Score: 8.5/10
Full Text Review:

What Is Game Dev Tycoon

Did you ever want to start off your own video games company and create the games YOU always dreamed of? Game Dev Tycoon lets you replay the history of gaming by starting your own company in the 80's and start from nothing and become the most successful company in the video games industry.

Like in any other business, you wanna reach the top in that industry, you wanna make a name for yourself that people will remember! But in order to achieve that, you have to start from scratch and from nothing. You start the game in the 80's, a time when the first PC's just came out and when the gaming industry was growing fast.

The Game

Game Dev Tycoon lets you start your adventure as a company in a small garage office as the only employee of your new company. With a small budget of only 70k, you finally start the action and start creating your first video game.

The first step in developing your game is to pick a topic, a genre, a console to run in and of course, a catchy name that will attract the attention of gamers and game critics.

When you are happy with what you picked, the 2nd part in developing your game is to choose a graphics engine for your future game. When you just start the game you can pick 1 out of 2 graphic engines. The simple text-based engine or the more complicated and advanced 2D engine. Later on you can research better versions of a 2D engine or a 3D engine.

After being done with that, the more complex part comes. You are now creating the game itself, you will need to choose how much time to put in each part of the game. Let's say you are making a fantasy RPG game, in it you will want to spend more time on the dialogues and level design and less on the A.I. or if you are making an airplane simulation game then you will wanna spend more time on the engine and gameplay and less time on the story and quests.

In order to create a good game, you need to know where to focus on the right elements. This can be mastered by trying and failing. or by basic knowledge (e.g. gameplay/engine on a military action game).

While developing your game you will see design and technology points starting to generate. These points will determine how good the game is on design and on the technology. To get a good game you will want this to have a balance and not too much on design or too little on technology.

During development, you also generate research points, as I said before, research points are used to get new engines, new game topics, new things that will help your company and its games grow such as marketing and a target audience.

As you progresses in the game, new platforms will be released with their own target audience. Companies like Ninvento, Voony, and Mirconoft (A funny small spin-off for Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft) will start releasing their first gaming consoles with each focusing on different audience types.

After a few successful games, you will leave your garage and move into a small office building or your own company headquarters that will let you start expanding your business and increasing your games potential even more.

With this move, you will start making larger games, hiring employees and more opportunities to stand out in the crowd and finally start making that name of yours.

Hiring new staff is an important thing that has to be done; each employee will be different, each with his own skills in design, technology or a balance between the two. Training your staff will improve the chances of releasing larger and more complex games that will require more money and better employees.

If you don't have enough fans to create a large/AAA game (100k fans), you can use the help of a publisher who will grant you a small percentage of the total sales if you meet their requirements. If you fail to deliver the score for the game they asked for, you will have to pay a penalty.

In your first few times you should aim to create games that are not that much different so that you would know what staff you would need so that you don't buy employees that have too much design and not enough technology skills will make your game fail cause as I said before, to get a good score you need a balance between design and technology.

After your game is completed you will get a review from 4 critiques. The review system is not that good and will not provide any in-depth information on why your game got that score. When you get the score, they don't dont tell you why you got that score or tell you what had a major impact on the score.

Even if your game is bad, you can create some hype around it using marketing campaigns. The more money you invest in that campaign, the more impact it will have on sales. You can also attend the G3 (like E3) convention to promote your games and boost sales and make lots of hype around your company and the game you are working on.

If you need some extra cash or some research points you can accept a contract that you will need to complete within the time limit or you will need to pay the penalty like with a publisher contract.

Later on in the game you can create your own research and development lab (R&D) that will grant you access to new projects like a digital distribution platform - Grid (like Steam), MMOs and even huge AAA titles.

Creating your own hardware lab also has its advantages; you will be able to develop your own console and compete with other platforms and maybe even achieve the highest market share.

The graphics of the game are decent for this kind of game, they are not meant to impress you but more to give you an idea of how successful you are, what are your works doing, etc...

The sounds of the game are nice and are good for the background.

The game also now offers people to use Steam Workshop to share thier mods and download them through steam.

While playing the game I have found no bugs at all.

The Good

- Game Progression
Moving on in the game, watching the video game inustry evolve is a lot of fun.
- User Friendly
The game is simple and easy to learn, features a tutrial at start, the rest is easy.
- Sounds and Graphics Serve the Game Well
The basic sounds and graphics of the game are more then enough for it.
- Simple Gameplay
Not really complicated and can be mastered by the average player.
- Variety of Things to Research
Topics, consoles, engine features, etc...
- Easter Eggs
Console names, posters, etc...
- Steam Workshop
Yep.

The Bad

- Repetitive (Steam Workshop helps with that to some, didnt help much to me)
After a while, making a game is something you do by instincts and becomes too easy and simple.
- Reviews for Your Games Are Not Detailed Enough
You get a score, you at least wanna know what for.
- Not Much Place for Creativity
If you try and do what is not what people are use to like a simulation RPG about pirates you will fail.


The Verdict

Game Dev Tycoon will take you back to the roots of the gaming industry and will let you start your company from scratch and get to the top. The game has a big selection of platforms and has a great game developing management and the "story" itself is good.

The game has a few easter eggs that would take you back to the old days or remind you of some cool games you probably use to play, sounds and graphics that serves the game well and simple and fun gameplay.

One thing that really bothered me was that a major thing in the game development is knowing how to improve your future games and yet the game fails to show you how to do so. It does offer you the option to write a game report but that wont tell you why you got that specific score.

I highly recommend this game for any one who likes tycoon games or wants to just have a good time and open his mind to new games or be creative and make cool things such as engines, games and platforms.

8.5/10 - Must Play