Broadcast Empire

A tycoon game about building a radio and TV company from 1970 onward. It runs in a browser and as a desktop app for Mac, Windows and Linux. This is Alpha 0.10.0, a build for playtesting.

File	What it is
CHANGELOG.md	What is in each version
REQUESTS.md	What is still wanted, by priority, and where playtest notes go
Decisions.md	How the game is put together, and why, where that goes beyond the brief
prompt.md	The design brief, and the roadmap of Phases 0 to 14 the game was built by

Installing the alpha

The installers are in release/ after npm run dist:mac, dist:win or dist:linux. None of them is signed, so each system asks before it runs the game.

System	File	To open it
Mac (Apple silicon and Intel)	Broadcast Empire-0.10.0-universal.dmg	Open the .dmg and drag the game to Applications. If macOS says the app is damaged or from an unidentified developer, run xattr -cr "/Applications/Broadcast Empire.app" in Terminal once, then open it.
Windows (64-bit)	Broadcast Empire Setup 0.10.0.exe	Run it. When SmartScreen warns, choose "More info" and then "Run anyway".
Linux, Debian and Ubuntu (64-bit)	broadcast-empire_0.10.0_amd64.deb	Open it with the software installer, or run sudo apt install ./broadcast-empire_0.10.0_amd64.deb. The game is then in the applications menu. Build it on Linux: on a Mac, electron-builder may fail to make a .deb, and the release workflow builds it anyway.
Linux (64-bit)	Broadcast Empire-0.10.0.AppImage	Make it executable (chmod +x) and run it. Some systems need libfuse2 for an AppImage, or the flag --no-sandbox.

The build is named on the home screen and at the bottom of Settings. Quote it with a playtest note.

Commands

Command	What it does
npm run dev	Start the game at http://localhost:5173
npm test	Run the simulation unit tests
npm run coverage	Run the tests with a coverage report (open coverage/index.html for line-by-line detail)
npm run typecheck	Type-check everything
npm run simulate -- --bot growth --years 10 --yearly	A bot plays N years headless and prints results, including market position (balance check). Bots: sensible (one channel in the Capital), capital (the same channel run well: sponsors, a production manager, a researcher), neglectful, growth (expands, sponsors, second channel), nosupport (like growth, but never hires cleaners, technicians or maintenance staff), tv (grows radio, then launches a TV channel and bids on TV licenses), research (like growth, but researches every tech as early as it can). Add --seed N to vary the game and `--difficulty easy
npm run build	Production build into dist/
npm run desktop	Build the game and open it as a desktop app (Electron)
npm run desktop:dev	Open the desktop app on the running npm run dev server, for working on it
npm run dist:mac · dist:win · dist:linux	Build the game and make an installer in release/: a .dmg, a setup .exe, or on Linux a .deb and an AppImage. Unsigned; see "Installing the alpha" above
npm run website	Build the game's website into website/dist; see "The website" below

Controls: Space pauses and resumes; 1, 2 and 3 pick normal, fast and fastest speed. In the office, dragging or W, A, S and D move the view (two fingers move and zoom it on a touch screen; while a room is being drawn, drag with the right or middle button), Q and E turn it, + and − (or the mouse wheel) zoom, 0 puts it back, Page Up and Page Down go one floor up or down, and R turns a piece of furniture. Escape closes the window in front. Ctrl+Alt+C opens the cheat console for testing (money 50000, year 2000, help for the rest). Ctrl+S (Cmd+S on a Mac) saves.

Saves. The game opens on a home screen: continue the newest save, load or delete any save, start a new game (first your character and your name, then the headquarters: a region picked from a live preview of each, the company's name and the difficulty), or change the settings. Saves have names; the autosave is kept apart and is written at the start of every month, and in the desktop app also when you quit. In a browser, saves live in that browser (IndexedDB). In the desktop app each save is a JSON file in the system's folder for the game:

System	Save files
Mac	~/Library/Application Support/Broadcast Empire/saves
Windows	%APPDATA%\Broadcast Empire\saves
Linux	~/.config/Broadcast Empire/saves

Settings on the home screen shows the folder and opens it.

Releasing a version

The pipeline does this for a bundle of issues (see PIPELINE.md); by hand it goes:

1. Move the requests that are done from REQUESTS.md to a new section at the top of CHANGELOG.md.
2. Set the version in package.json (and the two lines at the top of package-lock.json). The game reads it from there.
3. npm test, then npm run dist:mac, npm run dist:win and npm run dist:linux.
4. Commit on main.
5. Push main and put the installers on GitHub as the release of the version (see "The website" below); the release makes the tag.

The website

The site people download the game from, at https://broadcastempire.online: a home page, Download, Media, Changelog and feature requests, and Thank you. npm run website writes it to website/dist as plain HTML, with a sitemap.xml and a robots.txt. To look at it first: npx vite preview --outDir website/dist.

This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗