By the 9 Categories, I’m referring to:
- Engine
- Gameplay
- Story/Quests
- Dialogue
- Level Design
- Artificial Intelligence
- World Design
- Graphics
- Sound
How do you design your games in Game Dev Tycoon, and how is this different from what you prefer as a gamer?
Engine: I despise passwords. Why are they so long and so complicated? This is why ‘Savegame’ is the biggest advancement in game engines. For a more modern example, I will penalize a (modern) game that has multiplier but not online, or vice-versa (although I give no penalty for single player only). Basically, I usually don’t think about a game’s engine unless it actively gets in the way of enjoyment. There are rare exceptions (Portal’s Physics engine).
-Game Dev Tycoon (Engine): True to myself, I usually don’t pay much attention to Engine during my breakthroughs. My research and sliders tend to go elsewhere.
Gameplay: Gameplay is an unusual category for me. I cannot stand setbacks in games solely because of poor controls. Games such as SNES’s Batman Forever have basic controls that are harder to memorize than most cheatcodes. Yet, games that try to develop past “all the buttons work” seldom get rewards. Motion controls? Styluses? No thanks, Reggie.
-Game Dev Tycoon (Gameplay): My gameplay slider tends to be moderate for most of my games. I also only add a new Gameplay feature roughly energy other engine. Just ‘good enough’.
Story/Quests: One of the first things I look for when buying ANY game (not just RPGs) is the story. The story can and WILL completely change my opinion of the game. A fantastic story can save an otherwise awful game (Fable 3) and a bad (or worse, absent) story can ruin an otherwise great game for me (many Mario games, most platformers). Story is typically either second or first in my priority list for any game. Same with quests, even ‘average’ quests will drag a game down.
-Game Dev Tycoon (Story/Quests): I tend to make my character the story specialist. The slider is almost always full, and I research every ‘story’ engine part ASAP.
Dialogue: An engaging game needs engaging characters. Every game deserving of a 10 REQUIRES legendary characters that will be remembers years later. But unless you’re Gordon Freeman, you need well written dialogue to become a well-known character. I’m honestly not that interested in voice-acting or body language, just well-written text is enough. Like story, it can save an otherwise bad game (Chantelise) or ruin an otherwise good game (a surprising amount of RPGs).
-Game Dev Tycoon (Dialogue): I upgrade the Dialogue more often than I likely would in ‘reality’, and this slider tends to stay full. Not much else to say here…
Level Design: To be honest, I seldom look closely at level design in most games unless they’re platformers or puzzle games. I will remember a bad level (everyone knows about OoT’s water temple) but I seldom look at a game and think “how are this game’s levels?”
-Game Dev Tycoon (Level Design): This tends to hover between the exact middle and most of the way down, depending on the game’s features and how much more time is needed for Dialogue.
Artificial Intelligence: I feel most games with multiplayer modes would be far better if they allowed (well designed) AI players to replace other players. Don’t have a Co-op Partner? Gimme an AI! Don’t want to play COD with racist children? Gimme an AI! I long for the day when AI can only be differentiated form human players by their lack of swearing. And yes, I really hate racing game’s AI because all they do is cheat!
-Game Dev Tycoon (Artificial Intelligence): This is the area where the real me and my Game Dev Tycoon character don’t see eye to eye. AI never gets a specialist in my playthroughs, and it is the single least used category, almost always completely empty on the slider and usually not researched past ‘better AI’ until it’s time to make AAA games.
World Design: This is likely the category I’m ‘fairest’ to. I neither demand nor ignore a well designed world in my video games. While I’ve never given a bad review because a game failed to provide an in-game economy, I will reward a game that does so.
-Game Dev Tycoon (World Design): This slider tends to get whatever isn’t needed by Graphics and sound (for 100% of features). Most early games have this maxed, but later games need more room for ‘3D Graphics v7’.
Graphics: I neither reward nor punish a game for good or bad graphics. Unless the graphics actively make it harder to play the game (Only games such as Superman 64 and Bugsby 3D have graphics that bad!), I don’t mind bad graphics. But I also don’t reward a game for using the real life equivalent to 3D Graphics v7 becuase it doesn’t add to the story. Some games like Wind Waker or Evoland have what I’d call ‘good graphics’, but it’s not because of how much pixels they jam onto the scream (or the expensive graphics card needed). True Graphics are how appealing a game looks, not high rez HD or pixel ratio or video RAM or how many MBs it takes to use Gigihertz on Megatron.
-Game Dev Tycoon (Graphics): Because of how the game is set up, I don’t upgrade graphics along with my engines, I upgrade engines along with graphics. I usually end up with 3D Graphics v5 long before I can even make large games.
Sound: I don’t like most real music. Seriously, if you name a famous musician, I won’t recognize them. However, I like video game music. Enough to award points to games with great soundtracks, but basically never take points away from other games.
-Game Dev Tycoon(Sound): Graphics -1. I keep the slider for sound just below Graphics in most cases. Research points aren’t usually spent on sound, though.