Every time I create a Smartphone & Tablet game it always gets bad reviews. I’ve researched everything and have gotten to the end of the game but I can’t seem to make a good game on these platforms? Anyone else?
Did you try this for suggestions. http://gamedevtycoon.wikia.com/wiki/Game_Development#Single_Genre_combinations
Imagine. Mobile games are usually games on the go. You don’t make a Halo or a Gears of War or a Uncharted. You make games that apply to mostly everyone. Think Facebook. Farmville, Bejeweled, Tetris etc. Parody them, I don’t care.
Used text based, should be funny for them 
The Casual game genre is a bit more fussy and focused than its sister genres (Adventure and RPG). While Adventure and RPG have elements the require some technical polish, Casual games demand a hyper-focus on level design, Gameplay, sound and graphics. This often leaves you with minimal focus in other areas, forcing you to uncheck some engine components. The loss of these engine components lowers the benefit you get from the engine, thus leading to normally lower ratings.
Casual becomes more palatable when you mix it with another genre, allowing for a few more categories to get attention and still meet the slider demands of casual. Casual/Adventure is good as it opens up the world design, dialogues and Storyline sliders to be set higher, and thus make use of engine elements related to them.
I want to point out, even though with the percentage of what I am doing on a Development Stage (IE: Engine - 83%), I always tend to leave it at 80% or higher because it actually helps the game instead of taking it away, as you just need to use the boost on a high level. The Smartphone/Tablets are best for casual, strategy and simulation…as of course, why wouldn’t it be?
Any time you see a % sign, that means some of the benefit is being wasted. The lower the %, the more wastage. There is no actual harm in having some wasted, other than you are paying extra development costs for features that add nothing to the game because you don’t have time to use them.
That being said, when there is no % number, there is the potential for additional features to be added. I always add features until I see a % number, then stop. There is 0 benefit to adding more features, when you already see a % number.
The smartphone/tablets/GS are AWESOME for casual games as well as the other types you mentioned. They all have one major weakness: They can’t handle large or AAA games. They appear at a stage in the game when many players have already moved into the 2nd office and have a team large enough to make Large games. To develop for them, you have to willfully stick to making smaller games than you’d normally be able to.
The PC, on the other hand, gives you a bonus (though a smaller one than the handheld devices) to all game types, can handle Large and AAA titles, does fine with all three age levels, and doesn’t drag your tech level down if your engine is sporting a more powerful graphics level (3dV4 +). Handheld devices also don’t benefit from GRID.
The only time I develop for them is if a trend fires halfway through a larger game and I want to make another game real quick in time to hit the trend. I’ll whip out a quick medium game on the GS.
I never knew some of that, but when I made racing games for GrPhone, I always got 7-9’s, and they sold really well. Its just odd that Consoles should be the best for simulation games and action games, but negative for strategy games, yet its Advanture/Action? Confusing.
Starting with the GS, the handhelds are good for Simulations, Strategy and Casual games, all categories that have been absent from getting boosted by previous consoles.
Action is the domain of the main console, with it getting full strength from EVERY major console starting with the TES. RPGs are boosted by many of the consoles, and a few (Mbox and Dreamvast) boost adventure games. Many of the large consoles and earlier handhelds also boost casual games.
Until you hit the GS era, the best place for simulation/strategy (and adventure games before the dreamvast/Mbox) games is the PC. Casuals are best on a handheld or console that boosts them, RPGs normally find a welcome home on a large number of consoles that boost them more than the PC.
The other monoply the PC enjoys is everyone/mature titles. Many topics (like military) don’t work well for young players, and until the Mbox 360/Playsystem 3 roll around, you won’t see consoles welcoming mature games.
The Gameling/Game Gear are both very good platforms, and ultimately more useful than their higher tech portable cousins. They tend to hold a much better market share than the PC, and they are available at the time when most players are only able to do medium games anyway, so the size restriction is a moot point. The Game Gear is a tech level ahead of the gameling, but also dies out faster.
So confusing…honestly, I don’t get some things in this game, regarding consoles, you explained it but in now’s era, don’t get how simulation is bad for Consoles, really.
Well “Simulation” can mean two things in the game’s context. If you are talking about a literal simulator, like a Flight Simulator, then consoles would be a logical platform. However, many of the topics that are good for simulation are topics like Business, Transport, Startups, Hospital, Game Dev…etc.
Those simulations tend to be more awkward on a console as a mouse and keyboard interface is much more natural for them as they don’t depend on fast-twitch reflexes like action games do. Even with most ‘active’ simulators, most of them had their home on the PC anyway thanks to the joystick.
Well yes, that is what I Meant, simulators like Formula 1 Game, or Forza should be much easier on consoles…while other sims like you mentioned should be on PC, there should be a split genre between them two.