There have been a few good games in game developer genre, most notably Game Dev Story by Kairosoft, and Game Dev Tycoon by Greenhart Games, but a new champion has arrived Mad Games Tycoon from indie developer Eggcode Games. Mad Games Tycoon was suppose to be released way back on June 5, 2015 but it is still in early game access on Steam. Even with the game being in early access it is one of the best and content packed games I ever played in this genre!
The game starts with you owning a gaming company and being the only employee and not having much money. Sounds very familiar, but you will soon be amazed by all the time you spend playing this game and all the different gaming departments that you can build. You can even design your own video game console.
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From humble beginnings in the garage[/caption]
While Mad Games Tycoon has similarities to the previous games i mention, the approach overall is very more complex and in depth. After building your first rooms, with a Theme-Hospital style, you have to pick out the furniture for each office. Most dedicated offices have their own dedicated furniture. For example you can't put a regular desk in the graphic studio because that wouldn't make any sense or get much work done. Also the higher rated employees won't show up until you start getting nicer furniture and nicer facilities. This brings up your first struggle due to the fact that you need nicer furniture for better employees but you still need to the balance the salary of your current employees without going into the red. If you have trouble with your finances in the beginning you can borrow money from the bank but it does come with an interest rate and you would want to pay it back as soon as possible.
Producing games is relatively easy in the beginning. You define the name, genre, and focus of your game. You can also decide to buy an existing game engine or have your development team create your own. If you decide to make your own engine, you can sell it to other competing developers but you also have to keep updating it as your research team continues to discover new technology to use in your games. A good way to get a feel of the current gaming market is to hire a quality assurance department, If your game is close to the current trend then it will sell better.
When your studio starts getting bigger you'll need to start investing in different departments to keep up with the current video game technology. You will need to invest in a graphics studio, music studio, and motion capture. As you begin to invest in new departments, you will also have to buy a bigger office! This is where things can get tricky and fast. When you move to a new office you will have to rebuild all your offices from scratch and reassign all your employees to their corresponding offices.
As you continue to make games and research new items, you will unlock the ability to make an MMO instead of just a regular solo/multiplayer game. Making an MMO uses the same process as all the other games you made, it just has one major difference. You will now have to build a server room for all your monthly subscribers. You will also get the option of setting your monthly subscription fee. Keep your monthly subscriptions up can be a bit challenging. You can issue game updates periodically to keep people interested and you can also develop a full fledged MMO Add-on.
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keeping monthly subscriptions up is not an easy task[/caption]
Another interesting dynamic that Mad Games Tycoon has is the option of becoming not only a game developer but also a production company. You can build a dedicated office that houses your game press machines. You now have the ability of publishing other gaming companies games and making a very good profit while skipping the whole development aspect of the process. You can also publish your own games so you don't have to pay a publishing company and keep all the profits to yourself.
The latest addition to the game was the ability to make your own gaming console. You can research different cases, processors, controllers and ram to make your console the best one out. You can set up the price of your console and you can also decide if you want 3rd party companies to develop games for your new console. Allowing 3rd party companies to develop for your new console also allows you the opportunity to set the price of your Dev Kit.
The gameplay is fun and all the features come together very nicely in this game. The only major complaint I have at this moment is that since the game is in early access it gets updated about once a week. You would think that this is a great thing that the developers are constantly working on this game. The issue is that after any major updates, your save files can no longer be loaded and you have to start from the beginning again.
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That rating sounds about right![/caption]
While that is without a doubt a major complaint, the game seems very close to being finished and that shouldn't be an issue in the near future. Mad Games Tycoon is the best Game Dev sim. It is more complex then any other game out there and definitely more satisfying! I strongly recommend it.
