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Developing add-ons can be a good way to gain some extra income from popular products or bringing back old customers for subscription-based products. Add-ons made for hardware are peripherals, and some can be mandatory for development of the main product and some can even be sold several times to the same customer, such as joysticks for consoles.

Now click the relevant add-on tab and open the details of an add-on to see its details.

Features for add-ons work like features for regular products, but some have the option of increasing their potential. The features you can add will depend on the parent product category and features. Features should be selected in such a way that they appeal to the same target market as the product they are made for. You can find add-ons for other products by looking for products in the product window that have a non-zero balance in the {H:Add-on profit} column. Try and see if you can find such a product now.

An {H:Add-on} is a product you can develop to be sold as an extension of an existing product. Click {H:Continue} to have a look at the features you can pick for an add-on.

You can develop new add-ons at any time by opening {H:Your releases} window and selecting a product with add-ons available or by opening the detail window for a product and clicking one of its add-on tabs. Try starting development of an add-on now to continue the tutorial.

Your offshore account can be used for the action listed at the bottom of the window or funneled back into your company's main account. The actions also list the cost to your offshore account and how much {H:heat} the action will generate. Pay close attention to your {H:heat level}. When it hits 100% you will be audited and any illegal activity will be uncovered, and assets seized.

You can buy {H:precious metals} to reduce your taxes and maybe even earn a profit by selling it when the price goes up. Just make sure to not place your precious metal stock in view of anyone but your staff members. The money you earn from selling precious metals goes into your {H:offshore account}, which cannot be used for your daily operations.

In the accounting window you can select which teams should file your tax reports and {H:optimize} your taxes every year. Your accountants optimize your taxes by finding errors and ways to lower your taxes. If you don't earn a profit during a tax year, that effort will not save you any money. Click {H:Continue} to read about the offshore account.

Taxes have to be paid every year that you've made a profit, and every year you have the option to file a {H:tax report} before April or pay a fee. Any illegal assets or activity that has occured within that tax year will be discovered, if you don't file the tax report yourself. Note that for assets you can buy or sell, like a computer or an {H:IP}, the taxes are based off the {H:depreciation} of its value, rather than its actual value when you bought or sold it. Open the {H:Accounting window} to continue the tutorial.

Start by opening the {H:Tax menu}.

You'll also need to pick a lead designer to come up with ideas for your project. The game will already have chosen the most suitable employee, based on the assigned design teams.

In the staff window you can either hire {H:couriers} to come once every day and pick up boxes or call a courier to pick up as many boxes as possible immediately. Calling couriers is a lot more expensive and should be reserved for emergencies. When you are ready, open the {H:distribution window} to see how you can run your own digital distribution store.

To transport boxes around your building you need {H:conveyor belts}. {H:Conveyor belts} allow you to route boxes through walls and onto pallets or directly to the outside for couriers to pick up, by placing {H:Garage ports}. You can direct boxes from different places to the same destination by placing conveyor belts perpendicular to each other. Or you can split boxes in different directions by placing {H:Conveyor Splitters}. Make sure you leave room on your conveyor belts for boxes to pass, as machines won't be able to push out boxes if the conveyor belt in front of them is blocked.

After you've went through the phases of development and you're ready to release your product, remember to see if any popular products have just been released in the same software category as yours. You can also check out the {H:Event calendar} to avoid upcoming releases from your competitors and make sure a large company won't outshine your product. Timing is everything when you're just starting out!

Before you finish, make sure you inspect the information in this box. This outlines everything you need to develop this product. Take special note of the {H:Expected interest} percent, as adding more features after it hits 100% will only increase development time and not your sales. Having more than the suggested amount of employees on the development teams will result in diminishing returns, so you're paying more in salaries, but getting a smaller and smaller speed increase in return.

If you're worried about how to pay your developers, how many physical copies you'll have to order or how much effort to put into your marketing campaign, you can sign up with a publisher and they will handle these details, if you agree to pay royalties off your product's profits.

The submarket triangle let's you decide how your marketing and design efforts will be weighted, to target a section of users in the market. You could either decide which markets you want to target and pick features that will satisfy those markets, or pick the features you want in your product and balance the markets to fit those features. The 3 bars in the bottom will show you how well your chosen features satisfy each market and how much they require, based on how you balanced the triangle. Only 1 page left to go!

Your product can depend on other software types. As an example, you will need a 2D Editor to make a game with 2D graphics, otherwise your artists wouldn't be able to create the graphical assets needed. Furthermore, most software also needs to run on one or more operating systems. It would be wise to pick popular operating systems to support, as they will limit your audience size. But beware that each operating system you decide to support will extend development time. You can port your software to other operating systems after it has been released, if you so desire. Move to the next page when you're ready.

You can make your software a sequel to a product you made previously or which you bought from another company. You do this by clicking the {H:Original IP} button and selecting a product. Making a sequel will give a marketing boost and change your fans' expectations depending on the success of its predecessors. Features that were implemented in the predecessor product will be highlighted in orange in the feature panel, as these features will be developed faster than normal.

As you may have noticed, each main feature has a tech level associated with it. Tech levels can be researched by you or other companies from year to year. Sticking to the latest tech level will increase your target audience satisfaction and the marketability of your product, but increase development time and possible research and license costs associated with its development. It's worth noting that the maximum tech level is limited by any tools needed during development.