Need to be able to hover over all the important terms in the game and get a short explanation. What’s a “space” game? How is it different from a “UFO” game? Is a “gamepad” a DDR-type floor pad for your feet, or something else? There is NO in-game explanation for any of the elements, and it’s really frustrating to have to guess how THE GAME defines things and get penalized because the game’s definition is different from yours.
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So like a little pop up question mark next to the name and it explains it?
The features you select (of which gamepad is one) really don’t matter. You want to put as much budget and time into your features as you can, with special emphasis on features in the genre-preferred development stages. The game doesn’t penalize you for developing a mouse-controlled Racing game. In fact, the Mouse feature has the exact same value as the Steering Wheel feature, and activating Steering Wheel support is good for any game.
Ever wanted to play a Government Strategy game with a Steering Wheel as your controller? Talk about steering the ship of state!
Knowing what a “Space” game is won’t necessarily prevent you from thinking a certain combo is good or bad. That said, a more accurate description of the topic would do well to add more flavor to the game. There are a few I have questions on myself…like what is the difference between “Music” and “Rhythem”? Or what is the difference between “Business” and “Startups”?
What the game needs is a “Market Research” research option that tells you on the game development screen, when you are picking your topic/genre if that combo is seen as good or bad. This will save players from having to play with a wiki open in the background, yet not make the game too easy as picking a good combo for your game doesn’t automatically ensure success.
I can help with Music and Rhythm. A rhythm game constrains all actions in the game to occurring on the beat - Guitar Hero is an obvious example, but Patapon shows off how a rhythm game can actually have a quite non-musical theme. Music games, by contrast, are themed after music. Music is their core topic. Think Beat Hazard here, which is an example of a Music Action game which isn’t a Rhythm game.
There’s a lot of overlap here. Patapon is definitely a Rhythm game, and Beat Hazard is definitely a Music game, but Guitar Hero could be argued as either one.
I can’t help with Business/Startups. I don’t know the difference there.
Yes, exaclty, that’d be great.
Also wish there was an in-game wiki/encyclopedia you could go too, like The Sims 2 had. There’s a LOT of information but no basic explanation for anything. I looked at the online wiki, but it’s unnecesarily advanced. Where’s the getting started guide?
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Yes, I end up doing the same things over again. I can’t tell if some genres are just bad ideas that shouldn’t be done. I tried to do “business simulation” for kids on the DS, and it failed utterly. But I was thinking of that old lemonade stand game from the 80s that was really popular.
I can’t tell if I did the lemonade stand game wrong, of if the game thinks that business games for kids is a bad idea. If I had a definition of WHAT a business game IS, I’d know what I did wrong. It would really help if you got more specific feedback from the critics. More of the “X and X is a good combination” and “Focusing on graphics was a good idea.” Those feedbacks are rare but actually tell you what you did right or wrong.