Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Highly addictive"

Game Dev Story is mobile gaming taken to an unhealthy level. Kairosoft have managed to create a game so addicting that if I'm not doing something productive I'm playing it. And sometimes, even if I am doing something productive I stop and start up Game Dev Story. It is the epitome of what a mobile game should be: inexpensive, fun, addicting and lengthy. The fact that the subject matter ties into videogaming is just icing on the cake.

Game Dev Story is a simplified take on game development. You begin in the 1980's as the President of a new game company, with a little bit of cash, two employees and a secretary. You pick which platform you want to develop for, what genre and setting and your team gets to work.

Each team member you have in the game has four skill areas: Program, Scenario, Graphics, Sound. Those with a high Program skill can help make your game more Fun. Those with a high Scenario skill can help make your game more Creative. Graphics and Sound are applied to their respective sections. And at any point in time a team member may come to your desk and ask you for permission to try and improve a certain section of the game being developed. They vary in skill and it takes research points to do it. If it works the area is improved, if it fails the game gets more bugs.

As you run your company you will have to make the decision of whether or not to go through the full debugging process for a game. Should you create the next high-tech, cutting edge game? Or should you release shovelware to stay afloat for a little longer? Will you focus on motion gaming because it's popular or try to release a more niche title to see if quality can triumph? And sometimes, you just won't have the money to finance a project, so you'll pick up contract work, whether it's making ports of other games, creating a theme for a different game, and so on.

And even further, your games are reviewed by four critics. And those reviews can sting. My first studio, Andromeda, started rough with the games generally scoring in the 4 to 6 range with the critics, though the games sold enough to help keep my team afloat. As you train your team members or hire different positions, your team learns more genres and types of games. My five top selling games were all between 15 to 25 million (Halo 3, Dai-Gurren, Soul of Ninja, Drum Hero 4 and Black Sails), but starting out I would be lucky to sell a few hundred thousand. By the end I was near the top of the charts with glowing reviews that ranged from 8 to 10, though I haven't managed to get straight 10's just yet. You will become sour over each poor review, knowing that you poured thousands, and eventually millions, of dollars into a game, only to see it called average by some no-name reviewer.

The real charm comes not just from the hilarious names your team members can have, Gilly Bates, Donny Jepp, Walt Sidney and so on, but also the names of the new consoles, like Senga Uranus and Intendro IES. You have to build up fans and winning game awards, attending conferences and making advertisements are all a major part of succeeding. Game Dev Story is a little meta, but that's what makes it so special. It's a charming, addicting, and fun game that lasts for hours and demands to be played again and again. So when you run your game company over the course of twenty years, what will you be known for? My studio was known for sci-fi shooters, ninja action games, pirate action games, dungeon action-RPGs and a little music game called Drum Hero.