I just don’t get it. I tried hundreds of different combinations for several hours now, all leading to the same result. A 
annoying non helpful review of my shitty game.
I tried Mature Hacking/Simulation called Uplink 2. It is a sequel of Uplink 1 I made 6 or 7 years ago with a rating of 7.25 (was to low from my point of view but ok). Uplink 1 was a large game.
Now I decided to make a sequel. No other simulation has been release since Uplink and no other game with the topic “Hacking”. I have the knowledge of all the best fitting of the sliders.
1st: Story: -, Gameplay: +++, Engine: ++; 2nd: Dialog: --, Level design: ++, AI: +++; 3rd: World: -, Graphic: +++, Sound: ++
Regarding to this information I set up the sliders. Sliders with a “-” were set completely to zero which gives me the possibility of adding at least one feature or two little features in a AAA game. The other parts with ‘+++’ were filled with features to get as most features in it to not get below 100%.
The staff is not overloaded with work when making this game “Large”. When making the game ‘AAA’ the workers on the ‘+++’ parts are slightly oberloaded (about 106%).
From my point of view everything is perfect. But the rating is not good enough. I just don’t get it! What’s the problem with my game?!
All the listed things down here does not change anything:
I tried to make this game AAA or large (not that much change).
I tried to only release the game on PC because the rating with Mature and Simulation is the best there to be sure that a ‘good’ or a ‘okay’ on Simulation or Mature audience is not the problem (when releasing it on multiple platforms).
When developing as ‘AAA’ I made extra campaign in addition to the marketing campaign to get more hype (in my opinion the hype was big enough through just one convention G3).
I didn’t hyped the game in case the guy from the magazine asked for it in the interview.
No ideas left 
(all workers are specialized and well educated and are not asking for holiday)
Besides: If the game is not good, the minimum thing I can ask for is to know what’s the deal about it.
Don’t misunderstand me. It is not THAT important for me to get this specific game released with 10.0 but I want to know what the problem exactly is because I have no idea what’s going wrong.
First of all, hype does not make your game get better ratings.
And do you train your staff often enough?
To keep making good games ( 8+ ) you will have to increase Tech and Design points by about 15-20% of the previous last best score.
If you get much lower then that, the ratings will not be any good.
Apart from that it’s hard to pin whats actually not ok with your game development.
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Ok this might be a reason (the design and technology points). - It’s a bit pity (don’t want to say unrealistic?) that this makes it nearly impossible to make a quick game (just because I want to) because those little games of course don’t generate that much points than bigger ones.
My employers have got at most 800 - 900 points. I haven’t trained them for some time know because I thought it might be enough for them.
But this is a good hint I will try. I will make a ‘AAA’ title and train them before start developing the game.
Another question. Does it have negative effects if I release the game on multiple platforms and one platform has only a OK rating for the audience or the genre (all others are +++ or maybe ++)?
As long as the Platform/Audience/Topic/Genre is not a Bad combo, you should not get a bad review because one said it to be an OK combo.
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Are features harmful for the rating if the section is ‘—’?
e.g. You have dialogues with ‘–’. The slider is at 0%. There is room for two features without raising the slider. Will this result a negative balance?
In general it will not have a negative effect, but why add “Better Dialog” to a game that does not need dialog at all 
It’s like to make something at least acceptable. Not that shitty feature you know? ^^ - Just a better one- no big deal 
What I wonder, does the different features mean something? Or is it not important to choose that specific feature because I mean it fits best to the game?
Another question ^^. I trained every employee once before developing Uplink 2 with 30 RP in a suitable research. Now I have a 0.25 higher rating. Seems to help!
How much training they need in addition to see a reasonable benefit? (I trained them and activated the booster)
What do you mean making something at least acceptable.
If it’s because you want to give your action games a bit of dialog and story, i suggesting doing a Multi-Genre with Adventure or RPG.
As for Staff improving your games.
It depends on high your skill levels already are.
For example:
Employee A has 450 Design and 210 Tech.
After training he/she gains 60 Design and 8 Tech.
Employee B has 800 Design and 700 Tech
Also gains 60 Design and 8 Tech after training.
Who do you think improved more?
I guess employee A, because 60 Design points from 450 are more than 60 from 800. But employee B has got more points. So I guess employee B will generate more points than A anyways.
Do you mean I have to train them more than usual when they get high levels? For example employee C has got 900 Design and 900 technical points. To see more benefit of training I maybe need to train him 3 times often?
With acceptable I meant to add just a minimum of things. e.g. Savegame is always needed or some simple cutscenes.
What i was actually trying to say was, that it’s easier to improve games with Employee A, since the rate he/she gained skill is a lot higher then for Employee B.
So yes Employee B needs more training in order to make a better next game, of course without taking engine features into account.
Gameplay tip:
Start Hiring low level staff with no more then 250 Tech or Design.
That way you can slowly improve their skills and therefor slowly increase the amount of Tech and Design points you generate.
Also do not put in all your new Features into the next game you make, also slowly adding is the key.
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I’m demotivated now ^^
But thanks for your time.
So pretty much, when your staff gets to 900 points in each stat, fire them an make a bunch of shitty games so you can improve again. Really stupid. They need to make it so you can still get good scores when everything is already maxed
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Would it also work to produce a bunch of bad games with an old engine or anything and then start over again by improving the games slightly?
I have to say this kind of “random” rating system is the worst part of this great game.
Fire them? Ohhh, my poor stuff. They were so reliable. Well, I think about it 
Don’t fire your staff!
You’ll produce nothing but 1-scoring games and go bankrupt if you can’t come close to your past scores. It’s not a matter of how much you improve on yourself game-to-game but also of how much you improve on the best you’ve ever done. If you’re in a position where you just can’t improve, you’re better off starting over rather than firing people. Or if you’re like me, better off struggling to the endgame, registering the “high score”, and trying to do better next time.
Unless I misunderstand how the game handles firings, I don’t really see why firing employees would ever be a good idea. The only employee-management trick I’ve seen that seems to be wise at all is to hire staff based on their Speed and Research ability (ignoring their main skills).
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