In Game Dev Tycoon, the ‘correct’ Topic/Genre combinations for games are set in stone (barring the strange combinations trend). Military/Action and Fantasy/RPG are always good, for example. But in real life, ‘good’ combinations came about because games with that combination did well, not the other way around.
For my suggestion: when a new game is started, NO good/bad/strange combos should exist, at all. They should be established by the early games you and the other companies create. For example:
“Electronic Mass Productions has released Halls of Duty, a Military/Action game. This game received poor reviews and the future of this game style doesn’t look bright.” Military/Action is now a bad combination.
“Ninvento has launched their TES system with Maria Wars, a Fantasy/Strategy game. This has jump-started the TES with its success and received very favorable reviews.” Fantasy/Strategy is now a good combination. TES Marketshare bonus
If your main game series is centered around a certain combo, then you’d better establish that combo as ‘good’ as early as you can. Of course, it should be possible to change them later, but since you’re going against the established trends, it should be hard to release a 9.0 game to change a combo from bad to good (unless you try it during strange combinations, when it should be easy). If you want to be evil, you could try intentionally releasing awful games with the combos of your rival’s top games. Of course, it will cost your own company tons of fans (from releasing such a bad game) and there’s no promise it will work. For example:
"Games INC has released one of the worst Fantasy/Strategy games in history: Elves on Ice. This game is so bad that gamers are staying away from this combination from now on. Fantasy/Strategy is now a bad combination"
This could lead to:
- Ninvento has responded to recent trends by releasing Maria Wars 8 as planned. This game innovated with it’s new engine and AI so well that they have proven predictions wrong about their future, and the future of gaming. This game is in fact, amazing and you cannot miss it! Fantasy/Strategy is now a good combination - TES 64 Market Share Rises - industry standard rises
- Ninvento has cancelled Maria Wars 8 in response to recent trends. Instead, they are launching Link to the Future, a Time Travel/Adventure game. Ninvento has upset it’s consumer base by halting it’s long standing series, but many are hopeful about it’s future. industry standard falls a little
- Ninvento has fallen far from recent trends. The Launch of Maria Wars 8 was a complete disaster and cemented the company’s fate. Today, Ninvento has filed bankruptcy. The company contributed a lot to gaming and will be sorely missed. Electronic Mass Productions has acquired all their IPs and plans to take Maria Wars in a completely new direction. Ninvento is out of the game! TES 64 is off the market. Industry standard plummets
Such events could be caused by random events as well as your actions, and you can be on the receiving end of these events as well. Did your top game series suddenly become a bad combination by accident… or was CapeCom’s release of that 1.25 game a little too convenient?
3 Likes
Pretty good, but should be more like historical events, such as this:
Micronoft creates “Halls of Duty,” a Military-Action Game. It hits a big success, and players want more of it in the future. Military and action are now a good combo!
A possible alternative is to have an option where every topic in the game has their preferred genres randomized (while enforcing a minimum of one good genre and one bad genre)
The gaming public is fickle, and developers have no idea (in the beginning) what people find fun. Like in real life, developers had to just experiment to see what the market liked. This wasn’t too bad when game costs were very low. Over time, after seeing which games were good combos and which ones weren’t a developer would have a nice library of ‘good combos’ they could keep around and use for future games…when game development is more expensive and having a bad combo flop is more painful.
It would breathe new life into small games, even after your grow your team to be able to make medium+, as a small game with an unknown combo would be a good way to test the market, earning a little reward if you guessed right, but not losing too much money if the combo was a bad one.
That said, I DO like the idea of dynamic genres. One of the most satisfying things for me is to make a GOOD strange combo game.
3 Likes
If the good/bad combos are randomized at all, then market research features would be sorely needed in the game, along with in-game recordkeeping for each playthrough. I would further suggest that the game should give you 1-2 random insights into each genre you research. That’s in addition to whatever you get from funding full market research.
Some genre-combos should be set for every playthrough, as well. It’s hard to imagine Sports-Action, Military-Action, or SciFi-Action ever being bad combinations. These should always be revealed to the player, and dynamism should never make them drift lower than “strange”. It’s a common gamer complaint that risk-averse game studios do nothing but pump out one mindless action game after another. This complaint arises precisely because seeing which games will and won’t play nicely with the Action genre is easier than seeing what topics will and won’t play nicely with other genres.
Finally, I would say that total dynamism would be a bad idea, but partial topic dynamism might be nice. One of my favorite games is Radiant Historia, a Time Travel RPG, and something that would be a Strange Combo in the game. Another of my favorites is EVO, an Evolution RPG, and again a Strange Combo. There are a few topics dear to my heart. Acting out fantasies of being able to warp public sentiment is one of the reasons to play a game like this! It would be a nice piece of wish fulfillment.
True topic randomization would need a few balance changes to make it viable.
A “old combo” game would generate the same RP as new combo games, since re-using known combos would be more critical.
All the non-good combos would be normalized to a standard .8 penalty, eliminating the really nasty .6 and .7 ‘bad combo’ penalties that exist for some combos presently.
I do agree with your wanting to be able to forge combos into good combos. My first bankruptcy gameover was from a Time Travel RPG game (Chrono Trigger) tanking due to me thinking Time Travel and RPG was a good combo. EVO was an awesome game too, I have fond memories of that.