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Game Dev Story |OT| of energy drinks and booth babes. Now for Android! (iOS/And)
- Thread starter Eggo
- Start date
I found that for each type of person you hire (sound person, director), the first time you train them you get a new theme opened up. Once I was a rich bitch, I hired anyone I hadn't had yet, trained them as much as I could then fobbed them off. One of my biggest selling games was a mini-skirt online RPG :lolEther_Snake said:
Just played this for a solid four hours without a break. I don't even have a console game that I would play for four hours straight...
I also have become that which I hate the most. Finally had a game break a million (it hit over 2 million actually). Four sequels later, the folks finally stopped buying it. Didn't change a single thing throughout any of the iterations. As long as folks were buying, I was chucking that same old crap out the door. Sequel after sequel after sequel. "Bloody Blood" was a cash cow and I became drunk off of her teat...
I hang my head in shame...
I also have become that which I hate the most. Finally had a game break a million (it hit over 2 million actually). Four sequels later, the folks finally stopped buying it. Didn't change a single thing throughout any of the iterations. As long as folks were buying, I was chucking that same old crap out the door. Sequel after sequel after sequel. "Bloody Blood" was a cash cow and I became drunk off of her teat...
I hang my head in shame...
If you can read or are studying japanese you could get the free pc version from the creator's website.Ranger X said:
I haven't played the Iphone version, however I've played a bit of the pc one. Some questions:
- Does the Iphone version require you to manage stress levels of your coworkers by manually telling them to go to the break room?
- It seems from the Iphone screenshots you get reports on how much your game has sold the first week etc? Do you have any control on the shipments of your game? In the pc version you have to determine when and how much at what price you sell your game for.
- I also see people talking about levels in jobs are there "Fun, music, graphics and originality?" In the pc version it seems the characters have a general level and just have competence stats in each skill. They don't seem to have a specific job (yet?). There does seem to be a training button to train someone in a technology, but I couldn't select any training there yet.
- Can you determine the target audience for your games?
I've only played the tutorial mode and normal mode till I shipped my first shitty game. I got a score of 2,2,2,3 in the tutorial mode. :lol Apparently even the manual was crap. Did only slightly better in the normal game with a 3,3,5,3 or something. I guess because I had more skilled people.
Finally got around to playing this game yesterday. So good. I didn't stop playing until year 9! :lol I could see it getting too easy later in the game, but it's been fun so far, very addictive.
Don't have to manage stress levels. Workers have energy bars that deplete when you use training to raise their stats (Programming, Scenario, Graphics, Sound).
I haven't finished the game, so there might be some features I haven't gotten to yet, but from what I know:Nocebo said:
Don't have to manage stress levels. Workers have energy bars that deplete when you use training to raise their stats (Programming, Scenario, Graphics, Sound).
Pretty sure you're forced to ship a game once all the bugs are fixed, but you can choose to ship earlier with bugs. Pricing is automatic.
There's a bunch of different jobs that you can level up like Coder, Sound Engineer, Writer etc. The jobs at the beginning have an emphasis in one of the 4 stats (Writer has higher Scenario stat, Sound Engineer has higher Sound). You unlock more jobs by raising the worker's job level and switching them to another job.
Don't think so. However, when you pick a genre and type combination for your games, there is a letter grade listed for that genre/type's popularity. Popular genres cost more to produce, but I imagine they might sell more due to a larger audience.
POWERSPHERE
Member
Graphics look awesome!
Ok, just bought it. I love Lemonade Stand style games!
Ok, just bought it. I love Lemonade Stand style games!
Thanks for answering my questions. I see there are some differences between the two versions. I wouldn't say the pc one is a sequel, though. The iphone version looks to be just a more streamlined version.
Here's the differences I can discern in a little more detail for anyone interested:
I haven't been able to train them in tech yet. So I don't know what the options there are.
For everyone
Elementary school
Middle school
Teen?
Adults? (forgot what these two were called exactly)
Grandpas
Grandmas :lol
After the alpha version is done you pick the subject / content.. like space, drill?, music, monsters etc.
After the beta you pick genre like: puzzle, board game, entertainment etc. Some of the categories seemed a bit weird.
I haven't seen any ratings on the combinations you can make. I have no idea if and how the popularity is determined other than advertisement and the quality of the game itself.
I haven't had time to explore more than that. But I'm having fun so far.
Edit:
Forgot to mention you can also determine the size of the medium your game ships on.
Here's the differences I can discern in a little more detail for anyone interested:
The workers gain stress while they work. You can manually move them to the breakroom or automatically when they reach a certain stress level (I found out recently).Hige said:
You're not forced to ship and can determine the price per copy and volume of each shipment. For some reason I couldn't ship more than 50000 per week. I haven't figured out why yet. Maybe because my company is still very small? You see the items in stock transfer to items sold in real time in a graph and table. As time goes on the sales slow of course.
I don't think there are specific jobs in the pc version but people do excel in different stats when hired. They gain experience during development and after they reach enough points you can press the level up button to have them gain stats randomly.
I haven't been able to train them in tech yet. So I don't know what the options there are.
When developing a game you first have to choose a console and target audience. The target audience consists of (in order of highest to lowest development cost):
For everyone
Elementary school
Middle school
Teen?
Adults? (forgot what these two were called exactly)
Grandpas
Grandmas :lol
After the alpha version is done you pick the subject / content.. like space, drill?, music, monsters etc.
After the beta you pick genre like: puzzle, board game, entertainment etc. Some of the categories seemed a bit weird.
I haven't seen any ratings on the combinations you can make. I have no idea if and how the popularity is determined other than advertisement and the quality of the game itself.
I haven't had time to explore more than that. But I'm having fun so far.
Edit:
Forgot to mention you can also determine the size of the medium your game ships on.
Ah so the iphone version doesn't have a break room? In the pc version they have a couple of couches arranged around a table and a vending machine nearby where they sit around and smoke / drink and chat when they're stressed out. I saw a screenshot where they had bought an extra room with a billiards table.Shaneus said:
Iced_Eagle
Member
The only reason I decided to post was because my phone ran out of battery because I've been playing this game for hours. So. Good.
(please have a WP7 version with achievements
)
(please have a WP7 version with achievements
)Just played this game for 7-8 hours straight and quit at the start of year 20. I already started to get bored at year 14.
Finished with 1.2 billion cash, I had 9,800+ fans until the old people retired and I lost about 1,200. Top sales at 46 million, popularity at 98, 55 games (34 hof) and sold 791 million games. My console has 18% market share with 17 million user base.
Top five games
1 - 46 million
2 - 45.3
3 - 44
4 - 42
5 - 41
Finished with 1.2 billion cash, I had 9,800+ fans until the old people retired and I lost about 1,200. Top sales at 46 million, popularity at 98, 55 games (34 hof) and sold 791 million games. My console has 18% market share with 17 million user base.
Top five games
1 - 46 million
2 - 45.3
3 - 44
4 - 42
5 - 41
GamePnoy74
Member
My Game Dev Story franchises:
- Love Hurts (sim-dating) - 10+ games :lol
- 1st Fantasy (RPG-dungeon) - 7+ games :lol
- Final Dream (sim RPG-dungeon) - 2 games :lol
- Puzzle Dream (puzzle-cartoon) - 5 games
- Mic Hero (music-pop star)
- Samurai Tales (action-samurai) - two awesome games on the SNES...series flopped when it was migrated to the PSOne :lol
This game is pure digital crack...thanks for the rec GAF...dang it :lol
EDIT: hardware failures and blackouts suck...especially when it happens when you've practically bet the farm developing your first game on a super-expensive system license :lol
- Love Hurts (sim-dating) - 10+ games :lol
- 1st Fantasy (RPG-dungeon) - 7+ games :lol
- Final Dream (sim RPG-dungeon) - 2 games :lol
- Puzzle Dream (puzzle-cartoon) - 5 games
- Mic Hero (music-pop star)
- Samurai Tales (action-samurai) - two awesome games on the SNES...series flopped when it was migrated to the PSOne :lol
This game is pure digital crack...thanks for the rec GAF...dang it :lol
EDIT: hardware failures and blackouts suck...especially when it happens when you've practically bet the farm developing your first game on a super-expensive system license :lol
Ace Harding
Member
WTF is a "Poncho" type game?
Also, my new robot RPG franchise, Epic Mechy, is going to be HUGE
Also, my new robot RPG franchise, Epic Mechy, is going to be HUGE
Fong Ghoul said:
I assumed Western, but none of that stuff matters anyway. I played this game on my flight to LA and it's charming at first, but really shallowed and sad after the first 5 years or so. And the stuff missing is pretty basic - price? shipment size? Advertising demographics that are illogical, returns on shipments, personality of the developers (and i mean it needs a much larger developer base), if you have good developers, asking for them for other employees should be more powerful than a worldwide search. Gamedex should increase popularity and fan base, also once you have fans you can not hire anyone and get the same visits to your booth.
I do hope they put out a full featured game as those first couple of years are really charming and good, but I hope they put some meat.
My outside hope is that they team up with the maker of the wonderful Hollywood Mogul and put out something that combines their charm and UI with his ability to capture the develop and channel process of an industry.
Who owns the Capitalism licenses anymore? Cap II and Hollywood Mogul are top 20 games of all times for me, and sure that's a lofty platform to compare this game to, but they aren't getting basic A-Train stuff right yet.
Bought an iPod touch last week and saw this thread on GAF a while ago, so bought the game on a whim. I need to echo everyone who says this game is like crack. I seem to be playing 3 hour stretches every evening while the girlfriend is watching TV. Once I get a hardware engineer then I'll be happy..
Ether_Snake
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Shaneus said:
I got the mini-skirt genre too. But I don't think it works like that, it seems to simply be that everyone of a category must train in everything. It also matches, for example "long trip" will result in F1-racing, while anime will result in robot genre, etc. I think anyway.
Otherwise there would be WAY too many possibilities I think.
BTW why can't I find a hardware engineer?
And what is the oil tycoon for??
Not too sure... all I can remember doing is hiring some P.O.S. sound guy and every single thing I trained him in opened up a new theme. I now have about 5-6 pages of different themes I can choose from.Ether_Snake said:
As for the h/w engineer, you need to level up a single person to 5. Do this by levelling up then using the change career item from that travelling salesman. Do that through each occupation until you find one get to the hardware engineer.
Seems like you unlock more game types by training people with certain jobs certain ways. I trained every type of dude (coder, writer, etc.) every method and now I have tons of options.
Fantasy Online RPG has been the most consistent combo for me, but I just had a lot of luck combining "jr high" with "online sim". Named the game "NeoGaf".
Fantasy Online RPG has been the most consistent combo for me, but I just had a lot of luck combining "jr high" with "online sim". Named the game "NeoGaf".
donkey show
Member
My god, why is Walt Sidney so beast? He dropped 94 on fun when writing a game proposal. :lol
Gamecocks625
Member
You guys are making me scared of getting this :lol How will my iPod battery survive this
Ether_Snake
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Shaneus said:
They are all at level 5 and it won't work:|
And I have 12 pages, maybe 13, of genres!
I bought this at 10 AM this morning, have since drained my battery completely playing it. I'm at year 18 or so, and am pretty much rolling in cash at the moment.
...the sad thing is that my success started when I began modeling my company after Zynga and those other ultra-casual companies. Accurate game!
I don't think 14 characters for names is enough though, sadly. My dream company name, "Additional Pylons," wouldn't fit
...the sad thing is that my success started when I began modeling my company after Zynga and those other ultra-casual companies. Accurate game!
I don't think 14 characters for names is enough though, sadly. My dream company name, "Additional Pylons," wouldn't fit
So if you go to change the career of that one particular person by using that card, you can't see Hardware? You can scroll down in that list, you knowEther_Snake said:
After Hardware there's also Hacker, but if they change over to that, they'll no longer be able to make hardware.Ether_Snake
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Shaneus said:So if you go to change the career of that one particular person by using that card, you can't see Hardware? You can scroll down in that list, you know
Yep, it never is there. There are only coder, writer, designer, producer, sound engineer, and director.
Doesn't beat my Steven Jobson. I trained and leveled the hell out of him, made him Hardware Engineer and some of his stats were crazy. I had him make a game proposal and got 100+ on Fun and around 80 on creativity. The game development went pretty smooth and the final stats were all over 200 except for Visuals, but right before the debugging was done, I had an issue that rolled all the stats back to around 180 or so, so the game (iGame III) ended up getting 38 points and selling 39m copiesdonkey show said:
donkey show
Member
Nice! My Jobson is pretty beast as well, but still not a h/w engineer. Can't get it him to career change into it even though he's level 5. =(Mik2121 said:Doesn't beat my Steven Jobson. I trained and leveled the hell out of him, made him Hardware Engineer and some of his stats were crazy. I had him make a game proposal and got 100+ on Fun and around 80 on creativity. The game development went pretty smooth and the final stats were all over 200 except for Visuals, but right before the debugging was done, I had an issue that rolled all the stats back to around 180 or so, so the game (iGame III) ended up getting 38 points and selling 39m copies
And yes, blackouts are super shitty. I had stats on a level that were all over 200 with Fun being 310 and they all got dropped under 200 as I was about to debug. Fucking lame. :lol
Luketopia's Top 10 units shipped at the end of my 20 years
1. Forever Online 45.1M
2. Diabro V 42.2M
3. Wave N Touch3 38.9M
4. Time Walkers 31.6M
5. Wizard Deck 3 29.9M
6. Time Walkers 2 27.3M
7. Wizard Deck 2 27.1M
8. Wizard Deck 24.1M
9. Farm Cards 22.3M
10. VirtuaLove2 21.3M
Ended up taking some pretty long breaks between IPs.
21 games sold at least 10M copies
10 of them sold more than 20M
1. Forever Online 45.1M
2. Diabro V 42.2M
3. Wave N Touch3 38.9M
4. Time Walkers 31.6M
5. Wizard Deck 3 29.9M
6. Time Walkers 2 27.3M
7. Wizard Deck 2 27.1M
8. Wizard Deck 24.1M
9. Farm Cards 22.3M
10. VirtuaLove2 21.3M
Ended up taking some pretty long breaks between IPs.
21 games sold at least 10M copies
10 of them sold more than 20M
Patriotsbball5460
Member
donkey show said:
I have him as well! My main "go to" person is Francoise Bloom:
471 in Programming
428 in Scenario
304 in Graphics
245 in Sound
I have her at level 5 and haven't trained her at all
Dynamite Ringo Matsuri
Member
Just nabbed this earlier. Is my life officially over GAF? :lol
donkey show
Member
Dynamite Ringo Matsuri said:
Dynamite Ringo Matsuri
Member
Good lord all of those ringing endorsement were NOT kidding. It's god damned 2 AM and I have work in a matter of hours... And yet I want to work on game #5 :l
worldstiniestpenis
Member
why would an online pirate sim be 'bad enough that it might affect sales'?!?!
THIS GAME IS AWFUL, I'M GOING TO PLAY AN ONLINE PIRATE SIM
THIS GAME IS AWFUL, I'M GOING TO PLAY AN ONLINE PIRATE SIM