, and we want to be clear about something: we are still very much here, and we still want to build News Tower together with you.

Throughout Early Access, your feedback played a huge role in shaping the game. It helped us improve systems, rebalance mechanics, fix issues, and make better decisions along the way. We might not always react right away but the connection with the community has always been important to us, and being post 1.0 does not change that.

That is exactly why we’re opening up this upcoming Community Test.

This test will give you an early look at the next update and help us make sure its new features feel right before we release.

The main feature of this test: Difficulty Settings

The biggest addition in the upcoming update is the implementation of difficulty settings for every game mode. On the forums, in the reviews and Discord we really saw some players struggle and search for a more relaxing (More time to decorate) Experience and players who really would like it all to be a lot more challenging.

So, with this new update we wanted to give players that option. When starting a new game, players will now be able to choose their preferred difficulty after selecting a game mode. The available difficulty options are:

• Easy
• Normal
• Hard

Every difficulty is available for every game mode, with one exception: for first-time players, Introduction will only allow Easy or Normal, similar to the current availability checks for Classic mode. After that first playthrough, Hard will also become available for Introduction.

This is the feature we would especially like you to try during the Community Test. We want to know how these difficulty options feel in practice, whether the balance feels fair, and whether each setting offers a satisfying experience for different kinds of players.

So join the Community Test and help us refine the experience! 

Changes included in this build

Alongside the new difficulty selection, this build also includes a number of active balance changes.

Overall game balance adjustments:

• Anointed Pen now gives a 25% XP boost and adds one quality star to obituaries[list]
• Known issue: the description does not yet reflect this change. This will be updated in the next build and included in the localization batch.

Nocturnal now gives a 25% XP boost if the employee is working in the dark

Skillful now only counts unassigned skills toward extra quality stars, instead of all skills

Perception Rules changes (all difficulties):

• Risk Buzz is now more profitable: 10K sales per taken risk instead of 7,500
• Illustrative is now more profitable: 20K per illustration tag instead of 15K
• Hot Topic is now more profitable: 5K sales per tag flame instead of 2K
• Early Edition now maxes out at 48K if you print within the first hour of Sunday, which is double the previous maximum
• Category Balance now yields 30K per set instead of 25K

These adjustments were made because many players would almost always opt for Informational, since those rules tended to generate the most sales. With these changes, we are aiming to make other approaches feel more competitive and worthwhile.

A New Deco Object Shop on the map.

Acorn Hall - Holds all objects a player might have missed on the calendar. They come at high prices but prevent players from needing to restart to get a missing object for their achievement.

To access the "Community Test Build" branch, simply follow these steps:

• Open the Steam client.
• Click on the "Library" tab.
• Right-click on "News Tower" and select "Properties".
• Click on the "Betas" tab.
• In the "Beta participation" field, select "community_test".
• Click on the "Close" button.
• The game will now be updated to the "community_test" branch.

Community Test Feedback

As always, your feedback is at the heart of this process. We’d love for you to join us on Discord (If you didn’t already) and tell us how the Community Test feels to play. If you spot issues, or just want to share your thoughts on the new difficulty settings and balance changes, please post them in https://discord.gg/e9UfsWx3Ju

Of course we will also keep an eye on the Steam forums during the community test.
It’s just a bit harder for us to keep track.

We'd love to hear how the new difficulty settings feel, whether the balance changes feel the way they should, and anything else that stands out to you while playing.

Please keep in mind that saves created during the Community Test will not be compatible with the default branch until the update is officially released. So our story is far from over!

Thank you again for continuing to support News Tower after 1.0. It means a great deal to us that this community has stayed so engaged, thoughtful, and passionate. We’re excited to show you what’s next and even more excited to hear what you think.

The press rolls on and there’s more news coming once this tested build will go live later in April!

See you in the Community Test!

Thank you all so much for the love and care for the game. We are committed to make it one of the best tycoon-management game ever.

Join us on discord and X to follow all the news about News Tower!