If you ever wanted to feel part of the decision making in the gaming industry, well... now is your chance.
Game Dev Tycoon is a game that takes you 30 years in the past, a time were the Commodore 64 and PC where the king of the industry, up to modern times where the successor to the xbox 360 and the Playstation 4 are in the market.
The game starts by creating the name of your company and character, as well as choosing your appearance from some pre set avatars, to accommodate gender and race of preference. At first you will start developing small basic games in your garage with the limited skills and resources to your disposal, this meaning that your first game will be either basic 2D or text based. Later on in the game, as you progress in terms of money, reputation/fans and staff, you will be able to move to bigger offices, this unlocking new mechanics, like size of games, new training and specializations and even consoles; for example, if you move from your garage, on to an office, you will be able to hire more staff and develop larger games.
Both your character and staff have stats in which they are most proficient, this being design, technology, research and speed, this skills can be improved trough the development of games or by training and will influence on the type of role that they can focus best. The way in which you create games is a simple and user friendly way, but it has its own trick, and it´s divided into four stages.
At first you must select between a range of themes that are given by the game (from which the majority need to be unlocked trough research), then you must chose what type of game will it be/genre (action adventure, RTS, casual, etc), then you need to chose a game and platform for your game, from which you will have to purchase licenses to develop in (except for PC).
Later on, during the development process, you must decide which aspects of the game are more important/relevant to the game, this being sound, graphics, level design, gameplay, etc. and finally releasing your game with as few bugs as possible.
The most notorious thing about Game Dev Tycoon is its relevance with the actual history of the gaming industry, which must probably will give old school players an edge in the game. But it doesn't end with just developing games, you have fixed monthly costs as well as the costs of the development, which can destroy your company if you are not quick with the decision making, due to it´s high time speed, which makes a week last about 3 seconds.
One important aspect of the game is the research and investment on new technologies to develop new engines (from you may need to have some basic knowledge to succeed), this making an observation of how gaming companies need to stay relevant with trends and technology to keep up with the competitors (things we have seen with MANY game companies trough out the years)
Game Dev Tycoon might not be for everyone, but it´s a hell of a lot of fun once you get the hang of it and pass the learning curve. During the first play trough there are high chances that your company won't succeed, but as you gain more knowledge on what to research, which themes mix with which genre, what is the trend for the market, what is the market of each console, which console was the top seller of its time and which was a complete failure and which decisions will make your game sell over 10 million copies; well... this is when you start feeling more competent in the gaming industry and more prepared to tackle new challenges.
Game Dev Tycoon is a game you must judge by yourself since is one of a kind, despite its similarities with the popular mobile game "Game Dev Story".