Sunday, 1 December 2013

Game Dev Tycoon

Overview

           This week's game review will be of..

            Game Dev Tycoon is a simulation game with the focus of allowing the player to create a multitude of games of different genres on different platforms, and also giving the player the ability to change the level of focus of different aspects of the game being created (e.g. Graphics, dialogues etc.) through sliders. Games that the player releases are reviewed by critics and scores are given out of 10, which affects sales and how people will react to your game.
Where you can't say "don't judge me"
            The game is very unique in what it does, which is giving players an opportunity to be creative, and for a person, like myself, who loves the idea of designing games, this game allows players to do so without spending actual money or having detailed thought.

            The story of the game is set 35 years back in the past, where the gaming industry was slowly forming, in a real-life comparison, this would be around where the first video games were being produced. You’re the boss of your own video game company, meaning you start off with only yourself as the sole game creator. From there, the story paces you up from being a one-man team working in a dusty old garage, to a professional team of game designers hand-picked by yourself who have the potential to create epic games to satisfy every gamer out there.
Sleeping in da garage tonite
You'll be stuck here for a while guaranteed
            The fictional platform releases in the game are somewhat tied into the story aspect, it tells the story of how certain platforms came about and in some, speaks of some controversy that did happen in real life. These platforms are all renamed versions of the SNES, DreamCast, Xbox, PlayStation and the like, all of which are released at a specific time during gameplay.


Good Points

Unlimited Possibilities

            Mix military with RPG? Shake it up with a dance game consisting of hybrid genres? Release it on PC because #pcmasterrace? The choice is yours. Not many games can offer the player so many possibilities in such a simple game, and this is because in the gaming industry, these choices do exist, and the way this has been simulated into a game (inception shit right here) means now, everyone has an opportunity to express their creativity and to attempt to try and create a game that captures everyone’s attention, with these unlimited possibilities, anything is possible.
Extremely original name btw
Easy to learn, hard to master

            In the game’s context, anyone can create a game with an average rating but still earn money. However, not everyone can create a game with all critics giving a score of 10’s and earn millions. This makes the game easy to pick up, but hard to attain solid 10’s across the whole review board, which means players will sink a lot of time into the game from the get-go attempting to achieve this, making this game highly addictive.

Simplistic

            The game is extremely light on any computer, having simple refined graphics and sliders without losing focus on its gameplay concept of creating games for the masses.

Varying playstyles

            Besides creating games, Game Dev Tycoon also gives the option of training the staff the player has, be it in improving their design aspect, technology aspect, speed or research, all of which has varying amounts of impact while creating a game. A game is better created if the staff creating it is more experienced in what they are doing, however this training does not come cheap, players can also choose to research better technology at the cost of money and research points to create better game engines. Players are thus given many choices to play the game the way they see it, adding on to the addictive factor. 
When designing a game, design, technology, bugs and research points are produced.
Bad points

Linear Story

            Of course, with the setting the game is put in, the story has to be linear in order to tell the story of how many gaming consoles originate. However, this linear story ultimately affects replayability of the game. After maybe five playthroughs, the player will already know what consoles come after a specific time, meaning the choices the player makes will usually always be the same, only varying on their playstyles.

Overall

+Unlimited possibilities                               -Linear story
+Easy to learn, hard to master (addictive)
+Simplistic
+Varying playstyles

            The game is well-made, simplistic and overall well-suited to almost every age group, besides babies of course, and is a great pick-up. Grab it now for just 6.99USD or wait for the final day of Steam Fall Sale and hope they put it up on a bigger offer again! ;)
Embarrassed of the game name

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