So I managed to make it to level 2. I’ve read the wiki over and over and use the recommended topic/genre combonations. I get multiple bonuses on my games and set the sliders according to the wiki. I’ve researched plenty of things to put into the game engine which is up to date.
No matter what great combo title I make, I can’t seem to beat a 5 average. It seem’s totally random when a big hit comes along. I’m sticking to small games and not using publishers as I can barely meet the minimum review score!
I market the game, I attend the conference thing, I hired 2 staff one with great tech, one with great design.
The review score depends on how good your previous game was. After you make a game be sure to train your staff so the Design/Tech. points increase on your next game. If you fail to do that then the next game will be considered worse than your previous one and you’ll end up getting low scores.
Make sure you are setting the slider bars to the correct amount. Also check if you are accidentally adding something, such as a steering wheel, to a action game. That could probably effect it. On the other hand, your games might just not turn out that well.
Training your staff will help a lot. You can have some of the best ideas but if your team is filled with really low level people, the best they might be able to churn out is a mid-level game.
A classic mistake (one I made myself quite a few times) is to unload every new feature in a new engine into one ultra-awesome game. You’ll get sky-high sales and reviews for that game…but now you’ve set the bar extremely high for yourself. Was that ultra-awesome game a sequel and/or did it hit a trend? You’ve just set it even higher.
Say you just built a new engine, loaded with all the new features you’ve researched thus far. Let’s say you make a sequel to an old game. Let’s say this sequel also happens to hit a trend that is active at the moment. You release this game and you’ll get a 9.75 (or 10 if you have the proper specialists) and watch it rake in the sales. You’ve just set the bar insanely high.
Let’s say you follow that up with another game… same engine and features…but this time not a trendy sequel. Despite getting the about the same tech + design bubble totals, your game is going to be garbage. You are going to have to improve your game-making ability by a LARGE margin in order to top that ultra-mega hit you made earlier. In the mean time, you’ll struggle to make anything good, even when following slider guides and topic combos perfectly.
A better way to do this is to unleash the awesome…slowly. You might have 6 new features with that shiny new engine. Great! Only turn 2-3 of them on for your first game…keep the others off. Think twice about making a sequel or chasing a trend when you can improve on your last game naturally via new engine features and/or employee training. Only resort to the bonuses for sequels/trends when you’ve maxed out your engine’s features and want to milk it for a few big hits before going on a research/training/hiring binge to ramp up your game making capacity.
My rule of thumb is: 9.5 = Good, 9.75 = Bad, as there is a good chance you’ve overshot your target score if you get a 9.75, but a 9.0 -9.5 shows you hit your target without rocketing past it needlessly.