**First I want to say great game guys!! Ibought it a few days ago and finished it today. Here are a few sugestions on improvments.
Game Dev Tycoon
• Development
• Management
• World
Development:
Mechanics- The game should have more than mix and match genre mechanic, in my opinion it should not have it at all. The game should be based on feedback, market saturation, fan base and development time so the type of game you make is of no importance as long as the resources and development type are invested. So what if I want to make a ninja racing flight simulator, it should not matter as long as the game is good, I should not be panelized for miss matching but for poor development.
Choosing the game-.
• Feedback- So you start making your game you chose the genre then the mechanics and development time and begin the making of the game, at points in the development cycle you can get focus groups to test demos of the game and throughout out the development you get feedback from your testers. Close to the end of the development you can chose to send out open/closed betas, demos and get fan feedback. This way you have a general idea of what the game is going to receive in the reviews.
• Market saturation- If your competitors in the game all release shooters than you take a hit in sales even if your games is scored good. Based on market feedback you will get graphs of who is releasing what and adjust accordingly. You can take a chance if it is a popular series but the idea is to know when and what to put out and not just what’s popular right now for this limited amount of time.
• Fan base- Not your fan base but genre fan base. The amount of players for each style of game play.
Making the game- you can make anything you want as long as you follow these things.
• Development time- After choosing what game you want to make you go in to the development
cycle. You set the dead line and can delay the game as many times as you feel is needed but it will affect the hype and interest in the game. During this time you can focus test and have testers give you feed back and if needed change the direction of the game.
• Resources- the amount of money you are willing to spend on the development and the things that are required from completing the game. Let’s say you want motion capture in the game then you need to hire a studio to do that for you if you don’t have it in house. Resources refer to the equipment your company uses. You need to manage you budget better.
• The team- It should not be one person that can do it all, but you must hire the right people. Coder, artists, sound engineers, composer etc. the more effective they are the better the result, you can train them. Also you have departments and supervisors of said departments. Their happiness, work conditions, success rate, payment and creativity will make or break the game. Game testers are part of the team and so are analysts.
• Technology- Researching motion capture is not just something that you click on and it’s just there. Doing the research just means your engine can handle it but you still need the department or hire a studio to actually have it in the game. There are two things that you need, first you need the engine to be able to handle the technology and second you need the means to implement that technology.
Selling the game- Marketing and timing are key. Release a demo, trailer or beta. Make sure you know what the market is like at time of release, who is releasing a similar game and if so then is it a sequel. Make sure the market is not saturated. The better the review score are the more people will likely buy it but a strong core fan base is who will always buy the game.
Fan base- The fan base is divided in two, newbie and core. Newbie is a gamer who is just getting in to your games; they will abandon you if your game score are low. Core is a gamer who is devoted to you and will buy whatever you sell, release consecutive good games to turn more newbies into core. Previous releases don’t affect the score of your current game only the fan base.
All these things can be monitored with graphs.
Management:
You are the boss therefore you need to manage your team and the company budget. But all the equipment, hire the people, build the rooms and departments, budget the marketing and have you finger on the pulse of what is hot at the time. This should be deep; you need to be able to buy each individual chair in your studio. The best example I can give is theme hospital for those of you who know it those that don’t check it out on youtube.
World:
The world this game takes place should be completely fictional. Enough with the spoofs! How about you let us make our own competition. At the beginning of the game you choose from 1-5 hardware manufacturers that you name then 1-5 big publishers, indie studios pop up randomly and can be bought by you or the competition. You can become a first party dev if you want. You can sell your engine, license, company and then start a new one but the game never ends, you can just move from place to place. The competition will be dynamic so that the same rules that apply to you apply to them as well. You studio is dynamic, things should break and need fixing, one of you guys has an idea for a game you can accept then he will go and work on a concept and pitch it to you and you can choose to make the game or not, if not then he might leave you and so a employ that you invested in just left. More animations to make things livelier.**