I got the lite for this early yesterday, and I ended up buying the full version and playing it until 4:30 am - I'm pretty much addicted.
Currently My favourite iTouch game. I feel a manage a band game would work well with this manage a game company engine. Any tips on money making. Max I can reach is roughly 2000K but it's still not enough to buy license to any console worth having. A Few Facts About My Studio: Games: 11 Console Licenses: 6 Employees: 7 Gross Revenue: $2.6 Million Best Selling Game: Sports Trivia (250,548) Game Kid Y7 Best Selling Series: Animal Quiz Series (296,158) Game Kid Y6+7 Worst Selling Game: Flembo Reversi (25,295) PC Y1 Worst Selling Series: Flembo Reversi Series (85,020) PC Y1+Y2 Awards: Untitled Play Gear Project Worst Game Award
I love this game. It's like cocaine. They need to make a sequel and now! Some stats about my Studio: Name: Sunset Studios Games: 19 Hall of Fame: 9 Top Selling: 4,522,939 units Current Profits: 8,706.3K Fans: 1585 Genre: 18 Type: 15 Best Series: PopStar (total units) 12,033,591 Year: 10
Buy Gamekid, then just keep dev'ing for it until you have a ton of cash, then dev for the playstatus. Make sure you upgrade your people, buy the things from the salesman(the boosts), and make sure you do good combinations. your also gonna have to do some contracts. I had 1.5b in this game, got 5 or 6 GOTY and one perfectly rated game
I didn't expect that it was an old pc game, but I'm not that much surprised because it's not the first time and won't be the last that igames make me discover a great PC indie game through a port. For sure the simulation is approximative, the interface looks like a dirty port, on iPad it doesn't look very good, but the game is just fascinating and it's hard to quit once you have started a game and knowing a game last multiple hours (7 or 8h?) it's quite rare. I don't think a game captured me for so many hours in a row since almost 20 years and civilization I on Mac. If the simulation is simple it isn't that simple and there's many mechanisms making it attaching. It is a bit complicated but simple enough to please a non fan of simulation like me. The element of the simulation aren't hundred of people, plenty builders, large numbers of items or ton of parameters and statistics. Instead it's limited number of information and elements to take care, one current development, you current fans through only few categories of age and masculine/feminine categories, some publicity tools to try increase your base fan, some panel of statistics but not that many, one game show per year, 4 journalist reviewers of the games, one Global Game awards per year. There's a general game direction for your enterprise through only about ten characteristics like polishing, realism, cute ability, innovation, world realism or simplicity. You have only a limited number of special tools you can buy through one merchant coming sometimes. There's sometime one event, a new console announcement, fan letter, hardware problem, gaming news, all concern directly your enterprise. And there's only from 4 to 8 developers, you need to take care of them closely, from hiring or firing them, to train them, or increase their level and salary, and position them in the desks (they can help or teach each other if they are close enough). Each developer has only few characteristics, name, salary, power (fatigue level), and four skills, program, scenario, graphics and sound. And they have also a current job but also jobs in past career and you can make change job or unlock more jobs, there's probably 8 or a bit more job types like producer or coder. So the heart of the simulation are those few developers, and they get most of you attention because you need taking care of each of them and see them doing important actions for your enterprise like help each other, request ability of a specific research, succeed of fail a special research development, developing various elements of the game, learning during development, create or solve bugs, and so on. Those few developers make the simulation quite concrete and highly attaching. But beside this approach of simplicity and quite many symbolic elements anyway making live the simulation and making it attaching, the key point is definitely the subject of the simulation, games and consoles rough history (from Japan point of view). Not many Hardcore players will resist the fascination. That game reminds me three games, a sort of mix and balance between elements of those three games, Majesty, Civilization I, and a bit Tropico I. It is far to be as much polished than any of the three and in long run it could live less long, but Game Dev Story gameplay has something as much unique and fascinating than those three games and have some general design approach with similitudes with those three games. And the kitsch on the cake, it's subject is for Hardcore players. A total must play for any Hardcore player, at least try the demo, the more fascinating game I have played yet on my iPad.
At my first game I end gave up try, and did most release on PC after a point. You can still get good sells but it's probably harder to come back in consoles run forward. I succeed only during last years to get multiple Hall of Fame from PC release, but well it's quite possible that this Japan point of view orientation of the game will even not allow any GOTY for PC games. In a next game I'll try a PC only career to see. At second play I played more aggressively, from start buy the console license of the most popular console, and made all your release on the more popular. I haven't seen Gamekid but got the Masked dev in this second game. He has an incredible high level of power making training him a lot more fast once you get the cash. He also brought some special events and one was increasing number of fans. I don't know yet how to get a GOTY but in my current game all my games are top 1 since a long time and have no problem to buy any console license I want and almost all game I release are Hall of Fame and I have currently multiple successful series (you need have enough of them and enough diversified so your fans don't feel you always do the same game). I don't think you need any specific developer, even if some could help. A key point is probably to level up and train your developers and keep a good balance of the team. Also one key is to hire external specialist to make you first big hits and/or alternate with using your best specialists. Those external specialists plus using the research items will rise up a lot the qualities of your game, will bring you more fans through better games released. Also there's a special feature or a bug (I don't know), it's that if you use an external specialist to write the scenario the fun points he will bring will be added to fun points from your own best writer specialist this is giving a huge fun boost to your game. But again I don't master yet the game and still have to get my first GOTY.
Trapped myself in a situation where The Playstatus has been discontinued and I can't afford the license for anythign else.
That's what happened to me at my first game. But you always have the PC and don't believe too much the share market for the PC you still can make fairly good sell, enough for managing hits and building hall of fame games. In my first game I even got one 10 for a game, but it didn't get the GOTY. But it's quite possible that at same quality levels a game will sell quite less well on low market share of the PC. I'm not sure yet how to get the GOTY, well I suppose building some hackers with incredible stats (600) would help, but well it's such a dis-balance that it's like... hacking the game. I just got a game with 38 review points and it only got the the Runner up. In fact I get all Runner up since some years in this play. I think I also got a 37 review points in my first game and also didn't get the GOTY. But in both cases it was for sequels and it's perhaps not possible with sequels. It was Sim City 3 on the Wii for the 38 points and 3.5m sells at first week. Not bad, but in fact it didn't end that high, about 16M, and no GOTY. I just noticed one point is that before each game you develop you can not only allocate new direction points but also reallocate all. That's a huge point I hadn't noticed.
Woo so you the PC isn't good enough for you to develop games? You need rise to level 5 the first four jobs (use an item to change job), this will open two new jobs, rise them to 5 too. Then when you'll change job you'll have access to a new job, Hardware Engineer, that seems like a super coder. And then if you rise the Hardware Engineer to level 5 and change again of job you'll have access to last job, Hacker. It lacks terribly of polishing, but if you have some curiosity about the gaming history and game developments, it isn't a realistic sim but a rather fascinating toy sim. I would advise it to fans of first Civilizations and of Majesty 1, not that it reach their global quality, but it induces a fascination level that has links with the fascination that can involves the first Civilizations and Majesty 1. From Majesty 1 you can see it as a RPG sim where the developers are the heroes, the classes are game jobs, and the enemies to struggles are the bugs and the development to do. From first Civilization you have the sim simplicity and the symbolized global evolution of a civilization becomes the symbolized evolution of a game studio through the last 20 years, minus few of the last years.
