A game has popped up on steam called Game Dev Tycoon, I had originally just pegged it for another stupid simulation game like the thousands that have been infecting steam lately. What I got I was surprised with, a well thought out and very entertaining simulation of a starting up indie developer.
In Game Dev Tycoon you start the game in your garage, armed only with your G64 and basic tools.The more you create and research, the more your games expand, you’ll earn money and fans if you put some thought into what your creating and you’ll lose money and fans if you don’t. For instance an action RPG might sell well, but a romance RPG might not.You have to set your time too, allocating your hours into making different parts of the game. This also requires some thinking on your end, you have to make sure the parts you’re developing work well with the genre and platform you’re creating it for.
The game has huge room for expansion, allowing you to move into an industrial park after you’ve made your first million, and then on to your own building when you proceed further. You have to be careful not to try and just release the same type of game over and over just because it worked well once, the game’s inner critics will catch on and you’ll be taken down a peg when they score you a three. Which brings me to another interesting part of the game, the games inner critics, these take the form of four game websites that review each and every game you release, and score it with a number from one to ten, the only downside to this is that they don’t really give you any feedback on what you did wrong or right. These scores matter, and will directly affect how many units of your game you sell and therefore how well your company does.
As you become more successful you can hire employees to lighten the work load and work on marketing your product to build up hype for your game.The most interesting part of the game in my opinion is how the tech evolves, as the years move on new consoles and mobile devices come out, which you’ll need to buy licensing to create games on, in doing so you will open your games up to a wider audience and increase your chance of success.
Overall Game Dev Tycoon is a really interesting and fun simulation game on Steam and I would highly recommend you give it a try.
