When I was a kid I wanted to be a guy that made games. I played them everyday and they were the only thing I knew anything about. Back in the days of Sonic the Hedgehog on the Megadrive and Spyro on the Playstation.
As I grew older though I found other interests and though I still want to be a part of the amazing industry, I don't want to be personally responsible for a game in development. That fact was re-affirmed when I played Game Dev Tycoon, not because its a bad game, because its not, but because it shows you just how difficult it is to make the next big thing in the industry.
Game Dev takes place over 35 years. It starts in the 80's when PC and its rivals were going at it for home dominance. Slowly Nintendo and Sega start getting involved, you see the birth of Sony in the market and the introduction of Microsoft, up to their glory today and even slightly in the future.
The history to Game Dev is correct but the story is what you make of it. As you begin to develop shareware games in your garage you slowly get a name for yourself, starting a small company with one or two employees and slowly but steadily becoming one of the industry giants...if you play your hand right that is. You see bankruptcy is common place in the entertainment industry, everyday indie devs close up shop due to mishap projects and occasionally a giant topples, though that happens more and more in recent history thanks to the global recession.
As a simulator that builds itself on real world information, Game Dev only does half of its job. It does introduce the right consoles at the right times, but times when old consoles fade out of development territory and major events such as the videogame crash and the most recent recession are all missing, so despite what's there being good its at times not enough.
Game Dev is a Business Simulator, albeit easy to learn and not too difficult to master. There is no real difficulty to this game, but there is strategy and getting to know your target audiences tastes. My company started off by making a UFO action game which I personally imagined to be an old school shooter like Galaxian. After having reasonable success with it I immediately pumped out a sequel and was hit with a brick wall because the market didn't want a string of the same games at that point in time. Compare this to later in my development timeline where I had four major franchises (a racer, a life simulator, an action adventure game and the same shooter series I started off with) each with a two year development cycle and little else, because all the consumers wanted was sequels.
Around the PS1/PS2 era I experimented a little with some daring titles like Pirate RPG's and casual portable gaming. These were shot down because they were ahead of their time or didn't live up to the potential they had due to hardware limitations.
Game Dev is a game about making mistakes and learning how to better yourself with your next release, its about pacing your game development cycle and its about memorising the games industry from the 1980's onwards.
To make a game there are two major components, design and technology. You have a skill level of both of these as well as research (used to upgrade your development equipment or invest into new mechanics such as multiplayer) and speed (how quickly you can produce design & tech points); those are the basics and from that you must create a good game. You can normally tell a good game from the number of design & tech points it has, my studio started off as a tech powerhouse like Crytek & id but had little creativity. Once I started investing time into courses to learn design techniques my company was the next leader in innovation, being not only the first to adopt new technologies such as online multiplayer but also capable of building in-house engines of CryEngine standards.
You also have to manage your employees, money and side projects such as helping other developers finish projects in order to gain a bit more cash. These are all well implemented and work well, but at times become a little time consuming if you're strapped for cash and cant afford to make a new game to get some money flowing.
My major problem with the way the game plays is how it handles sequels, its near enough the only complaint in my review that is worth a damn and its because its so stupid as to how it works.
In Game Dev Tycoon a sequel is given no advantage or disadvantage based on the sales of its predecessor, unlike in real life where if a game is very good people will flood to buy the sequel and if its bad you wont see another one.
To illustrate this point I employ my life simulation franchise, Virtual Life. Now the first Virtual Life scored perfect 10's across the board and was hailed as the game changer in the genre, not to mention netting me a huge amount of sales. When Virtual Life 2 came around after about 5 years or so, despite all the marketing and effort put into building a brand new engine for it. The game was critically panned and sold abysmally. Now if that was real life, sales would have been good regardless of the critics opinion because the last one was so revolutionary and it had a huge fanbase. I hope to see franchise reputation implemented in a future update, or a sequel because that would have made the game so much better. Then again I'm pretty sure my UFO shooter franchise would have died after its frankly awful 3rd instalment (despite the 5th entry reviving the franchise both critically and commercially).
The game looks pretty and the UI is well organised and easy to use. When you start it does seem like information overload but as you progress new options are added and the old mechanics just come as second nature. Menu's are clear, the graphics are pretty and have a timeless cartoon look about them. The sound is pretty drab though, I cant say I noticed a soundtrack of any kind but then again I was completely immersed in running my frankly awesome games company.
The only improvement I could suggest is that you cant start a game or build an engine until the default name has been changed. Its unreal how many times I screamed in anger over accidentally naming my in-house engine 'Engine' rather than what I intended it to be called, all because I forgot to change the name.
Game Dev Tycoon is a game that you will sink many many hours into and not even realise how much time has passed until you're dying of starvation. It only takes about 6 hours to complete the full 35 year cycle, though you will endlessly replay this game due to its addicting nature and desperately wanting to have the next Call of Duty or wanting to become the next Naughty Dog.
Its a game that can make or break dreams and for those of you who don't know much about the industry, its a great history lesson as well as a fun one despite its few shortfalls.
But then again, much like when you start out in your basement making your first game, give a thought to the developers as this was their first title too.
Game Dev Tycoon – 9/10
+Extremely Addictive
+Great Business Simulator
+Videogame History!
+Great Art Style
-Missing Some Major Historical Events
-The Sequel Problem
