An Alternative Strategy - That Works!

Game Dev Tycoon
#1

A quick read on the forums and you will see many people burning out after moving from the garage, to the first office. The general response to this, is to not move from the garage straight away and to build up some cash first etc.

I admit, i too adopted this strategy and using the other strategy, regarding Hiring Staff - (Click To Read Here) was eventually managing to get make the 2nd office, quite easily.

However, i noticed a fundamental flaw with sitting it out in the garage for a longer periodā€¦I was not able to train myself.

My solution, was to move out of the garage at the first opportunity, but not hire anyone straight away. This way, i could carry on as if i was still in the garage (i.e just me and no staff, but train myself in between).

This is a rough timeline of my actionsā€¦

I made 2 games, then completed 3 contracts, to get 50RP to create my first game engine.
This way, i could start enhancing the 2D Graphics starting with just my 3rd game.

I then kept making different genreā€™s of games, consistently scoring 8 on averageā€¦

a57786d1cac51136.png394Ɨ574

until i was able to research the next graphics upgrade and then created a new game engine.

My next game shot to No1 (& thankfully being as i was taking screen shots to show you) just happened to beā€¦

Then straight after that release, i started to make a Fantasy RPG and halfway through development, i was given the chance to move office (Y4 M8 W1 - 2.9k Fans - Cash 1.1M) which i took.

Just after moving, my latest game was released and that too went to No1ā€¦

I then trained myself a bit, made a game, trained again etc etc, until i was able to research the
upgrade for 3D graphics V2.

In the meantime, my games and their ratings, never droppedā€¦

a6d03e5d5ac69d64.png468Ɨ655

When i had researched the 3D Graphics upgrade, i hired just the 1 staff member and then created my 3rd game engine, with the latest graphics included.

By now my stats wereā€¦

Design 401
Technology 379
Speed 329
Research 337

A whole lot higher than if i had stayed in the garage.

I waited till my staff member was tired and then selected to hire another memberā€¦
I started searching and before the available members to hire screen popped up, sent my first employee on vacationā€¦

That way, the arrival of the 2nd employee, would not affect the health bar of my first employee.

I then had myself and 2 employees at full bar within literally no time at all and was able to carry on making games and achieving decent scores.

I repeated the same step for when i was ready to hire a 4th member and soon moved to the last office.

What makes this approach so effective, are 2 key elementsā€¦

  1. I am able to improve my own abilities alot quicker than if i had stayed in the garage for some more years, instead of moving.

  2. Because i am only hiring 1 person at a time, im not having to wait for ever for the staff members to regain a full bar of energy and unlike hiring all 4 in one go, i can make games and train with the one staff member, then when i eventually add a 2nd, the overall skill ability of my team and i are greatly improved, even though the latest member hasnt even been trained and so by training them in between games, i am always improving my team skills (just by adding a member) which means my scores are always consistently higher than my previous best, which guarantees high marks every time i release a game.

Hope you found that useful?

3 Likes
#3

Hi Lumis! Good to see another post about beating the midgame, rather than more posts saying it is too hard :smile:

From here, your next step is to press for a game-breaking score! A few notes in that directionā€¦

  • Once you leave the garage, small games attract a rating penalty, making it hard to score 9+ games
  • Making any game with ā€œnewā€ employees (who have not worked on a game for you before) also attracts a rating penalty - this is why the super-high-score players advocate hiring all 4 at once when moving to the middle office
  • by not progressing immediately to medium games you inhibit your fan growth, which is the key to fast progress and huge results. Small games generate less fans, and medium contracts reach more customers - so you need to switch up ASAP. The same applies to large games (but not so much AAA).

If you ever get that wonderful situation where you come out of the garage with double 9+ hits (which gives 3m+ in cash), try a full employee transition straight into medium games and see if you can survive it. It is the key to super crazy gameplay in the late phase (such as being able to push out your first console with 3m research and hardware budgets).

1 Like
#4

Thanks, iā€™ll try that when the lag is fixed (it puts me off playing the 3rd level as it is)

#5

I have my own strategy that I utilize to great effect.

I purposefully keep myself in the garage for a bit longer. I make nothing but PC games, and aim for a New combo + great combo for every single game I make. I donā€™t focus on one genre or another, I milk the 4 starting topics for all they are worth. Iā€™m after the xp bonuses.

The big point is that I do NOT upgrade my engine. All these games are made with the original non-engine. This ensures that I donā€™t get my big hit too early.

My goal is this: Level 3 in all topics. By bouncing across all the genres and focusing on getting xp-boosting combos, you can hit level 3 after about 7-8 games. The important part of level 3 is that it unlocks new engine features for each category, like ā€˜better dialogeā€™ and ā€˜better aiā€™.

Once I hit level 3 in everything, I will have built up enough research points to research ALL the new goodies I just unlocked. Enough time will have passed that I should be able to throw in the gamepad (and the steering wheel by grabbing racing) too. Doing all this research in the garage is cheap since the upkeep is so low.

Once all the research is done, I build it all into one big massive engine. Iā€™ll have built up enough cash from all my PC releases to afford it. I then make my hit game. If ā€œTarget Audiencesā€ have been unlocked and researched, Iā€™ll make it for the TES and target it to young gamers to maximize sales. The game WILL be a 9.75.

Once Iā€™m vaulted into the office, I then hire my staff, research medium games and do a publisher game. That, too, will almost always be another 9.75 hit, and (if I was able to get a high royalty % publishing deal) pay me much more than Iā€™d get doing a 9.75 self-published medium title. It also vaults me to about 70k fans in one game. One or two more publisher games after that and I can start self-publishing really early on, while not worrying about upgrading my engine for quite awhile.