With fluent accessibility, easy control and enticing gameplay, Game Dev Story is one of the best iPhone games yet.
Game Dev Story is a port of the Japanese 1996 PC game from Kairosoft, and features a very simple gameplay concept: You are a president of a video game developer. Make games, rake the cash in and continue on with your newfound fortune. It's the ideal basis for a simulation and, being based in the video game industry, makes it all the more affective for gamers. The game has a painfully easy control scheme - Tap to bring up a menu, and select whether to develop a game, manage staff, advertise your products or modify game settings. It contains a simplistic, accessible interface, where the bottom of the screen displays four factors of the game - Fun, Creativity, Graphics and Sound. Bugs can be present in the game, but after the two commencing builds of the game - Alpha and Beta - the Debugging process begins, where your employees rid the game of bugs, followed by charming lines like "well done", "good job" and "look....nice!". It's a brilliant atmosphere, and gives the impression of actually being present.
Your finances are very simply displayed in the top right corner of the screen, and the right choices can make the difference. Choose a poor console or the incorrect game combinations and your money will flutter, causing low sales or, depending on finance severity, cancellation of your project. It's great to know that caution must be taken, and it makes you deliver tense decisions because of that. Reviews will also be displayed upon game release, though scores are rarely above 5/10. Most comment "try harder" or "poor", albeit sales could be in the range of 50,000 and 200,000 despite these. Watching the sales count increase is hugely satisying, and watching game awards nights with your projects nominated and potentially winning is all the more exciting.
Every once in a while, an employee will walk up to you and request a boost on one of the four factors - Usually costing 50k - and the success rate will be high or low depending on the Research Data. This is a number that allows you to level up your employees, which will either open up new game genres and types, increase their parameters or both. If your Research Data is low, the boost may fail. Higher may succeed. A tip for gamers is that even though I had 50 Research Data (60% success chance) it still failed. Bugs will occur upon failure, meaning debugging will take longer, and your 50k screwed over. Choose carefully.
The visuals compliment the tone of the game perfectly. They are perfectly suitable 8-bit retro graphics akin to SNES games of the early 90s, with simplistic icons to represent the parameters, genres and game elements. The sound effects are also superb, with very catchy menu music, great in-game "overload" effects and background touches for award shows and video game console announcements.
Console negotiations can be arranged, wherein you are given the SDK for the chosen console, dependent entirely on the "capital" at your disposal. Have 1,000K? Easy. But 500K may not work for a 450K machine, as it is best to have a healthy margin between the console kit cost and the finance.
You will also select from a list of different members of staff, and their respective roles for your developer. There are graphics/visual artists that could cost more than another, but funding the more expensive option works best as the quality will increase drastically. The same can also be said for sound engineers and creative-minded individuals.
You also have a demographic to consider for each project. These are age ranges that you must satisfy with each game, which is dependent on the genre and console. For example, the teenage gaming populace would purchase a sci-fi shooter rather than over 50s. Or over 50s may prefer board game-inspired genres more than teenagers; therefore one cancelling out the other. As each project passes by, your demographics shifts constantly. If you are succeeding in the regard of targeting young adults, that number will increase steadily. However, your older brackets will decrease and you are left with a balancing act. It's this pressure; this job; that adds to the great feeling of Game Dev Story. As a gamer who buys games, it's a nice little nod to me and millions of others.
Unfortunately, Game Dev Story doesn't last that long. After only a few hours, I was already on Year 6, and it does become tiring after the sixteenth or so project. Sometimes, paying 100K for a sound engineer, and have them increase sound by only 10 is frustrating, though that is more on choice rather than a gameplay factor.
Overall, Game Dev Story is a superb simulation experience full of charm, wit and personality. The interface is again fantastic and the accessibility hugely straightforward, and the in-game nods to classic developers and game designers is momentously welcome. It doesn't last long, and it could have had console hardware support, but it is a fantastic experience that makes you hungry for a sequel. Download this, you will not regret it.
SUMMARY
Presentation 10 - Wonderfully simple and accessible. The layout is terrific.
Graphics 8.5 - Appealing 8-bit levels and sprites.
Audio 7.0 - Not much here, but the music is charming.
Gameplay 10 - Insanely addictive, making your own games is awesome, and the in-game references, development tropes and game design are phenomenal.
Replayability 8.0 - It doesn't last that long, but Game Dev Story is worth playing again and again.
Overall - 9.5/10