Okay my thoughts on this game are bizarre. Let me start by judging this game on it's own, in a vacuum if you will.

This game is great. Starting off in a garage, and using a constantly evolving market of topics, genres, and engines, you use different combinations of design steps to create the best game you can. Get a high rating and get some cash money to grow your game business.

Gameplay is simplistic and fun.
The gigantic amount of topics combined with genres, consoles, special events, etc creates a unique game every time. Though there does seem to be a simple meta strategy, with the dominance of Action genre matching with the most topics, and certain consoles always being the best.

The visuals of your office locations from garage to large-scale mega corporation, look great. The amount of references and details are amazing. Such as the Journey protagonist in the final office, and the DeLorean in the first office. The GUI are functional, if a bit barren (We'll get more into that later)

One thing that throws me off is it feels like the default time span is very short. Maybe I just haven't figured out the right strategy yet, over 180 hours in, but I can never seem to get my staff to the correct level, nor have the extra funds to train staff to get to the place where I can start making consoles and use some of the late-game abilities and the sort. The most I can get is a couple of MMOs out before the game ends, and then I'm just left to endless mode, that doesn't feel that important to me, because I want to aim for that high score.

This game is incredibly satisfying across the board. Just seeing those high ratings makes you feel so good, seeing you take a gamble at making a game and seeing your company make the money back and then some is a great feeling.

Now I want to get to the part of this review that is no longer in this "vacuum" I mention at the beginning. I won't be comparing this to other Game Dev Tycoon style games, no. In fact i'm going to be comparing it... to itself. You might be wondering "what does that even mean?" well allow me to inform you.

Game Dev Tycoon also has an app. Made by the same people, with the same structure, mechanics, topics, genres, etc. But in the Game Dev Tycoon app, ALL of the UI looks absolutely amazing. Like the sliders have this shiny effect overlayed over the bars to make it look like a tube, the slider handle actually has a texture, when selecting a genre or console, you get these big colorful yellow buttons with little logos behind the information, the button animations are so satisfying to press, the ui window itself has a shadow as well as a unique little yellow bar outline to give it a little texture. Compare this to the PC version of Game Dev Tycoon, and you get barren, bright white GUI boxes with basic arial black text on it. The sliders are just literally colored bars, with a white untextured handle that you slide up and down.

Now this wouldn't be such a big deal, if it weren't for the fact that almost 100% of this game is using those very GUI menus. The fact that the UI of the mobile game looks so great, and they haven't applied those same amazing UI graphics to the PC version of the game is extremely disappointing to me. While I do suggest this game, on it's own, because it is a great game, I recommend getting the app on the App Store/Google Play Store far more because its just a more satisfying and enjoyable experience.

The first and only time you'll probably ever hear me say that the mobile version of a game is better than the PC version.

Okay my thoughts on this game are bizarre. Let me start by judging this game on it's own, in a vacuum if you will. This game is great. Starting off in a garage, and using a constantly evolving market of topics, genres, and engines, you use different combinations of design steps to create the best game you can. Get a high rating and get some cash money to grow your game business. Gameplay is simplistic and fun. The gigantic amount of topics combined with genres, consoles, special events, etc creates a unique game every time. Though there does seem to be a simple meta strategy, with the dominance of Action genre matching with the most topics, and certain consoles always being the best. The visuals of your office locations from garage to large-scale mega corporation, look great. The amount of references and details are amazing. Such as the Journey protagonist in the final office, and the DeLorean in the first office. The GUI are functional, if a bit barren (We'll get more into that later) One thing that throws me off is it feels like the default time span is very short. Maybe I just haven't figured out the right strategy yet, over 180 hours in, but I can never seem to get my staff to the correct level, nor have the extra funds to train staff to get to the place where I can start making consoles and use some of the late-game abilities and the sort. The most I can get is a couple of MMOs out before the game ends, and then I'm just left to endless mode, that doesn't feel that important to me, because I want to aim for that high score. This game is incredibly satisfying across the board. Just seeing those high ratings makes you feel so good, seeing you take a gamble at making a game and seeing your company make the money back and then some is a great feeling. Now I want to get to the part of this review that is no longer in this "vacuum" I mention at the beginning. I won't be comparing this to other Game Dev Tycoon style games, no. In fact i'm going to be comparing it... to itself. You might be wondering "what does that even mean?" well allow me to inform you. Game Dev Tycoon also has an app. Made by the same people, with the same structure, mechanics, topics, genres, etc. But in the Game Dev Tycoon app, ALL of the UI looks absolutely amazing. Like the sliders have this shiny effect overlayed over the bars to make it look like a tube, the slider handle actually has a texture, when selecting a genre or console, you get these big colorful yellow buttons with little logos behind the information, the button animations are so satisfying to press, the ui window itself has a shadow as well as a unique little yellow bar outline to give it a little texture. Compare this to the PC version of Game Dev Tycoon, and you get barren, bright white GUI boxes with basic arial black text on it. The sliders are just literally colored bars, with a white untextured handle that you slide up and down. Now this wouldn't be such a big deal, if it weren't for the fact that almost 100% of this game is using those very GUI menus. The fact that the UI of the mobile game looks so great, and they haven't applied those same amazing UI graphics to the PC version of the game is extremely disappointing to me. While I do suggest this game, on it's own, because it is a great game, I recommend getting the app on the App Store/Google Play Store far more because its just a more satisfying and enjoyable experience. The first and only time you'll probably ever hear me say that the mobile version of a game is better than the PC version.