Game dev tycoon is a combination of themes and genres. Game Dev Tycoon: bad good simulator. What awaits the player

As you know, gamers know better than the developers themselves how to make games. So they would add more freedom of choice, and realistic graphics, and would focus on gameplay/design/story/characters, etc. etc. Well - flag in hand, Greenheart Games studio Game Dev Tycoon gives you a chance to create the game of your dreams, earn a lot of money and worldwide fame. Moreover, you don’t have to learn programming or drawing - you are entrusted with management.

Game Dev Tycoon

Genre simulation/strategy
Platforms Windows / MacOS
Developer Greenheart Games
Publisher Greenheart Games
Website greenheartgames.com

Grade

Unusual setting, interesting game mechanics, funny graphics

Gameplay is somewhat repetitive

Feel like the head of a game studio

So, somewhere in the early 80s, in your father's garage, you think of creating your first gaming masterpiece. Text quest or 2D strategy game for PC or Govodore G64. Choose a genre, setting and start to work painstakingly. After a couple of months, the first game is ready and you send it to life, waiting with bated breath for reviews of gaming magazines and sales numbers. If everything worked out and you managed to earn the first money, invest it in the study of new technologies, create your first primitive engine and start developing the next game, a vampire simulator, a strategy about a prison, an action about flowers, whatever you want.

As time goes by, you unlock new settings, add 3D graphics to your game engine, stereo sound, the ability to save the game, tutorial missions, open world, branched dialogues and others. In due course, the Govodore G64 leaves the market and the Ninvento TES and Vena Master V consoles appear, and there it is not far from Vonny Playsystem and Mirconoft mBox. Although the authors do not use real names, but all Game Dev Tycoon is a kind of duty of memory gaming industry, an opportunity in a couple of hours to recall all the major milestones in the development of games over the past 30 years.

After the release of the first hit, and if you know real games released in the 80s on certain consoles, finding the right combination of genre, setting and system will be easy, and the first big money - you are ready to move into your own office, hire the first employees and plunge into real development. Before publishing your games on your own, you will have to build a fan base, and for this you will have to work for a publisher, getting royalties, fulfilling sometimes strange requirements and creating games that are not at all in the genres and not for the consoles that you would like.

Then it gets even more fun. Marketing appears, the ability to target games for different age audiences, visit game exhibitions. New technologies are being explored, engines are becoming more complex, development costs are starting to rise. This is where you start to understand real developers. Is it worth sacrificing a branched dialogue system to add an open world, or is it better to improve the graphics? Should you make sequels to successful games to make money, or experiment with new genre combinations and release a risky project that might fail? Is it worth it to hire expensive performers or train your own staff, what is more important than design or technology? And where do you get a visionary that will allow you not only to create an AAA hit, but also to explore new technologies and, perhaps, create your own game console?

Game Dev Tycoon looks deliberately simple, but the game mechanics here are interesting. Some things are, of course, deliberately simplified, some aspects of game development are not taken into account, but, nevertheless, running a game studio is insanely interesting. You can try to create something of your own, or you can repeat the path of your loved ones gaming companies, without making their mistakes and still release the continuation of Planscape or Arcanum. The process is addictive - another study, another game, a couple more weeks of sales, and it's already morning outside the window.

The authors, and these are two brothers from Australia, do not hide that they were inspired Game project Dev Story for iOS, Android. It's okay, there has never been a similar product on Windows and Mac OS. Let's hope that in accordance with their own concept, Greenheart Games will improve the graphics in the next version, add a couple of features (we require the purchase of a red Ferrari and the election of the Game of the Year) and release a sequel on new platforms. 100% the game would look great on mobile systems.

P.S. Greenheart Games made a good joke on the pirates by posting a special version on the tracker Game Dev Tycoon, which introduced the piracy parameter, which makes game development unprofitable. As the brothers say, watching pirates complain about piracy in a game development game was fun. By the way, such a move by Greenheart Games turned out to be very successful in terms of marketing - almost all gaming sites wrote about Game Dev Tycoon, which seriously increased the sales of the project.

Game Dev Tycoon is a business simulator for a game development company. The action of the game begins in the 1980s, when the gaming industry was just emerging.

Plot

Starts with a garage in the 80s, text games and 2D graphics, and ends with the creation of online MMORPGs, bestsellers, and even his own console. In the process, you need to choose combinations of story and gameplay, hire and upgrade staff, make and update engines, choose how much time is given to different aspects of the game, advertise, participate in exhibitions.

Purpose of the game

Achieve the success of your company for 35 years. Open all the big and spacious offices, create a laboratory and start manufacturing your own console.

Game process

The player starts by giving a name to himself and his future company. Further, the player can create his own games by choosing the theme of the game, genre, platform and game engine. Also, for 30-42 years, set-top boxes from well-known companies will be released. Sony will be represented in the game as Vonny, Microsoft as Micronoft, Nintendo as Ninvento, Sega as Vena, etc.

Achievements

There are 33 achievements in the game.

Development

The game was created by Greenheart Games.

Developers fight against piracy

Game Dev Tycoon developers decided to conduct an unusual experiment and play a trick on those who prefer to download pirated versions of games. “A couple of minutes after we started official sales of Game Dev Tycoon, we immediately released a hacked version of the game on the Web, which is almost identical licensed version with one important difference. Users pirated version an unexpected and unpleasant surprise awaited - some time after the successful launch of the virtual studio, she faced a huge level of piracy, which led to bankruptcy. The forums began to receive tearful messages from pirates who asked the developers and other players for advice, asking if it was possible to somehow combat piracy in the game, perhaps using some kind of DRM systems. However, it is possible that requests for the need for DRM surveillance in virtual world- came from one of the developers themselves, thus. winding up “scandalous points” for themselves, because before that no one had heard of their company and game

Steam Greenlight

The Steam community has approved this game and given it a green light. The release on Steam took place on August 29, 2013.

Game development

After you click on the "Create new game...", you have to choose the name of your future game, choose the size of the game, select the target audience, the theme for the game, the genre of the game, the platform and the game engine. When you have done all this you will need to distribute the responsibilities between you and your workers, if any. During the development of the game, you will improve the game in terms of technology and design, as well as develop and raise the hype around the game. When you balance your game as you need, you will be given experience points. When you've finished a game, reviews from game magazines and companies appear.

• The game has 4 game sizes - small, medium, large and AAA.
• You can set 3 types of age restrictions 0+, 6+, 18+.
• The game has a lot of different themes for games.
• You will be given a choice of 6 genres for your game.
• There will be a lot of gaming platforms.
• You can create as many engines as you like.

What awaits the player?

Game Dev Tycoon refers to simulators made with high quality and on high level. The main task for the player is to create his own own game to eventually become the leader of the gaming business. As expected, you will start creating from a small garage in the distant 80s, but you will not have much money, so you will have to save on lunches and, in parallel with learning the art of game design, you will also need to bring comfort to the room that you rented. Now it will be necessary to master new technologies, train new employees and develop the most popular games.

Successful completion

If you can't get good reviews, go bankrupt all the time and can't fix your mistakes, then let's take a closer look at the walkthrough:

1. If you haven't made your own custom engine yet, it's best to use features like Basic Sound and 2D Graphics V1.
2. To get started, try developing an action sports game. Set the sliders to 1, 2, and 3 steps as follows - 100/50/0, 0/50/100, 0/100/50.
3. Now start developing the genre military strategy with the sliders set at the marks indicated above.
4. If everything is done properly, then you already have enough to start developing your own engine (custom) and approximately 100,000 game currency for expenses. After creating the engine, include in it 2D graphics V2.
5. After such manipulations, you should still have enough points left to start exploring the Racing genre.
6. Now you will use only V2 2D graphics and forget about all other programs, including basic sound.
7. When developing Races and Space Sims, leave the sliders in their original positions.
8. Proceed to the study of Fantasy, and then to the subsequent development (the sliders have not changed).
9. Now is the time to move on to RPG genre design and set the sliders to 0/100/100, 100/100/50 and 100/100/100 respectively. It will be possible to produce one game after another - medieval RPG or fantasy, but you should never release the same theme in a row. If you want variety, then try creating Adventures, but note that this topic is more difficult due to the balance of d / t. No more research in the garage will have to be done.
10. You can safely go to the office if you have V1 3D graphics available for development, as well as at least 2,000,000 on your account (if the game just went on sale, then 1,500,000 is possible).
11. Now is the time to start managing people and educate yourself to "make me think".
12. Hire 4 workers at once, preferably in quick succession. If possible, choose a candidate who has a low level of low Design / Technology, as well as more research and less speed.

Start by developing games one by one from each existing genre, this will give you access to Action and multi-genre games - this topic is considered the most difficult to balance properly. Do this before the balance starts working and you get > 30 D+T points.

Review of the game "Game Dev Tycoon"

Genre: economic simulator.

Platform: MAC, RS.

Supported OS: Windows, Mac, Linux.

Management: mouse and keyboard.

I'm sure many of you here love games. Some of these people would like to create their own, but due to a number of reasons, be it a lack of skills, knowledge, or simply time, they could not do it. Economic indie developer simulator computer games Game Dev Tycoon from the Greenheart Games studio allows us, at least a little, to be an igrodele.

By the way, the developers have fought against piracy in their game. A version of the game was published on the Internet with minor changes in the code. Thanks to these changes, at some point our studio itself became a victim of piracy and the money ran out very quickly, which led to Game Overy.

Start.

We start our game development journey in a small garage with 70K money. With due diligence, you can increase your money, and move from the garage to a spacious office.

After the name of the player and the name of our company have been thought up, we can proceed. The very first thing we are allowed to do is create our first game.

Game development.

After the player has decided on the genre of the game out of the five proposed: action, adventure, RPG, simulator and strategy, and has chosen the theme of the future project from several open ones, the development itself begins. it has 3 stages where you need to adjust the sliders depending on what we want to get. If the player has an idea about games and what is important in a particular genre, setting up the sliders correctly will not be difficult.

Review of the game "Game Dev Tycoon"

When all 3 stages are completed, it remains to wait a little more, to eliminate bugs. Nobody likes bugs, not even the virtual players of our creations.

When everything is ready, we can release or remove the game, give or change the name.

After waiting a little time, our creation is rated. The line between good scores and terrible is very thin, even with the correct distribution of runners, it is possible to create a terrible game.

Review of the game "Game Dev Tycoon"

Research

The second thing we can do in the game is research. They are needed to open new game topics, the ability to make games not on one, but on three platforms, to improve your engine. YES YES you can create your own game engine and sell or rent it out over time.

After creating a few games, a journalist suddenly visits us and asks for an interview about the game we are developing. Also, a journalist can ask what is more important in a game of this theme and genre. Some time after the interview, the media will report on our game, plans, and the like, and after this moment, the "Hurry" counter appears. It shows how much people are waiting for our next masterpiece. After the necessary research, we have the opportunity to raise the level of excitement ourselves by investing in different kind advertising, from small investments in magazine advertising to large advertising campaigns.

Review of the game "Game Dev Tycoon"

With the further passage of the game, the player begins to be invited to exhibitions, where, depending on the money paid, we will be given small, medium and large stands. Exhibitions like this are a great way to raise the hype for an upcoming game. As well as with marketing, after the right research, the player will be able to create their own exhibitions.

Development

By creating successful projects, the player has the opportunity to move into a spacious office and hire the first workers. From now on, our character and hired workers can be trained for research points. Make them specialists in design or masters in technical terms, it's up to the player. Research points drop during game development, when working under a contract, when creating an engine.

Fans, publishers and money

Well, the player and employees are trained and all the runners are correctly placed, but sales are not high. Fans play a big role here. In general, they appear immediately after the release of the very first game, but we understand their meaning later, more fans -> more potential buyers, more buyers -> more profit. But what if there are few fans and you want money? This is where publishers come in.

By setting certain conditions, the publishers give money for the development of the game, take most of the proceeds, but the sale of the game with the help of the publisher is 10 times more independent work without a publisher. But if some conditions are not met, the publisher may take some of the money from you in the form of a fine.

Review of the game "Game Dev Tycoon"

We have to resort to the help of a publisher until our small company is strong and does not gain a sufficient number of fans and earns a lot of money. But what to do if the money runs out and new ones will not be earned soon. The first time a player has a negative balance, the toy makes concessions and the bank gives us some kind of credit. The bank can give a loan several times, but at one not very pleasant moment this does not happen and the game ends. The absence of the opportunity to take out a loan whenever you want and for any amount is a little upsetting, but with the right passage, you can never encounter such a situation.

By the way, regarding the conditions from the publisher, there can be 6 of them: platform, genre, game theme, target audience, game size and minimum rating. By the way, the penalty from the publisher will depend on the minimum rating that you will receive after creating the game to order. There may be no conditions other than the minimum score to give the player more freedom to be creative.

Review of the game "Game Dev Tycoon"

New opportunities

Here the player explores new opportunities, releases games, advertises himself at exhibitions and, not only in general, finds new opportunities where to spend hard-earned money. And if a couple of conditions are met, we are given two more eaters of our money: a technical laboratory and a research laboratory. If everything is clear with the second one, research is new and useful, then in the first one the player can create his own console. But it’s worth approaching this business with a very thick wallet, since the creation of the console will eat our savings and will not choke, but if the console is created and sold, if the player stimulates its sales by issuing exclusive games, then all costs will pay off in full

Review of the game "Game Dev Tycoon"

Another of the possibilities presented by the game is the creation of your own online masterpiece. Such games can be withdrawn from sale by the player himself, unlike offline games. Before a certain moment the income from the MMO exceeds the cost of maintaining it and the profit flows into our hands, but then the moment comes and it becomes unprofitable to maintain such a monster, and he eats more and more money. Along with closing the project, the player can create an add-on that will allow a little more income from our MMO.

Conclusion

Wow, we've reached the conclusion. Summing up all of the above, we have the opportunity to create games that are analogues of existing masterpieces, or you can create at least here what many are looking forward to. Pro this game You can tell more and more, but let the players themselves find everything that is not described in the review. Unfortunately, this toy cannot last more than a couple of evenings due to the monotony of what comes in the last stages of the game, and even if the game is successfully completed, repeating your success in the second or third playthrough is not as interesting as discovering everything new for the first time.

The main mistakes you can make when releasing a game are:

1. Development big games on an engine less than 2D V4 or 3D V3

2. Continuation of the game (sequel) on the same engine as the previous part

3. Making two games in a row with the same genre/theme

4. Development of the next part of the game (sequel) without the passage of 40-45 weeks

What can affect the quality of your game:

1. Combination of subject matter and genre

2. Number of bugs (the fewer, the better)

3. What's on this moment is popular (appear in the top right corner when something is popular)

4. The correct position of the sliders

5. Design and technology (their number)

How best to arrange the sliders:

Action - Stage 1 - Engine/Gameplay; Stage 2 - Level Design/Artificial Intelligence (AI); Stage 3 - Graphics / Sound;

Adventure - Stage 1 - Gameplay/Quests; Stage 2 - Dialogues/Level Design; Stage 3 - World Design/Graphics;

RPG - Stage 1 - Gameplay / Quests; Stage 2 - Dialogues/Level Design Stage 3 - World Design/Graphics

Simulator - Stage 1 - Engine/Gameplay; Stage 2 - Level Design/Artificial Intelligence (AI); Stage 3 - Graphics / Sound;

Strategy - Stage 1 - Engine/Gameplay; Stage 2 - Level Design/Artificial Intelligence (AI); Stage 3 - Graphics / Sound;

Casual - Stage 1 - Gameplay; Stage 2 - Level design; Stage 3 - Graphics / Sound;

Adult games run fine only for PC, G64, mBox360, mBox one, mBox next; PlaySystem 3, 4, 5;

For 0-13 go PC, G64, VenaOasis, mBox360, mBox one, mBox next; PlaySystem 3, 4, 5;

All platforms go to +0

I will share my most successful games

1. Sci-Fi Action, Everyone, Master V platform, earned all 10

2. Movie-Casual, for everyone, TES platform, average rating 9.75

3. Wild West-RPG, 0-13, platform VenaOasis, average rating 9.5

4. Romance-Adventure, +18, PC, average rating 9

5. Sci-Fi Action, Everyone, PlaySystem Platform, Average Rating 9.75

6. Sci-Fi Action, for everyone, platforms mBox360/PlaySystem 3/PC, average rating 9

7. Sci-Fi Action, +18, mBox next/PlaySystem 5/PC platforms, average rating 9.25

8. Medieval/Strategy RPG, +18, PC, average rating 9 (MMO)

9. Movie-Casual, for everyone, mBoxnext/PlaySystem 5, average rating 9

* Sliders arranged according to the table above

Perfectly combined:

Action / war, alternative history, fantasy, middle ages, aviation, vampires

Quest / detective, secrets. romance, middle ages, spies

RPG / dungeons, wild west, school, fashion, post-apocalyptic

Simulation / Aviation, Sports, Surgery, Hunting, Hacking, Life, City, Rhythm, Science Fiction, Business, Dance, Game Development

Strategy/War, Government, Science Fiction, Space, Fantasy

Casual/Zombie,Movie,Music,Comedy