Let me start off by saying this: Game Dev Tycoon is a really good game; it is the absolute king of time-wasters. However, I’ve come up with a few ways in which it could be improved.
More specific reviews.
This seems to be a fairly common gripe amongst reviewers. The reviews for each game you make only tell you whether it’s good, okay, or bad; they typically don’t go into detail as to what makes a game as good or bad as it is. You’ll get the occasional “X and Y is a great combination” or “Their focus on X served this game well,” but other than that it’s usually something like “Played it for days.” What we need is something like this: “The controls are a bit stiff, and the game could use better sounds, but the narrative is spectacular, with some of the most heart-wrenching moments in recent memory.”
Better simulation of employees’ needs.
OK, we already have this, to a degree, but I think it’s less immersive when everyone just sits there and codes for years on end. It would be more realistic if employees had various needs which must be catered to if they’re to perform at their best. I don’t mean a full-on, The Sims-style simulation of every human need there is. Instead, each employee would have only four needs: energy, hunger, fun and stress. Each of these would impact an employee’s effectiveness to a different degree, and you could direct them to take a break to refill their needs. Of course, you’d have to have various things in the office to take care of employees’ needs, so, for instance, if an employee wanted a cup of Joe to refill their Energy meter, they’d get up and take a coffee break, or ask you to install a coffee machine if you don’t have one. Employees wouldn’t die if one of their needs bars becomes empty, but they’d stop work until their needs are taken care of, and if their needs aren’t seen to for a long time then chances are they’ll quit.
Managing different studios.
This one is fairly self-explanatory. As your business grows, you’d unlock the ability to purchase other studios, or to start another one yourself. Once you buy or start a studio, you’ll unlock the ability to switch over to that studio anytime. From there, you’d be able to do everything you’re already able to do in the game, and then some. For instance, you could divide a game up so that different studios work on the same game at the same time, getting it completed faster and granting you more Design, Tech, and Bug points in the process. Alternately, you could have, say, one studio creating one game and another studio working on a different one, and all the while a third studio could be doing something else, like developing a patch for a previously-released game. You could buy as many studios as you want, but purchasing a studio and then keeping it running would be insanely expensive, forcing you to be wise with your money.
The ability to adjust the rate at which time passes.
You can already adjust the length of a game in years at the start of the game, but you can’t adjust the speed at which that time actually passes. For me, the game blows by much too quickly; I can get through a 30-year career in a good, solid day of playing. Some might like it still quicker than this, but others, like myself, would want the time to pass more slowly, so an in-game day would take about 24 real-life minutes. This would make the game slower and more methodical, giving me more time to think my next game through before starting it.
The ability to make other software besides games.
Again, we already kind of have this in the game (as contract work), but I think this system could be expanded upon. For one thing, it should be a permanent option, not simply something you can do for a bit more money from time to time. It would basically be the same as developing a game, however a piece of software would remain on sale indefinitely until you either stop selling it or the PC is upgraded again, at which point you’d have the ability to release an update to allow it to run on newer hardware. However, a significant upgrade (such as a more advanced interface) would require you to stop selling the older version and release a newer version, similar to the way you have to develop a new game engine to take advantage of most of your research.
At this point, you would have the option of a) allowing users of the older version to upgrade for free (meaning you get less cash from the upgrade, but gain fans), or b) charging users of the older version of the software a small fee to upgrade (meaning more cash, but fewer fans). Also, when developing new software, you can choose which OS you want it on, and you can release it as open-source or proprietary software, and you can choose how much you want people to pay for it, so if you want to release it as free and open-source software (FOSS), you can. As a general rule, free software will be downloaded like hotcakes (provided it’s marketed strongly enough), and you’d be able to Ask For Donations on any free software you have. The more expensive a product is, usually the less popular it will be, unless you’ve either got a massive fanbase or the product is just so good that people are willing to plonk down $100 or $200 for it. If you choose to make something open-source rather than proprietary, then there’s a chance that someone will create a fork of it, which you could either ignore or endorse, perhaps devoting a few of your team members to working on the forked version of the software. However, this should not under any circumstances take away from the main focus of the game, which is developing video games (obviously). I just think that it would be nice to be able to develop other kinds of software as well, and have a say in how they turn out.
Mod support.
Like I’ve said, the game is really good as it is, and it’s relatively easy to modify, provided you know what you’re doing. However, having an SDK would make it easier to mod the game and make it even better.
So that’s all I have! I just thought I’d put these ideas out there. With any luck, maybe the devs will read this thread and incorporate some of the ideas mentioned in it in the game. Let me know what you guys think!
