🎉 ATA Day is around the corner and we wanted to kick things off with an AMA with our development team! 🎉 Ever wonder what midnight snacks fuel our devs, or how many iced strawberry matcha lattes it really takes to launch an update? Now’s your chance to find out! In anticipation of ATA Day 2025, we’re hosting an Ask Me Anything session with the dev team. To participate, simply drop your questions in the AMA Typeform linked below! We will be accepting questions until 12 PM on Friday, August 29th. Just remember: keep it fun, respectful, and community-friendly. Just good vibes and curiosity all around. We’ll pick the best questions to answer so get creative, be curious, and let’s celebrate ATA Day together! 🫶 Here are some ideas to get you started: What’s the weirdest bug you’ve ever had to fix? How much coffee/tea does it take to get through a launch day? What’s everyone’s all-time favorite game (besides ATA’s, of course)? What's the best piece of player feedback you've ever received? What's the worst piece of player feedback you've ever received? What’s one “behind-the-scenes” thing most players don’t know about game development? 👉 Tap HERE to submit your question! 👈 We're excited to hear from you! Answers What’s up, Singles? 💅✨ You dropped your burning questions in our AMA, and wow. Y’all did not hold back. From the juicy deep-dives to the random curveballs, we decided to spill the tea on almost every single one. That’s right: no holding back, no ghosting, just real talk straight from the dev team. This AMA is our way of keeping it real with you—and hopefully creating more space for honest, playful back-and-forth between players and devs. Because in Single City, it’s all about connection, right? 😉 So sit back, sip dat brew, and let’s get into it. — Your Single City Crew Without further ado... Will you ever bring back free avis from events/contests? -_Kryptonite_ [ATA]Yoshi - It’s possible! We understand that it’s been challenging for people to collect avatars since the Leaderboard Tokens were introduced. We’re always looking to try new things to see what works best. ATA is a business and must make income in order to keep gaming servers open. How does ATA handle problematic/toxic players who spend a lot of money on their games? -Sabrina_1 [ATA]Ripley - Great question, thank you! You've highlighted a core difficulty that every free-to-play game has to deal with. To be perfectly candid, people who have progressed a long way in our games and have supported us with their entertainment dollars are of course greatly appreciated, and are an essential part of our ability to keep running our games. As such, we will take additional time to address problematic behavior directly with such players, to fully understand what they're doing and why, and to outline future consequences if it continues. Sometimes we do go straight to account action though, it depends on the severity of the issue. If a player account looks like a fresh alt, one created to spam/harass, one created belonging to a previously banned player etc, we are quicker to penalize and move on. This is as much for resourcing reasons as it is anything else, as there are many, many more cases to deal with that fall into this category. We also try to resolve these problematic behaviors and toxic gameplay via game updates including things like caps and limits, making the playing field more fair for fighting back etc. This is why we are always very interested in what players would like to see as the changes/alternatives whenever they are the victim of toxic/problematic behavior, and try to use that as much as possible to guide us. If you have any specific feedback or recommendations on how we can diminish problematic behavior and toxicity that you haven't already shared with us, or even if it's been a while, please do share again! Who’s the ultimate villain in Single City?Is it other players, rival crews, the system itself, or something hidden behind the scenes? -AmaresAngel [ATA]Fog - The true villain is the hustle culture that forces our Single Citizens to constantly be on their grind. Our influencer utopia isn't immune to capitalism.... Maybe if there wasn't so much pressure on him to monetize all of his hobbies, RadChad could have some pizza and calm down. Do you have a favorite players in each ATA games? -ZaZa_Zen [ATA]Yoshi - Oh no, this is just like the time y’all tried to bait me into picking a favourite city 😭 Of course not - how could we ever pick favourites?! There have been some memorable players over the years, though. One of the most memorable for me from Heckfire is Pooty (IYKYK). [ATA]Ripley - Not falling for this again... you're all the same amount of great and terrible to me, in equal measure. Hi 👋 How are tasks shared between all of you since the company got reorganized? Since the new help system I can’t find my fav support agent >.> If you read this : wild tiger misses you 🫶 happy ATA DAY. -WildKitty [ATA]Yoshi - Who was your favourite support agent?! Some people have moved on to new opportunities, some have changed teams, and some are still here! The Single City team is one team in a larger group that manages all of our live games. Some people work on multiple game teams. The Single City team has a small core group of designers, artists, writers and support agents that keep the game moving forward, but lots of other people across the studio support us, too! If Single City crews were like high school cliques, which dev would be in which crew and how would you handle a ‘problem crew’ spreading chaos in the hallways? -AmaresAngel [ATA]Yoshi - I was a band geek in high school, and also fit in with the tech nerds and artists. I tried to stay out of the drama as much as possible. I guess I'd deal with it the way I did back then - be overtly weird so they leave you alone. Never let 'em know your next move. Single City players sometimes feel torn between loyalty to their crew and survival in a hostile server. As devs, how do you balance loyalty to your vision vs adapting to player demands? -AmaresAngel [ATA]Yoshi - It's a tough line to ride, for sure. Our vision is built out with a lot of extra context that happens behind the scenes, especially regarding tech, resources and systems design (the complexities of interconnected systems, and how changing one impacts another). Some things are easier to be flexible on than others, and we do our best to use direct feedback as much as possible to inform updates. When there's a disconnect between vision and player needs, we have to come at it from both sides. We leave our biases at the door and read between the lines of what players say to see what the actual underlying problems are. Sometimes those problems can be solved in ways that are not actioning directly on the feedback, but still support both the player needs and the vision. What’s the one thing you wish players really understood about the challenges of developing Single City? -AmaresAngel [ATA]Yoshi - Single City is a bit unique for the ATA team because it has 3D art, and uses the same backend systems as some of our other games. A lot of those systems have to be adapted to suit the unique mechanics in Single City to do things they weren't originally built to do years and years ago, while also continuing to fit the needs of the other live games that still use those systems. As a result, sometimes developing new things can take longer than others, and we have to plan our roadmap a lot further in advance, so adapting on the fly can be more challenging. Does the team secretly have their own favorite ships that aren’t obvious in the story yet? -_Duches_ [ATA]Fog - You got me. I admit it. As a writer on Single City, I am always secretly thinking about ships. If you look very carefully, I’ve dropped some subtle hints about an affectionate dynamic between Elle and Imogen - what’s that about? I’d love to explore it more! I also think Drago would be very fun to write dealing with a crush on someone, but his romantic options are currently open. If there are particular ships or stories that YOU would love to see in future, I would love to hear about them! ❤️ If you suddenly had unlimited resources and zero technical limits, what’s the wildest feature or storyline you’d add to Single City that you currently can’t? -Cheeky_Banana [ATA]Yoshi - "Paper doll" dress up system where you can individually style each of your roomies, AND your own character. What is your most well received theme,Avi and roomie ? Besides Remi of course -EmpressOfWeirdos [ATA]Yoshi - Ohhhh this is a tough one, but overall anything witchy themed has been very well loved. Morgan and the Celestial furniture were both huge hits when first released. How long does it take for you to design a theme and how many people work on it ? -Horimiya [ATA]Azure - It takes about 2 weeks to design and concept a theme or roomie, and then another 4-5 weeks for art production. The whole process includes initial ideation/pitch, reference gathering, concepts, asset creation in 3D, and implementation into the game. We have 2-3 people in the studio working on Single City on the art side and some of those work on our other games as well 😀 Did you ever think that Single City would be so well received when you first launched the game ? -Saitama [ATA]Yoshi - Single City was the first game I worked on in early development all the way through launch and live support. It blew me away to see how players embrace new games and build a community around them together, and still blows me away to this day to see this on our games and on other new game launches across the games industry. Thank you all for being here and supporting us! I hope we can continue to expand our reach in the years to come. is it possible for yall to make Evelyn dramas/Chad rallies count into crew gig? 🤭 -Anonymous [ATA]Yoshi - Never say never! A lot of data analysis and math goes into updating Contests, so we definitely have to do some planning around this. We’d love to do some updates to our core Contests, especially with how much has changed in Single City over the past 3 years. Why don't you create 1 drama free server -Sabrina_1 [ATA]Ripley - Great question! We consider player-vs-player (PVP) to be a core part of Single City, it's deeply interwoven into how the game is designed, and the intended player experience. To be clear, I'm not saying a drama-free server could never happen, but it would create some very large challenges. It would essentially be like running 2 separate games, and would drastically increase the workload of our small team. While the perfect PVP balance is a highly subjective thing, we believe the game will be most improved by continuing our iterative cycle of gathering feedback from players and making tweaks over time instead. We definitely understand the feelings of players who do feel this way, and we're super open to any feedback and suggestions on how to improve it. Are you all hiring? -Ace [ATA]Ripley - We are often hiring, and hiring people who already played our games is always really cool. The best place to check is on our website at www.athinkingape.com, as well as by following us on LinkedIn! What’s the most ridiculous feature idea you’ve ever joked about but secretly wished you could add to the game?👀 -Anonymous [ATA]Ripley - Whenever players are mutually being really mean to each other, we make them literally hug it out. Their roomies get together and just stand around hugging in public for everyone to see, not being able to do anything else. Maybe the location on the map could be the Healing Hugs House, and other players could come and slight you via emojis for your ruffian ways. The meaner the incidents are, the longer the hugs. Once the time is up, they're on probation. If we see any evidence of them going back to their old ways, it's straight back to hugging! Maybe if it's just one person being mean to another, their roomie has to stand outside their victim's house with a boombox and holding a cardboard sign over their head, professing their love and deepest regrets. What’s the strangest piece of player feedback you’ve ever received that made you literally go ‘…uh, what?’ -Queen Cath [ATA]Ripley - This is a great question but it feels mean to talk about feedback we've seen in relation to Single City, and honestly I don't think I've seen any feedback for the game that made me feel that way. But one experience I did have many moons ago at another studio I worked at, let's say I worked on a game about... raising puppies and decorating their little puppy houses; one piece of feedback requested that we "do away with all the puppy stuff". It reminds me of a great TV clip where someone asks a chef if they can make a customer an eggless omelette. What is one thing you wish players didn't do? -Fridazzle [ATA]Will - Be mean to each other! I get drama is fun, but can't we all just collab a little more? ❤️ [ATA]Ripley - I agree with [ATA]Will, I think the thing I wish that players didn't do the most is take things too far. I'm a big believer in and enjoyer of persiflage, which is a fancy new word I learned recently that I muse use. It just means banter that is light and slight; it isn't mean-spirited. People often underestimate the true impact their words and actions have on one another. It's meant to be all in good fun. Hatred makes the world a worse place to be. Also I do wish people would stop trying to weaponize our support agents against other players, it's highly unsporting and not a good use of our resources. If a bear and a shark had a mighty fight on a cruise ship on fire whilst the ghost of Marilyn Monroe sang happy birthday to ATA Luck whilst super Mario strolled in with a sombrero on whilst in a wheelchair and the dude who shouts WATERMELONNNNNNN from Vine just bursts through the window Tarzan style whilst holding a mighty catfish who can sing Do You Really Want to Hurt me? By the culture club (the one with boy George) but Ainsley Harriet is in the background eating a banana furiously. Hold on wait… who would win in a fight? [ATA]Luck vs [ATA]Yoshi? -Single City [ATA]Yoshi - I'm Jensen, Luck is Jared: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qlFAjA0Zlrc When players clash, it can feel like the streets of Single City are on fire. What’s the funniest or most creative way the dev team has resolved a conflict internally? -AmaresAngel [ATA]Ripley - Interesting question! A long time ago, one creative way my lead helped me resolve some friction I was having with someone else was suggesting I get together with them for an hour and just have both of us share more about ourselves with each other; our backgrounds, our gaming influences, our aspirations, our biggest mistakes and regrets, future concerns, fun ideas we had, things we were frustrated about etc. It turns out when you realize how similar you are to someone else and that you want almost exactly the same thing, a lot of the frustration kind of melts away. We're all more similar than we are different, and we have to learn to live with each other and support each other. Nothing good is built without strong teamwork.
I want to ask you why you launch a major 24/7 event and not have staff to fix serious bugs. You have players from around the world, not just in Canadian office hours. As of right now the event has been bugged for close to 10 hours in 1 city and 7h in another. How can we compete on fair terms?
Since the game is clearly pvp based why don’t yall tell players that instead of making others look bad by their peers who don’t want to follow the made up server rules
The hugging idea made me laugh so hard omg 😹😹😹 ngl I would buy popcorn and log in game just to watch this
