Game Dev Story/Gameplay
Welcome to Game Dev Story! After naming your game studio, you're ready to jump right into the game developing world. You play as the president of your new studio, and you have creative control over the games you develop as well as the ability to hire, fire, and train employees as you see fit.
The game begins you with three employees: your secretary, who will be with you for the entirety of the game and will notify you of important events (she is an unpaid employee who selflessly volunteers her time), Newb Ownerton, a level one Coder with an annual salary of $20.0K, and John Gameson, a level one Writer with an annual salary of $20.0K. You also start the game with a budget of $500.0K and 10 Research points that can be used to level up your employees or boost the stats of the game your team is developing.
To begin developing a new game, bring up the menu and hit "Develop" in the top left corner. From there, you can select the platform, genre, and type of game to develop. You can also change the direction of the game's development with options such as speeding up development at the cost of quality, or focusing on quality and slowing development time down. Keep in mind that some platforms, genres, and types cost more than others; for your first came, you want to keep your costs relatively low. A good combination to start out with is Puzzle Reversi on the PC with Normal development, which costs only $55.0K.
Once you've started developing a new game, you'll have to put points toward different qualities of development, including cuteness, realism, approachability, niche appeal, simplicity, innovation, game world, and polish. There's no universal right or wrong combination for these, so experiment what works best for your game.
Afterwards, you'll be prompted to choose someone to write a game proposal. You can either choose an employee on staff, of you can outsource the task for a fee. Try to keep as much of your work in your own studio as possible; you'll. both save money and have a better idea of what to expect. The proposal determines the starting Fun and Creativity values of your game, so choose an employee with the highest points in either programming or scenario to get the best results. After the proposal is written, game development will officially begin.
Now is a good time to start hiring new employees. In the menu screen, click on "Staff," and select "Hire" from the list. You can choose different way to advertise that your studio is hiring. The more money you spend, the more applicants you'll receive. You can have up to four employees in the beginning office, so choose your team wisely. A well-rounded team at this stage of the game would include a writer, a coder, a designer, and a sound engineer. Note that you'll have to pay an initial contract fee when hiring a new employee, so budget your search accordingly.
When game development reaches 40%, the alpha version will be complete, and you'll be prompted to choose someone to be in charge of character design. The designer is usually the best choice for this task, but if you don't have a designer or if your designer has worked on too many projects, anyone with a high graphics score will do. At 80%, you'll have to choose someone to direct the sound design of the beta version. The sound engineer shines here, but again, anyone with a good sound score can produce decent results.
At 100%, the game will be finished, and the debugging process will begin. Each bug your team gets rid of will yield one Research Point, which is a valuable resource, so ti's wise to let your employees get rid of all the bugs this early in the game. later on, you can choose to skip the debugging process and release a buggy game if you're strapped for time. Keep in mind that this will influence how your game is received.
Once debugging is completed or you choose to skip the process, you'll have the option of renaming your game and reviewing the game's summary. Choose to ship the game, and you'll see the critic scores, which are good indicators of how well your game will sell higher scores mean more sales. Soon after, your game will go on sale, and you'll start earning money for each unit sold.
Now that you have one game out, you can begin advertising your studio. Choose "Action" from the menu, and select "Advertising" to see your advertising options. More expensive options yield better results, but make sure to budget the amount of money you spend. Eventually, the cheaper means of advertising will stop attracting new fans, forcing you to rely on more expensive options. In the end, though, advertising is a valuable strategy, and you should try to advertise frequently when developing a new game.
Make sure to train and level up your employees regularly to unlock new genres and types as well as increasing their skills And if you're ever in need of quick cash or research points, you can do contract work from the "Develop" menu. If you can complete the task in the time allotted, you'll receive a monetary reward and some Research Points. But if you fail, your reputation will go down, causing you to lose fans, so make sure your team is capable of completing the task before agreeing to any contract work.
Remember to experiment with genres and types of games, and always be on the lookout for new and better employees. Try your best to attract lots of fans and create fun, quality games, and eventually you'll win the coveted Game of the Year award. Good luck, and have fun!
