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[Archibald]

Turn based simulator of a game development company.

Gameplay:
* you hire staff (designers, coders, artists, musicians) and assign them to teams
* you start a new game development (you select a theme, genre, etc) and assign which team will work on it
* wait till the team members make the game
* you release the game (not necessarily immedietely when it is done, might be smart to wait for December consumers spending mayhem, or wait out if a competition releases something big right now) and earn money (hopefuly above the expenses)
* repeat

In the meantime you do additional things like enlarging office so more people can be hired, invest in equipment and software so the games are finished quicker, fire useless staff, do some advertising, hire support staff like accountants, lawyers, producers and probably other things.

The timescale is 1 turn = 1 month.






Download
http://silverlemur.com/work/GDT/GDT_TechDemo.zip (Tech Demo, not playable yet)

[epcc]

You should be able to release unfinished games that get awful reviews, but might be worth it, if the timing is good.
Also, doing a great game and then rushing out a shitty sequel should be a viable strategy.

[zoq]

This game should have different genres which are different in terms of time required and potential rewards. Like, a battlefield 3 clone would be more work than a pong clone. Then, the ultimate genre to attempt with a dream team and good finances should be game dev management game

Edit:
A few years ago I was thinking something like that (but it was more a general high-tech corporation sim, with a heavy emphasis on balancing R&D and production). This is similar enough that I can proclaim this a great idea!

[IndieGamesDig]

Good ol' Joe Smith, looking forward to the tech demo

[Archibald]

I need feedback and ideas on the two most important mechanics:


Making games
You decide what kind of game you are making (theme, genre) and what is your budget/game peroduction length (the game can be small or big). Then your developers make the game. In the end it all boils down to 3 things: game type, game quality and how long it took to make it.

The game is made of 4 features (design, code, graphics, sound), each turn developers add their skills to each feature based on their profession. A game might need different proportion of these (based on what?) When all 4 features are 100% complete the game is ready to release.

The problem with this is the developers waste (you won't have a perfect proportion of required skills in a team) which could lead to boring micromanagement (the player switching developers between teams each turn). Also, it's a bit too simplistic maybe, like no testing or bugs taken into account... I thought that maybe a game also has a 5th parameter - testing. When a developer finish 100% of their profession's feature, they switch to testing (like musicians could finish early with sound and then do the testing in the meantime when waiting for coders to finish their stuff).


Selling games
The game is finished, you have a certain game type (2 parameters: genre & theme) and quality (all what developers did in the making game part summed up in one variable).

When to release a game. You should have 3 options:
a) release before it's ready (like 80% done but you release it because you want to do it before Christmast and have no cash), a penalty apply here
b) release when ready (100% done, no major bugs)
c) release when polished (all features done, and tested, all bugs fixed), fully polishing a game should be cost prohibitive

Popularity. Each genre and them has popularity score (which changes over time). Genres popularity is more static, themes popularity changes more frequently and for shorter periods of time. You want to make a game in the most popular combination of course.

Competition. Depending on choosen genre you have a competition score (usually the most popular genres have also highest competition). It's simulated randomly by news like "A superior game in genre X released, competition +2 in X genre for next 6 months". You want to make games in lowest competition category of course.
Themes have no competition (only popularity).

So, you have your game quality affected by the competition and popularity which determine the overall selling power of your game.

After release the sales fall down over time (also first 2 months yeld like 50% of total sales). Also, the sales depends on the month (December is the best, November is above average, January the worst), which makes it highly desirable to release in December (the boost because the game is new muliplied by the boost from the December sales).

[zoq]

I need feedback and ideas on the two most important mechanics:

The game is made of 4 features (design, code, graphics, sound), each turn developers add their skills to each feature based on their profession. A game might need different proportion of these (based on what?) When all 4 features are 100% complete the game is ready to release.

Isn't this good usage for genre? A puzzle game needs good design and good music, not so much graphics and the code is easy too. A MMO needs very good code, graphics need to be okay, the design you can copy from WOW, and nobody listens to the music because they want to listen to spotify. An AAA FPS game needs top notch graphics and good audio, but nobody cares about design and the code is quite straightforward too. Etc.

[TrampolineTales]

Looks like fun. Were you at all inspired by Game Dev Story? I think that having tough decisions like the ones you've listed can really help distinguish your game from other sims.

For reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Dev_Story

[Archibald]

Tech demo available, download link in the first post (at the bottom).

Looks like fun. Were you at all inspired by Game Dev Story? I think that having tough decisions like the ones you've listed can really help distinguish your game from other sims.

Not really. I haven't played it but I'm familiar with it. My goal is something in scope between GameDevStory and GameBiz, which means you don't have these separate people you all know by name but you also don't have 20 teams with 30 people each. So it will be a simulator of a medium size company (max 5 teams, but I want to optimize it for 3 teams). I guess the player should be making 2 games at once on average...

[RabidFrog]

This looks excellent, i very much wanted to make a game on this very subject for a long while, but as always, crippling procrastination hinders my every move

I'll keep an eye on this with anticipation!  Good luck!

[Archibald]

Isn't this good usage for genre? A puzzle game needs good design and good music, not so much graphics and the code is easy too. A MMO needs very good code, graphics need to be okay, the design you can copy from WOW, and nobody listens to the music because they want to listen to spotify. An AAA FPS game needs top notch graphics and good audio, but nobody cares about design and the code is quite straightforward too. Etc.

I don't know... This sound rather arbitrary and players will question my choice which genre needs what. Maybe something along the lines: better graphics for casuals better design for hardcore audience?

This also reminds me that I have not touched things like fans, company reputation, image. Any ideas maybe?

BTW, probably I will ditch music and make it always outsourced (royalty). Just 3 features (Design, Code, Graphics) are more flexible.

i very much wanted to make a game on this very subject for a long while, but as always

Oh, how I understand you very well The endless times I came across some game and then these voices in my head "you can do a better one, do it, do it now!" But the cruel reality of 24 hours a day max makes it impossible to do all, so you have to abandon most of the projects you would like to do