Game development is difficult. At least, it can be. I’ve mentioned before how detail oriented you have to be as a designer. There have been many times when I thought I was especially clear on certain aspects of a project that my teammates ended up having questions about. It can be a very stressful and demanding position. Yet, not only do I have a lot of fun doing it, I also have no desire to trade places with any of my comrades. Not the artists. Not the programmers. Not the writer. Get us together working as a team and it can be a wonderful experience. (It can be a little frustrating at times too, I’m not going to lie, but for the most part it’s really great.) But there’s one thing I think we’d all agree on: game development is way more involved that it appears to be from the outside.
Enter Game Dev Tycoon from Greenheart Games, a game about developing games. I know, sounds a little strange, but during the few hours I’ve spent with the game, I’ve had an incredible amount of fun. I’ve also felt stressed, joyed, disappointed, excited, dejected, determined, insecure and reassured. So, pretty much like actual game development.
Game Dev Tycoon transports you back in time over three decades and plops you in a dingy garage with a small computer desk and a mere handful of potential development options. It then walks you through the process of creating your first game, asking you to choose a theme and genre then tasking you with balancing how you will spend your development time.
Before you build your game, you’ll need to specify a name, topic, and genre. More options become available as you play.
Upon ‘releasing’ your game to the public, you’ll get a breakdown of the media reaction as well as the sales. You also get the opportunity to generate a report that helps guide your future endeavors by examining what worked and what didn’t with your game. Finding a winning combination is key to achieving financial success, but don’t expect to churn out sequel after sequel. As the years pass, technology grows. You’ll find yourself reliving video game history from the early days of the industry with cleverly altered company and console names opening up more doors to development.
Your development is likely to be hit or miss as you research new technologies or design innovations and struggle to balance your time and money with the myriad of mechanics you can add to your game. One wrong move can cost year dearly.
In my game, I paid for a development license I could barely afford and when my first game to utilize it bombed hard I had to accept a government bailout. I nearly bankrupted the company with a couple of very poorly reviewed and even worse selling misfires. Depressing as that can be, making a game that is praised by the masses and throws your small startup into the limelight is as exhilarating and rewarding as it sounds, especially if you can do it fairly early in the game or immediately after one of the aforementioned epic failures. This is exactly what happened to me when one of my games brought me from the brink of disaster to having enough cash to afford a brand new office space with plenty of cash in reserves.
My first huge success brought me back from the brink of bankruptcy. Apparently the whole world loves fluffy bunnies.
But victories are never guaranteed. With technology and market trends constantly changing, I imagine it’s easy to go from super developer to totally bankrupt with just one abysmal game. That’s why it’s so important to make sure you can afford licenses and salaries and still make your dream game.
I haven’t played Game Dev Tycoon enough to know if there’s some game breaking magic formula that can assure victory. There are definitely things that can guarantee you at least a small measure of success at certain points, but until I dig more deeply into the game, I won’t know if those thing remain true for every play through or for how long. What I do know is that the game is solidly entertaining. It is fast paced enough that you have to keep moving, keep researching, keep developing if you’re going to stay afloat. But there are enough things that suspend time so you can catch your breath and plan a strategy in between.
So far, I am loving Game Dev Tycoon. I also suspect that it is going to continue to offer me a new perspective on my own development projects, be they solo or as part of the team. GDT may be a simplified look at the game development cycle, but I’d say it’s as well done and accurate a portrayal as is possible while still being a load of fun to play.
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