I do not understand the sliders when making a game

Game Dev Tycoon
#1

I do not understand what the slider’s are supposed to do when creating a game. From what I gather they effect the quality of the game but there is no value or measure of by how much etc, and they all seem to link to Time Allocation. Is it just a guessing game with a random chance at the end of making something decent?

And if it is not random wouldn’t it just be a matter of spending as much time as possible working on each category?

Why would I spend less time on the engine (for example) if it affects the whole platform of the game based on what the help file states or lower the graphics if that meant it looked like rubbish in the end?

I don’t understand the reason why lowering the time allocated for each task makes better games in the end. How is that logical?

Also just one other small question when I have more staff when you are using the sliders in the right hand side where it has the Open world stuff etc, what is the % number that appears when you raise and lower the slider’s?

Sorry if these are silly questions I just cannot understand the logic or reason why lowering a slider would make a better game or even what they actually do to the end result.

I really need help.

Thanks

Setting the Development Sliders-A Guide
Cannot figure out how to consistently get good reviews
What are the best games to make for easy money?
This game is bloody difficult
Can't get anywhere D:
Anyone got ideas how to make good games when get to the office part?
#2

Take my opinion as his, from what I understand some genre may require more of the three subject in each stage, let say you make an RPG it may require more dialogue and such, in the other hand a Government type may require more dialogue

#3

yeah some genres focus more heavily on certain things. It doesnt mean you should put one category completely down though. For example, if you make action games with awesome engines and good graphics and good gameplay youre going to get a good score. Dialogue and story is as we know not that important for a good action game. And the percentage I think is if it has enough time to implement all the stuff youre trying to put into the game. You shouldnt be below 100 percent in my experience. So if you want to implement open world to a game you have to spend enough time on it so it becomes proper.

#4

I think you are misunderstanding how the sliders work. Making all sliders high doesn’t mean to work more on everything. Having all sliders maxed is the same as having all sliders at lowest. It’s just to adjust the relation between the 3 things.

For example think of it this way. If you have say 1 coder and 30 days for the first phase that is the total amount to work on all things (in this case Engine, Gameplay and Story. Now, if you max all sliders this means the work allocation between those 3 is equal. So 10 days work into Engine, 10 into Gameplay and 10 into story. Same if all sliders are turned down since the relation between the 3 stays the same. Now if you for example make Engine down all the way while keeping the other 2 up it would mean that you focus more into the others. More like 2 in Engine, 14 in Gameplay, 14 in Story. By decreasing one feauture you can max the others.

#5

and

Total game development time is simplified to a constant value. Each category gets a “weight” depending on how much you move the slider compared to other sliders. It doesn’t matter if you set all three sliders on zero or on maximum, in both cases you’ll get each category covered by 1/3 (in other words, ~33.3% of total development time will be spent on each category). If you move just one slider to max while keeping two others at zero, you’ll get something like 99%-0.5%-0.5% distribution (it’s not possible to have exactly zero time spent on a category, you’ll always have some non-zero minuscule value instead).

#6

That’s helpful thank you.

Another question. Is there a way to judge what part of a finished game is letting down our scores? I cannot get my head around the fact that I spend all this money developing a game only to find out later that it sucked and not know why.

Thanks

#7

Many real-world game developers have the same question facing them. :wink:

Help on Wiki Sliders
The wiki is a bit confusing, particularly when it comes to sliders
#8

http://flic.kr/p/efZtw8115

I have been messing with the sliders for ‘PC Games’ and I am finding these settings to provide good results. I never make any other games until i release my own console. i got a high score of 38,000,000 using these values.

This is an early image of the sheet I am working on, it shows what skill the employee requires for each slider during each of the 3 phases. Blue for Tech and Orange for Design. Just asign an employee with high Tech or Design skills if you have them, to the slider as named at the bottom of the sliders.

Then treat each slider as if it was a 1-100 scale from the bottom and adjust the slider to where you think 30, 40, 75 from the sheet is on that slider. When the game is Multi Genre, you need to look for the Dominant Genre, I will expand the sheet to include them all. For now I have Dominant Action with secondary genre and Dominant Adventure with secondary genre.

Looking at these, do they make sense, are they intuitive?

#9

@Eldrick your pic url is not working.

Please repost it. I’d like to get some insight, too.

Thanks.

#10

http://flic.kr/p/efZtw8
That should do it, though why ‘new’ users cannot post an image is beyond paranoid.

#11

A sheet you are working on? This sheet was done like 3 days ago on the wiki with the exact same numbers, you simply retyped it, lol.

#12

No I have not. It is my own spreadsheet.

#13

I have just completed a 30 year run through using my spreadsheet as a guide and notwithstanding other factors like getting a good team, training and other parts of the game, using the slider guide for all combinations of Genre I got a high score of 41,778,005.

This suggests that the slider maths is ok so I will drop the guide into a PDF and put it up for download.

I have suggestions for slider positions based on each of the following combos:

Action
Adventure
RPG
Strategy
Simulation
Casual

Then for a Multi Genre where the Highlited one is dominat one.
Multi Genre
ACTION
Adventure
RPG
Strategy
Simulation
Casual

Multi Genre
ADVENTURE
Action
RPG
Strategy
Simulation
Casual

Multi Genre
RPG
Action
Adventure
Strategy
Simulation
Casual

Multi Genre
STRATEGY
Action
Adventure
RPG
Simulation
Casual

Multi Genre
SIMULATION
Action
Adventure
RPG
Strategy
Casual

Multi Genre
CASUAL
Action
Adventure
RPG
Strategy
Simulation

if i pay more attention to the other aspects I think the sliders setting will be very good and the score much higher. I will post a link to the PDF when I have compiled it. And as for the wiki ++ and + an - thing, well I just don’t understand that table. I prefer these numbers.

#14

Game Dev Slider Guide Here is the download link for the PDF guide for the sliders. You will need 7.zip to extract the archive.

#15

There is a definite unbalance with Tech/Design for Simulation Games in my table at the moment and I am hammering out some maths in my sheet now. Each Genre wants a certain amount or balance of Tech and Design. That looks to be approximatley:

Action Tech 64 Design 36
Adventure Tech 30 Design 70
RPG Tech 40 Design 60
Strategy Tech 60 Design 40
Simulation Tech 60 Design 40
Casual Tech 35 Design 65

I will update the PDF after some more number crunching and a 30 year play test, game time of course. :smile: With formula like this, =(C60.8)+(D60.2)+(E60.2)+(F60.1)+(G60.6)+(H60.8)+(I60.4)+(J60.5)+(K6*0.4) in just one cell… my eyes are starting to bleed