I’ve played the game through. I like it, I really do. Its got a lot of charm to it, but at some point I just realize the lather rinse repeat method of making games. RPG. Young. 1 console (until it dies). Same people. Just keep going. Only change the genre… but never the RPG. Occasionally I’d train the employees, but mostly I’d keep an assembly line going churning out game after game until my workers needed a vacation.
I did about 40+ games with the same 4 people. It felt like I was either cheating or it was too easy for my first play through. I think at the end I had 500+ million Large games using tech from the Gameboy era.
Little events would pop up but nothing seemed consequential. Nothing made me change my formula at all.
Why not have the employees get affected. Like one employee is a loud mouth jerk so you need to either fire him to make everyone happy or watch your other employees become unhappy or send the employee away to sensitivity training.
What about if you abuse a particular genre it becomes cold. Like oh its their 40th RPG… wish they’d do something different. Let’s not buy this one no matter how good it is. I see that if you do Sci-Fi RPG and follow it up with another Sci-Fi RPG then it seems to hurt you.
Rival companies and rival games like if 2 big RPGs come out, who will people chose? I didn’t really see any kind of competition from other companies other than you could sabotage them and you see your game’s sales rank, but if there are no real companies to compete against then it is of no consequence.
Bad combos aren’t so hard…and are actually very strategic if you know how to use them.
The real trick is “How do I make full use of them?”
If you are looking for some self-imposed challenges, Might I suggest a few.
Pick a genre OTHER than RPG.
Action or Casual if you really want to be mean to yourself. Once you move out of the garage, you can ONLY make that kind of game, period.
Why doesn’t the game tell me to do that? Why don’t I have a crazy boss that says well guys… Today we’re gonna make an Action Fashion game… oh and Jerry is out for a week with the flu. And well you have your choice of PC or the unsupported X-Box 1.
Why would I make use of anything else? I’ve started playing several different games and I always fall into the ‘just make everything RPG on the same console’ pattern. I want something different. I want to be challenged in the game and not by a forum.
Because YOU are the boss. The decision to be crazy or not rests with you. Or potentially with a publisher. “I want a mature Virtual Pet Adventure game for the TES that just got discontinued 2 months ago”
I’m not suggesting that RPGs aren’t OP (they are) but there ARE rival strategies you can try that you might find to be just as powerful.
You’d be surprised at the flexibility given by a Simulation/Strategy PC-only Mature-focused company can pull off. Simulation has the same stats (just about) as Strategy, so you can use both genres with the same sliders and team eqally well. Simulation has the greatest number of topics that it is good for (30). Combine that with games good for strategy and you’ll never be at a loss for new good combos no matter what your random research yields.
Because the PC always gets a boost for mature titles, you can make all your games mature with no penalty for all topics except virtual pet. The same cannot be said about RPG consoles, which heavily favor young gamers…but there are many topics that are NOT good for young gamers.
If you are swift about upgrading your engine every time your next level of graphics is reached, the PC will maximize your tech level since it doesn’t have its own tech level that needs to average into (and potentially drag down). My high score from my RPG-focused company is a good 10 million points lower than my tech-focused simulation/strategy company.
